Popo

> *Were you looking for Popo's younger twin sister, Nana? Otherwise, were you looking for Popo and Nana together?*
> *If you want to know Nana's full relationship with Popo, go here.*
>
>

## Popo

* Normal
* Casual Outfit

### Relationships

* Nana (sister)
* Monika and Yuri (best friends)
* Sayori and Natsuki (close friends)
* Mr. Game & Watch (companion)
* PAC-MAN (companion)
* Rayman (companion)
* Cuphead (companion)
* Olimar (companion)
* R.O.B. (companion)
* Ness (best friend)
* Lucas (best friend)
* Kirby (best friend)

## Appearances

### Appears in

* Ice Climber (NES)
* Super Smash Bros. Melee
* Super Smash Bros. Brawl
* Super Smash Bros. 4
* Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
* WarioWare
* Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land (cameo)
* Kirby Air Ride (cameo)
* Tetris DS (cameo)
* Daigasso! Band Brothers (cameo)
* Super Mario Maker

### Debut

January 30, 1985

**Popo** is the titular main protagonist of Nintendo's arcade video game series of the same name created in Nintendo Entertainment System on 1985, alongside Nana, although she is often specificalized as the deuteragonist of *Ice Climber*.

As Nana's older and responsible brother, Popo is the elder twin boy of the Ice Climbers, dressed in an indigo Inuit parka who is the leader. Fittingly, Popo and Nana, true to their epitome as pioneer mountaineers, seek to scale various mountains, yet must also avoid various obstacles and antagonists per each route to each summit. In order to successfully accomplish each level, they must catch a vegetable-stealing condor. In their glory days, they pursued the aforementioned condor who, peculiarly, had possession of cucumbers, eggplants, and various other vegetables, while fending off Polar Bears, Nitpickers and Topis along their routes.

Popo, alongside Nana, is both voiced by Sanae Kobayashi, who also voiced Kaede from *Elfen Lied*.

## Physical appearance

Popo is the elder leader of the mountaineer duo, being a young, light-skinned, brown-haired and cute boy who typically wears a indigo/blue Inuit parka outfit. He has spiky brunette hair that stops near his eyes. His parka's hood resembles the Freeze Copy Ability's hat Kirby can collect. Most of his clothing is colored indigo/blue, similar to the color of Yuri's hairstyle.

Whenever Popo unequips his hood, Popo's hairstyle is chcolate brown, short, spiky and often filthy.

While out of school, Popo causally wears a furry, soft polar bear-based warmsie with chibi-proportional features of a realistic polar bear, and the length and size of the warmsie fit his entire body. In addition, his hammer also has a blue-colored strap, reflecting the coloration of his blue parka. An amount of certain portions of the warmsie, such as his claws, his lower feet, fingers, palms, inner ears, pockets, and the inside of the warmsie, all have blue colorations.

## Personality

Reflecting his youth, Popo personalizes a kindhearted, cheerful and innocent demeanor to himself, although the latter often attracts naivety. As his duo-dynamic name implies, Popo's favourite hobby is climbing and traveling through mountaintops and summits due to his high jumping prowess, but his own proficiency further extends to possessing powers that gains self-awareness from Popo himself. Not only he is proficient at fighting by using his main weapon for defense, his hammer, but he also has high possession of cryokinesis, yet the latter initially made Popo (and Nana) self-aware of it because it would surprise other people in an unspectacular feeling or potentaily harm them.

As an archetypical tag-team duo, Popo has a heavy reliance on Nana for teamwork to achieve full level of their fighting prowess and combat, which often leads to occasional trouble: antagonists can receive the free opportunity to easily separate them if the Ice Climbers are reckless, and if under the absence of one climber, the remaining climber will be drastically hindered in combat and skills; in turn, Nana and Popo's skills are at their best when combined, so their levels of prowess are half as effective alone. In addition, only Nana has access to the abiility to meteor smash, and their recovery is effective if both Popo and Nana are present, which especially makes it crucial for Popo and Nana to maintain themselves together, and Popo alone will suffer from high fragility under Nana's absence.

