Karai in the Nicktoon TMNT: why not Pimiko?

[Galactus]

Originally Posted by Candy Kappa

It's the 4Kids shows fault. Karai will never recover from the Shredder's daughter role, ever.

I felt this way for a long time and I know from his blog Laird didn't initialy like the idea of Karai being Shredder's daughter but after a while I began to feel differently.

I remember when I first read "City At War" and thinking Karai was one of the best characters ever and loved the potential of having the leader of the Foot being a quasi-friend to the turtles. Then...nothing.

Obviously she was intended to be Lady Shredder in the Image run but we never really saw that play out and while what we see of her in Vol. 4 seems intriguing we don't know were that's heading if indeed it ever heads anywhere.

It's not that the 4Kids version of the character pales in comparison to the Mirage version so much as she pales in comparison to what I imagined the Mirage versions potential to be.

At this point the 4Kids version is the definitive version of the character and there's certainly a lot of mileage to be had with a character that's conflicted by her personal sense of honour vs her sense of duty to the man who raised her. I can definitely see why Nickleodeon seems to be going down a similar route with the character.

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

The target audience is 10 year olds. It is irrelevant what and who in the dwindling pocket TMNT fandom remembers is what...they might as well choose the best fit from the existing source material for the part.

I don't think that is Pimiko.


Pimiko is Shredder's biological daughter but never knew him. She sought revenge against the turtles but seemed to soften her attitude towards the end of the Image series.

As opposed to...

Spoiler:

the Nick version who doesn't seem to be Saki's daughter and doesn't want to blindly do her fathers bidding. Just like the 4Kids version.

Plus y'know her costume might raise a few eyebrows on childrens show.

[Konchadunga]

I cannot agree that 4Kids Karai is a more interesting version. True, she stuck around longer and was more important, but that was because she kept retreading the same obnoxious Talia al Ghoul schtick until a certain YouTuber said she wanted to gouge Karai's eyes out with a spoon. The longer Ch'rel stayed a thing in that show and the more boundless his evil was shown as being, the more Karai's obsession over his spit-in-the-bucket kindness to her went from loyalty to selfishness.

If only they had cut Shredder's role short, and ended on showing him as having a decent side, then Karai could live on as a testament to that, but no; they just had to continue with their cliched bastardardization of the complex morality in the Mirage series, a bastardization that spread to other bits of the show and it never recovered.

In truth, I think Karai is a tricky character to adapt faithfully within the constraints of a children's cartoon, because her original reason to be in the plot, as a non-aggressive leader of the Foot, just isn't practical if they demand that "Turtles Vs Foot" thing to be the main plot of the series. Then again, though, it might be possible here to have the turtles beat Shredder eventually, then Karai takes over the Foot, and together, they take on the Kraang.

[ObiWanFan4life]

Originally Posted by Chris

Pimiko is one of the characters I really like from the Image run. I loved the idea of Shredder's daughter and the continued cycle of violence between the 2 families.

There's still a very slim chance she could make the cut in later seasons once the Turtles have killed Shredder, it's not like she was there from the start in the Mirage universe either.

As for Karai, if she betrays Shredder/makes peace with the Turtles (as has always been her role in one form or another and her good side has already been toyed with in Nick) then Pimiko could come after her too.

Of course I don't expect them to go that route, and if they did then she'd definitely be needing a more child friendly re-design.

You actually liked the image comics?

[Candy Kappa]

Originally Posted by Turtles2k12

You actually liked the image comics?

what's not to like about them?

[ObiWanFan4life]

Originally Posted by Candy Kappa

what's not to like about them?

I personally don't like them becsuse image went overboard with trying to make it edgy and dark.

[ObiWanFan4life]

I'm aware that the previous volumes were dark in tone, but there is a limit.

[Candy Kappa]

it has a thicker 90's flare to it as most Image comics has, but it isn't really any darker or edgier

[sdp]

Because Pimiko isn't canon. and Laird doesn't care for her.

