Yoshi's Island

Drama

Thriller

Andrew

**Yoshi's Island** is the first official series created and released by SuperShortsMJ. The series aired from August 15th, 2020 and September 26th, 2020 with each episode being scheduled to release on Friday every week. It tells the story of the brutal massacre that brews on Yoshi's Island as an imperialist army invades the island.

## Promotion

**Yoshi's Island** was officially announced on August 10th, 2020 with the release of a Channel News that revealed it was in the works. The video mentioned that the channel was finally taking a step forward into releasing their first series in over three years, and also dug into the excitement of them incorporating and implementing new channel features that were not present in 2017, which was when the last series was released. Better editing, smoother plot and better quality were all promises that were talked about before the release of the series.

Before the Channel News video, though it was never official, some of the cast members would send extremely vague and intricate messages on their Discord server that would hint toward some of the key themes of the series. The messages sent were varied significantly between one another. Lots of binary messages were sent as well as lots of terms in mixed and diverse languages. Often times cast members would merge languages together to create vague sayings to hint at key themes. Some recalled messages translating to, "group of four" and "council of four" as well as various different hints.

Between the release date and the release of the Channel News video, a video teaser for the series titled "8.15.20" was released. The video featured a black and white clip of a repeating overview of the island we would soon see in the series, however this was not known to the public at the time of its release. It featured the song "I" by Lil Skies which looped over the short clip. The song itself, despite having been played over the video, had no relevance toward the series to come. The video was deleted within a few hours of its release but managed to create flares within the community.

The day before on August 14th, via the SuperShortsMJ Discord Server, the series was announced to go live via premiere at midnight that night. The title was still not revealed to the public until the premiere had ended, but the episode played as normal once the time came. The premiered version of the video was then deleted until the morning of August 15th where it was re-released as a normal video.

## Release

With its release on August 15th, Yoshi's Island was announced to have around 5 parts to it as well as having a part be released every week on Friday. The release was fairly smooth, as most videos were released on schedule with the exception of few that were uploaded only days late. Due to this, the cast compensated for it by releasing some parts earlier than others, which balanced their upload schedule more. Each episode that was uploaded had a runtime range from 13 minutes to 23 minutes, usually hitting around the 15 minute mark.

During the release of the series, many other videos were put on hold. It was a rare occurrence that any video that wasn't related to the series was released between the two months it aired. This caused the end of the summer to be mainly indulged in the release of this series, which was in a sense purposeful. SuperShortsMJ decided that they needed the extra time to spend recording and editing all the videos to conclude the series before any other content was released on the channel.

## Episodes

Yoshi's Island is composed of 7 parts, each part was released in 2020 between months August and September.

1. **Preface:** Black Yoshi and Blue Yoshi are called back to their home island, and are welcomed back by their fellow Yoshi's as they reacquaint and catch up with them **(August 15th, 2020)**.
2. **Imperialists:** Two imperialists named Bird and Fox propose a deal with the council on the island, to which they consider and argue the point of accepting it. Bird and Fox introduce themselves to the island and are given a home **(August 23rd, 2020)**.
3. **Endeavors:** With reports spreading around about the true colors of Bird and Fox, the council sways their opinions about the deal. They end up declining it, to which Bird and Fox do not like **(August 28th, 2020)**.
4. **Omission:** The council worries about Green Yoshi's disappearance, and conduct a search. The information is revealed to the public and causes mass outcry **(September 4th, 2020)**.
5. **Turmoil:** Riots erupt after the disappearance of Green Yoshi and Bird and Fox plan out the next stage of their plan. More hitmen are introduced to help wipe the island completely **(September 12th, 2020)**.
6. **Onslaught:** The massacre begins as Bird kills his associate Fox to gain more and more power. Almost all the Yoshi's are brutally slain in a messy attack **(September 18th, 2020)**.
7. **Anguish:** As they plan their escape, the remaining Yoshi's fight for survival and team up together to avenge their fallen friends and run away toward safety **(September 26th, 2020)**.

## Plot

On the 50th anniversary of their home island, Black Yoshi and Blue Yoshi while watching TV are interrupted by a phone call from their former leader, Green Yoshi. He calls them both with hope that they will return to their home island to celebrate the event with their former friends. With lots of hesitation, Black and Blue Yoshi finally agree to come along with an offer of one million dollars on the table.