As Nana's elder twin brother, Popo is generalized to express a decent level of maturity—but has the tendency to take action before thinking. This further amplifies to his confidence, where he'll often become too adventurous while not thinking twice about imminent danger those adventures will bring, such as planning to annihiliate the *Potrait of Markov* (the book Yuri lists at the top of her favourites) despite Nana's requests for reconsideration fearing Yuri's wrath when she finds out the book is missing from the club. Upon introducing themselves in Doki Doki Literature Club, Popo and Nana express much more maturity than before. While Popo retains some of his childish personality since *Ice Climber*, the duo symbolize more assist for other people and display an increased level of bravery. Like Sayori, the Ice Climbers perform all in their power to alleviate the club members' struggles and retain a relaxing atmosphere within the Literature Club. Possessing a heightened knowledge of friendships and reconciliation, Popo and Nana are both a typically compassionate duo, forgiving the club members for their wrongdoings regardless of intensity, although Popo is more strict in terms of forgiveness compared to Nana, however; taking someone's actions a little too far, Popo requires more room and consideration for his decision to accept someone's apology, which is at odds with Nana, who displays more compassion and requires less room for forgiveness, meaning that Popo has less compassion than Nana, although not to a huge extent. Popo, however, is revealed to have supernatural levels of concern within the club, known for his and Nana's notable ability to foreshadow the following events of DDLC. In turn, during the opening of Sayo-Nana, the duo read a poem, titled "%," by Sayori, and Nana foreshadows that "stagnant means something completely still," while Popo states that he saw dark events of DDLC, even before joining the club itself. Before leaving the club, Monika states her most infamous line that "You two left her hanging this morning, you know?," which not only foreshadows Sayori's fate, but also causes Popo and Nana to foreshadow Sayori's fate themselves in sudden suspicion, then in horror, realizing that Monika is not supposed to have knowledge about Sayori's wellbeing in the first place. Another circumstantial example, potentially the most notable one, is *Portrait of Markov*, which is Yuri's favorite novel. However, such novel foreshadows the imminent dark events following the progression of DDLC, and the book itself transitions from a fictional novel to a disturbing horror plot, both indirectly and surprisingly, although this often leads to the fourth wall being broken.

Despite his cuteness, he can sometimes play as a tsundere-like personality, similar to Natsuki. He hates his hairstyle possessing too much length, so he requires scissors to cut his hair to hide his softer and cute interior. In addition, Popo somewhat has an attitude and a moderate level of rage, which suddenly breaks at split moments, such as outbreaking aggressively and passionately at Yuri for her obsessiveness in Act 2, planning to harm Monika after reviving Sayori, and pummeling Yuri and Natsuki alongside Nana as a result of their catfight from their different writing techniques, referred as "wobbling time." Worst of all, he has a high level of aggression, as shown in P-L-A-Y W-I-T-H M-E, where Popo angrily pursuades Natsuki and attempts to tackle her via his hammer, while Natsuki pursuades Nana after getting her neck snapped.

However, Popo and Nana are sometimes mischievous and cunning daredevils at times, by stealing properties from people off-guard. This is especially demonstrated in Markov, where Popo and Nana manage to break into the high school and achieve the *Portrait of Markov* much to Yuri's displeasure, although Popo's confidence causes him to be eager to perform this willingly. Nana, on the other hand, is held back performing these kinds of actions by her caution of fretting the imminent consequences as a result of their wrongdoings, while Popo's impulsiveness gives him the confidence to pull these actions off, unaware of the following consequences brought upon them from his recklessness. Despite Nana's pleads for reconsideration, Popo tends to shrug it off in recklessness. Yet, Popo realizes the trouble he created after he performs something wrong, similar to Cuphead. While this is considered a wrongdoing and leaves them hassled upon being confronted, as Yuri intimidates Popo and Nana as the cause of the intentional absence of *Portrait of Markov* (in which Popo and Nana have stolen during the nighttime), the Ice Climbers nevertheless typically manage to escape the situation in succession regardless of how much of a hassle the duo were recently in, meaning that all of their plans work effortlessly. In addition, the reason of their stealing was also crucial for the Ice Climbers' regeneration to other people's wellbeing and indirect alleviations to their struggles. According to Ness and Lucas' letter in the second page of Markov, Ness and Lucas foreshadowed Yuri's insanity because of the aforementioned favorite book she reads, and Popo and Nana proceed to steal *Portrait of Markov* and annihilate it, for the crucial sake to regenerate Yuri's sanity and personality back to how she was in Act 1. Further amplifying this, Popo and Nana care super well for the Literature Club and have high loyalty to it as they save the club members from their foreshadowed fate, such as saving Sayori from her suicidal tendencies, solving Natsuki's problems with her home and Popo anticipating that Yuri can still cope after he, Nana and Natsuki witness her decomposing corpse after killing herself over Mr. Game & Watch's answer to her love confession, despite her slow and painful death from her fatal wounds.