Though yeah this show would've been perfect to bring her in since it's obviously not being true to any one universe and just doing it's own thing.

[shuriken]

Originally Posted by Turtles2k12

I'm aware that the previous volumes were dark in tone, but there is a limit.

It's not that bad really. I rolled my eyes at Splinter Bat Scarface Raph, Cyber Don and Handicap Leo but aside from that they were fine. Hell I liked the characterizations there better than how they are depicted in the earlier Mirage comics (Oh I went there). Each had a distinct personality and the story was face paced and had decent stories and action. I enjoyed it much more than Volume 4 either way.
Pimiko was a neat idea, her nonexistent outfit (damn you over the top 90's grittiness) was a small price to pay for her awesomeness throughout.

[Candy Kappa]

Originally Posted by sdp

Because Pimiko isn't canon. and Laird doesn't care for her.

There is a lot of things Laird don't consider "canon", there is still little stuff in V4 that dismisses V3 completely.

But what does "canon" really mean when creating whole new universe. They certainly don't follow any specific canon.

Introducing Pimiko would be great for this series, which has as of now, two female characters that is staying characters.

Karai being Shredder's daughter and might be actually Miwa, Yoshi and Shen's daughter. That is potentially three characters mushed into one

[ToTheNines]

I've said this many times before. It kinda drives me crazy.

I like the Nick Karai... but she's not even Karai. I don't understand why they'd completely waste the potential of a faithful Karai adaption down the road when they could have made Miwa a completely original character (and she almost is), or just called her Pimiko.

[CyberCubed]

Nobody at Nick knows who Pimiko is, that's why.

[NinjaMan]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Nobody at Nick knows who Pimiko is, that's why.

And you know this because?

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by NinjaMan

And you know this because?

You really think the writers of the show read through the entire Image run? I don't even think they watched all episodes of the 4kids cartoon, let alone an obscure comic run from 1997.

[NinjaMan]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

You really think the writers of the show read through the entire Image run? I don't even think they watched all episodes of the 4kids cartoon, let alone an obscure comic run from 1997.

You love making assumptions don't you.

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by NinjaMan

You love making assumptions don't you.

The people writing the show don't review everything from every past incarnation. From the sounds of things Ciro Neil doesn't know much about the 4kids cartoon, he probably never watched most of it.

[NinjaMan]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

The people writing the show don't review everything from every past incarnation. From the sounds of things Ciro Neil doesn't know much about the 4kids cartoon, he probably never watched most of it.

Unless they come out and outright say that you are making a wild assumption as you usually do.

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by NinjaMan

Unless they come out and outright say that you are making a wild assumption as you usually do.

Yes, because I'm sure the writers have enough spare time after meeting deadlines to get 26 episodes out in a year that they can also watch nearly 400 episodes of both previous cartoons and read the somewhere around 400-500 TMNT comics that have been written between Mirage/Image/Archie combined.

Its obvious they don't know everything, even if they may read up on the series as time progresses.

[Coola Yagami]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Yes, because I'm sure the writers have enough spare time after meeting deadlines to get 26 episodes out in a year that they can also watch nearly 400 episodes of both previous cartoons and read the somewhere around 400-500 TMNT comics that have been written between Mirage/Image/Archie combined.

Its obvious they don't know everything, even if they may read up on the series as time progresses.

I agree.... expecting them to know Piminko is Shredder's daughter is like expecting them to know that the Turtles crossed over with Flaming Carrot.

[NinjaMan]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Yes, because I'm sure the writers have enough spare time after meeting deadlines to get 26 episodes out in a year that they can also watch nearly 400 episodes of both previous cartoons and read the somewhere around 400-500 TMNT comics that have been written between Mirage/Image/Archie combined.

Its obvious they don't know everything, even if they may read up on the series as time progresses.

I don't even know why I bother to respond your bizarre posts. Think it's time to use that ignore feature.