Spring Man

Spring Man as he appears in ARMS

**Spring Man** is one of the fighters from Nintendo's 2017 game *ARMS*. He is considered the poster boy among the fighters, being the one that most simply emphasizes its main gimmick. While a pretty standard all-around fighter for the most part, Spring Man does possess the ability to reflect ARMS back, bouncing off his springy nature. He is largely your typical energetic and confident fighter, also fitting to his springiness. Come on, his favorite food is pizza of all things! Anyways, it's heavily implied through the limited amount of lore found in *ARMS* that he has relations to both the ARMS Grand Prix champion Max Brass and the ARMS Laboratory head scientist Dr. Coyle. His signature ARMS include the Toaster, the Boomerang, and the Tribolt, with the former being the one used for his Mii Costume in *Ultimate*.

Due to *ARMS* being one of the major launch year pushed by Nintendo for the Switch in 2017, many assumed that a fighter from that game would be making their way into the base game of the next *Super Smash Bros.* installment for the console, with Spring Man being the obvious first pick. That said, there were some who thought another fighter would fit better largely on the grounds of Spring Man being "TOO boring", with Ribbon Girl, Min Min, and Twintelle being popular alternatives. Regardless, when this game was formally confirmed to be happening in 2018, many began to see Spring Man as one of the frontrunners in likelihood. An alleged video leak in May of 2018 seemed to show him together alongside Decidueye from *Pokémon Sun & Moon* on Spring Stadium, Spring Man's home stadium in *ARMS*. That said, some were skeptical of the limited footage, particularly the two not actually fighting and Spring Man's aerials being oddly short range. Indeed, this "leak" was confirmed to be fake by the creator not long after. The new game, titled *Ultimate*, was finally given a full reveal at E3 2018 that year. The game's gimmick ended up being the return of every veteran from previous Smash games, and this combined with the reveal of Ridley as a fighter led to many seeing this game as having a huge emphasis on fanservice. This ended up jading some people's opinions towards the "relevancy" picks, with Spring Man being no stranger to this. Another argument also started coming up on when the roster was decided, with some seeing picks like him and Rex from *Xenoblade Chronicles 2* as too recent. *ARMS* director Kosuke Yabuki even mentioned that the game was a bit recent to be receiving a fighter in Smash so soon. Regardless, many still continued to perceive Spring Man as a likely pick up until the November 2018 Smash Direct, when Ken and Incineroar were confirmed to be the final base game newcomers alongside Spring Man taking on the role of an Assist Trophy. In addition to this, Spring Man would end up receiving his aforementioned Mii Costume as part of the game's launch.

With the direction the DLC took during the first Fighters Pass and *ARMS* getting older, many would doubt *ARMS* getting a second chance at a fighter as a part of it. Spring Man himself was in a very bad position, being both a Mii Costume and an Assist Trophy. That said, to the shock of many, it was confirmed in a shadowdropped Nintendo Direct Mini in March 2020 that Challenger Pack 6 (the first for Fighters Pass Vol. 2) would actually be a fighter from *ARMS*. The entire playable cast from the game were displayed as possibilities, including Spring Man. During the short period of speculation about this fighter's identity, Spring Man had many predicting him (and, to a lesser extent, actively rooting for him) to be this fighter. That said, the guessing game had many skeptical that it would actually be him due to it being too obvious and too boring. As such, Min Min rose to be the frontrunner in many's eyes, with Ribbon Girl, Twintelle, Max Brass, and (oddly) Helix emerging as other very popular picks. In the end, the fighter was indeed confirmed to be Min Min during a Mr. Sakurai Presents presentation on June 22, 2020. Many joked about Spring Man being *Ultimate*'s new Chrom, with an official piece of Smash artwork from the *ARMS* developers even poking fun at this by using the classic "peeking outside from the window" gag with him.

## List of Supporters

* FMT\_Player
* MoneyMan1002