*DDLC Plus* drastically expands Popo and Nana's positive traits of their personalities. The duo express a much more accommodating demeanor, making a perfect representation and willing to assist all of the club members in the Literature Club throughout conflict in the side stories, like Mr. Game & Watch, PAC-MAN and Rayman. In Hug Energy, Popo and Nana learn the understanding of true friendships and compliment each other for their incredible effort of allegiance and regeneration to the Literature Club prior to the side story, offering each other hugs of welcoming and reconciliation, while Sayori and Natsuki spectate the scene in awed expressions. As a penultimate cherry on top, Popo, alongside Nana and the Indie Cross, reconciliates with the Literature Club in the epilogue side story "Retro Equals."

## Powers and abilities

* **Climbing**: True to their franchise, Popo and Nana are professionals at climbing a limitless amount of mountaintops regardless of size and height.
* **Hammermanship**: Remaining true to *Ice Climber* NES, Popo and Nana are known for typically wielding giant wooden mallets outdoors, versatile for dealing powerful blows against their opponents, such as Polar Bears, Nitpickers and Topis.
* **Jumping prowess**: Due to their impressive jumping heights, the Ice Climbers excel in jumping prowess, which allows them to escape dangerous situations and recover themselves from disadvantage, and also allows them to reach for opponents airbone underneath them.
* **Cryokinesis**: As the duo's dynamic name implies, the Ice Climbers have an incredible possession of cryokinesis, allowing them to freeze their opponents by releasing a considerable blast of blizzard out of their palms.
* **Teamwork**: As a dynamic duo, Popo and Nana both work cooperatively together to fulfill their power to the fullest. Hand-to-hand, the duo are capable of tacking exceptional amounts of damage against their opponents, and have access to various techniques unique to the rest of the entire cast in the *Super Smash Bros.* series, such as hand-offs, edge throw exploits and other alternative traps.
* **Agility**: Popo and Nana both have decent agility, especially the latter (since she has more mobility than Popo), allowing them to traverse through locations at impressive speeds and outpace other characters.
* **Recovery**: Using Belay and Squall Hammer, both travel considerable distances, and the former is a safe tether recovery for both Ice Climbers, giving them an excellent method to recover both Popo and Nana themselves from disadvantage without leaving one of them separated in danger.
* **Chain grabbing**: Known as one of their three most infamous techniques in the *Super Smash Bros.* series, the Ice Climbers are capable of performing an inevitable and repeated series of grabs and throws against their opponents, which is primarily cited as the reason the duo are considered among the best characters in the *Super Smash Bros.* series.
* **Wobbling**: Known as their most controversial and infamous technique in *Super Smash Bros. Melee*, wobbling consists of Popo and Nana pummeling their grabbed opponent simultaneously while leaving their opponent the lack of means to escape, thus leading to zero-to-deaths.
* **Desynching**: Known as one of their three most infamous techniques in the *Super Smash Bros.* series, desynching is an advanced technique exclusive to the duo that involves separating the Ice Climbers' states and controlling them individually. If both are separated, the partner's AI will switch to prioritize returning to the leader. During this time, the duo are not synchronized, or "desynched," meaning the partner will not follow the player's inputs until within a certain distance of the leader. While the partner's actions are unpredictable and are often unfavorable, they can be manipulated to perform basic actions, like attacking an opponent.
	+ Once both climbers are desynched, they are essentially performing different actions as long as the player continues to press buttons. Desynching can allow the player to perform an attack, move, jump, or wavedash with either climber, whilst inputting a different command to the other, which can allow for damaging true combos, zero-to-death strings, and even infinities.