They later arrive on the island and are reacquainted with some of their former friends. As they walk around their former home they notice some of the islands recent changes, such as its establishment of a newly founded council consisting of four members: Green Yoshi, Bubbles, Pink Yoshi and Mark. All of them control each aspect of their democracy which all builds into their functioning government.

Soon after their arrival, two bloodthirsty imperialists named Bird and Fox arrive on the island in search of the land it has to offer. After countless research on the island and its democracy, they approach the council tactically with a tempting offer at hand. The council is dumbfounded by the offer and with many different opinions surfacing, they put their offer on hold and give Bird and Fox a temporary home on the island as they discussed the offer.

During the uphold on the offer, Bird and Fox introduce themselves to several of the citizens and start living their lives normally there. Fox, as the ignorant partner, is seen around the island using illegal substances and this causes them to become deemed as suspicious presences in the community. Several of the citizens notice this, including Black and Blue Yoshi, and they report it to the council. After this information was passed to them, the council agrees that the offer is not the correct choice for them to make. When Bird and Fox become aware of this they switch plans, starting with Green Yoshi's murder.

After their leaders disappearance, the council begins to question citizens of the island in hope that they would know of his whereabouts. While searching the island, council members Pink Yoshi and Mark stumble across their leaders dead corpse. Once word hits the island that their leader is dead chaos erupts. The citizens of the island begin destroying buildings and ramming vehicles over one another as Bubbles and Mark try to come up with a plan. They soon realize that Bird and Fox have causes one too many problems and put the pieces together that they are the prime suspects for the murder.

Bird and Fox in the midst of the chaos are using their time to formulate a new plan. After being met with their new hired associate Frog, who owns a small army willing to kill, they command their newly acquitted army to gain the land forcefully. They impede on the island and hold the citizens and council members hostage. Bird grows increasingly bloodthirsty and he eliminates his long time partner Fox out of revenge for the mistakes he made. One of the army members Bob mistakenly lets the hostages escape while Bird and Frog are distracted, and almost immediately they both realize their hostages have escaped.

With no tolerance left, Bird and Frog run across the island armed and dangerous picking off every citizen in their sight. Few of them survive after the massacre and escape toward a boat off the edge of the island. On their way toward their escape Mark is shot and killed by Bird, making the last council member standing Bubbles. As they escape Bubbles takes responsibility for himself to call in help from an outside party and they soon come in to help finalize the fight. With time not in their favor, Bird and Frog catch up to the four remaining citizens: Black Yoshi, Blue Yoshi, Bubbles and Gringo. During a brawl Bird loses grip of his gun, and Blue Yoshi picks it up and kills both imperialists.

With thought that the massacre is over, Delilah reveals herself as an insider for the imperialists and attempts to kill the rest of the remaining lives. Soon enough though, Peach and Toad arrive to their rescue after being called in for assistance. Toad shoots Delilah down after holding the remaining citizens hostage. They are immediately sent to the Mushroom Kingdom for assistance. Black and Blue Yoshi go without hesitation, but Bubbles and Gringo with more connection toward their home say their final goodbyes. After looking over what had come from the disaster, Bubbles and Gringo both agree to go with the others to the Mushroom Kingdom.

## Trivia

* This is the first series uploaded and created on the current SuperShortsMJ channel.
* This series was initially intended to have only 5 episodes.
* All scenes in this series were initially recorded using VideoFX Live.
* All the episodes in this series were edited with the use of iMovie.
* This was the first official SuperShortsMJ series created since 2017.
* This series was part of the "Summertime Smash!" season. It ended up becoming the main attraction of that time period due to the episodes taking up majority of the summer.
* The series makes use of many songs from the "Mario & Luigi Bowsers Inside Story" soundtrack.
* This series storyline connects to a canon universe that is shared between all the series on SuperShortsMJ's channel.
* The concept behind this series was taken from an original SuperShortsMJ series that was created in 2017 also named "Yoshi's Island". This series has concepts such as the council and the imperialists that were incorporated and mastered within this series. It didn't last very long as Mikey and Jake gave up on the concept before the second episode even went live. Most of the key components behind the plot however were changed and made into a unique series.
* This series touches on concepts from mass shootings and terrorist attacks and provides a basis for different events that occur during these situations. It isn't completely confirmed that this series is honoring shooting victims, but it is almost clear that it is.