### Weaknesses

* **Dependence on each other**: As an archetypicalized duo, however, the Ice Climbers have an incredible dependence on each other for their maximum potential. In turn, Popo relies on Nana for teamwork. Likewise, Nana relies on Popo vice versa. As such, Popo and Nana have a high vulnerability to separation upon receiving substantial amounts of damage from opponents. In addition, Popo alone lacks the access to the abilities, such as desynching and chain grabbing, when he and Nana are together.
* **Solo Climber**: Referred as "Sopo," if either Ice Climber dies during the current stock, the remaining Ice Climber's potential will be drastically halved, in terms of offense, defense, recovery, and maximum damage output. In turn, the corresponding Ice Climber will also have much more vulnerability compared to being together with the other Ice Climber.
* **Solo recovery**: In addition to the previous point, without a partner in hand-to-hand, the remaining Ice Climber's recovery is drastically nerfed, as Belay becomes practically useless (in terms of distance) and Squall Hammer only stalls gravity and travels horizontally, leaving them vulnerable to skilled edgeguarding.
* **Endurance**: Due to nourishing a heightened amount of vegetables, the Ice Climbers have relatively light weights (weighing 92 units), combined with their floatiness, meaning that Ice Climbers are easy to send flying when damaged, and can succumb to strong hits at high precentages.
* **Aerial Mobility**: As a reference to *Ice Climber*, the Ice Climbers are burdened with slow aerial mobility and falling speed. This is a translation of their orignial movement and physics in *Ice Climber* NES, which gives them difficulty in approaching airbone opponents and make them vulnerable to juggling from opponents underneath them. This, along with their floatiness, also makes them easily predictable in various situations, such as recovering.

## Trivia

* The circumstantial explaination **MickMick247** was interested the most in crossing over the Ice Climbers with Doki Doki Literature Club is due to the duo's implied supernatural abilities of foreshadowing the following dark elements and horror events lurking through DDLC, for a number of following reasons:
	+ In the first segments of Sayo-Nana, Nana is preparing for tomorrow's club festival. Popo, on the other hand, has discovered a poem written by Sayori, which Nana notices him reading it, titled "%," with a constant repetition of the following words "get out of my head" and the final sentence reading that "a poem is never finished, it just remains stagnant." Along with memorizing that Yuri told the Ice Climbers that "*Stagnating air is common foreshadowing that something terrible is about to happen...*", Nana foreshadows that "stagnant means something completely still," while Popo states that he saw dark events of DDLC, even before joining the club itself.
	+ Another circumstantial point, before Popo and Nana leave the literature club for Sayori, is that the interaction between the Ice Climbers and Monika undergoes a darker turn. The Ice Climbers question Monika about Sayori's whereabouts, and Monika responds that "You two kind of left her hanging this morning, you know?," Monika's most famous quote while foreshadowing Sayori's fate. The Ice Climbers become surprised at first, considering that Monika is not supposed to have the knowledge of Sayori's current wellbeing in the first place, then become horrified upon thinking harder on her quote, the duo foreshadow Sayori actually hung herself to death, in which she did.
		- Furthrmore, on the second day of the game, Yuri describes the book she lends to the protagonist, "The Portrait of Markov," which also happens to foreshadow the dark psychological events that will happen in the game. However, on the second day of Act 2, her description of the book changes drastically, becoming more and more of a horror novel, much like the game itself. A similar circumstantial point occurs in the second page of Markov, where **Popo** and Nana discover the same book, and Nana foreshadows that it is "the book that started it all... the book that changed what this literature club was."
			* Another circumstantial point, on the same page of Markov, upon Popo's interaction and regards with the book that Nana showcased him, Popo's foreshadowing takes a much darker turn: Nana discovers the *Portrait of Markov* in the closet and proceeds to showcase it to Popo in fear, and **Popo** becomes shocked and intimidated at the book's sights by responding "That was the book she was carrying around everytime we see her around school. No wonder she loved reading that book... she even told me to read it with her. I was so smart to refuse!"
				+ The final words that Popo quotes "I was so smart to refuse!" indicate that Popo denying to read the *Potrait of Markov* with Yuri made him so intelligent, potentially because reading the same book would make Popo lose his sanity and turn him more negative to the same degree as Yuri in Act 2.
* In-game of *Ice Climber*, Popo and Nana's hairstyle coloration were restricted to black hair. In their later appearances in *Super Smash Bros. Melee* and *Super Smash Bros. Brawl*, they have brunette hairstyles.
* In various languages, Popo's name is altered to "Pépé." This is because "popo" means "buttocks" in Turkish and "poop" in Spanish.
	+ In German, "Popo" is a basic slang term for "butt" when translated to English.
* Popo and Nana cease to return as playable characters in *Super Smash Bros. 4*, but then made a cameo as being relegated to a collectible trophy. In a column for the Japanese gaming magazine *Famitsu*, Masahiro Sakurai claimed that technical limitations of the Nintendo 3DS prevented their inclusion; the two were reportedly difficult to implement on the system, and since the characters were unlikely to have a new game in their series, Sakurai deemed the Ice Climbers "low-priority" characters. While they were fully functional on the Wii U, Sakurai decided to scrap them in order for the roster to be identical for both installments.
* The *Mega Man* Robot Master, Ice Man, might have taken some of his design from the duo's.
* In addition to being the youngest of the Indie Cross, Popo and Nana are argued to be the youngest characters in the *Super Smash Bros.* series, with an maximum age of only 8 years. However, this age is only confirmed by **MickMick247**. Like the Pokémon Trainer, their canonical age is not specified, as Toon Link is the only child whose age is known (12 years old). It is certain, however, that the duo are children, due to their childish voices and appearance.
* In the early development of *Super Smash Bros. Brawl*, shortly after its official announcement, there was a rumor that Popo and Nana, along with Mr. Game & Watch and Young Link, would be unlikely to return as playable characters. However, this turned out to be a falsification, as the Ice Climbers and Mr. Game & Watch were, in fact, playable characters. Young Link, on the other hand, was the only one out of the three to be excluded, and was seemingly replaced more or less by Toon Link, as the rumor had stated.
* Popo and Nana are collectively one of two characters in *Super Smash Bros.* who have yet to receive a sequel to their main series game, the others being Duck Hunt.
* Although Mr. Game & Watch has made the most appearances throughout **MickMick247**'s crossover with Doki Doki Literature Club, the creator has been the most interested in crossing the Ice Climbers over Doki Doki Literature Club the most out of the creator's other favourite characters, because Popo and Nana were perfect in befriending the club members in respective orders reflecting their own personality and physical appearances.
	+ In turn, Nana is best friends with Sayori and Natsuki, reflecting their younger and childish demeanor.
		- Nana and Sayori both have a rentless level of happiness and optimism, but are both crybabies, due to the former being depicted bawling when losing a match in *Ice Climber* NES and the *Super Smash Bros.* series, and the latter being brought down by her "rainclouds" in DDLC.
		- Nana and Natsuki both have pink colorations to their attire, along with similar skin colors.
	+ Likewise, Popo is best friends with Monika and Yuri, reflecting their maturity and polite demeanor, in addition to being the ones to lead the Literature Club, similar to Mr. Game & Watch. This references Popo being the leader of the duo, while Nana is the follower and accompainer of the duo.
		- Popo is the leader of the dynamic mountaineer duo, while Monika is the president of the Literature Club. Altogether, both are leaders of their own respective properties.
		- Contrary to the former's age, Popo and Yuri both express maturity. In addition, Popo's indigo/blue colorations to his attire resemble Yuri's purple hairstyle, along with similar skin colors.
* Popo and Nana are the only playable characters to appear in multiple *Super Smash Bros.* installments before being scrapped in one, then returning to *Super Smash Bros. Ultimate*.

## References

1. ↑ https://www.deviantart.com/mickmick247/art/Reconciliation-1004859128
2. ↑ https://www.deviantart.com/mickmick247/art/Sayo-nana-Pt-4-985363205
3. ↑ https://www.deviantart.com/mickmick247/art/Markov-Pt-3-Executing-the-plan-at-night-1004149610
4. ↑ https://www.deviantart.com/tamarinfrog/art/You-Can-Be-Cute-AND-Badass-777631409
5. ↑ https://www.deviantart.com/mickmick247/art/Markov-Pt-1-Present-day-1001676674
6. ↑ https://www.deviantart.com/mickmick247/art/Sayo-nana-Pt-4-985363205
7. ↑ https://www.deviantart.com/mickmick247/art/Coldfight-Pt-3-Wobbling-Time-992620205
8. ↑ https://www.deviantart.com/mickmick247/art/Markov-Pt-5-Close-Call-1006755736
9. ↑ https://www.deviantart.com/mickmick247/art/Markov-Pt-2-1001676727
10. ↑ https://www.deviantart.com/mickmick247/art/C-o-n-f-e-s-s-i-o-n-Part-2-GORE-WARNING-989629102
11. ↑ https://sourcegaming.info/2015/09/09/meleeiceclimbersite/

Monika • Sayori • Natsuki • Yuri • MC