It should go without saying that several big characters got announced today, to my great surprise. On the home front, though, the Nintendo Direct showed off Krystal as one of the big Assist Trophies in Super Smash Bros Ultimate. We got a few more seconds of video of her fighting with other characters during the presentation, and more would be revealed shortly afterward.

The official Assist Trophy page shows off two new screenshots for her (one above, one below), where she is the first listed Assist Trophy! How's that for representation?

We also got to see her little mini figure representation:

And just for completeness' sake, I have been behind on updating the site, but last month, on July 4th, the Krystal Assist Trophy got a shout out on the Super Smash Bros Ultimate Blog. In the entry, which came with the below image, it says "In addition to attacking with her staff, Krystal also uses Ice Blast to freeze fighters. Don't underestimate her!"

Another thing: though I, and many other Krystal fans noticed it right away, long time Krystal fan, Tobias Amaranth, was the first to publicly publish the fact that Krystal's lower back tattoo appears to be missing in the Assist Trophy. It might be an oversight. Many artists miss it too.

If you were thinking that Nintendo decided to remove the tramp stamp from Krystal's back, believe it or not, there's something very interesting going on. As far as I can tell, Krystal's lower back tattoo, first shown in 2002, predates the term "tramp stamp" in popular usage. I have barely been able to find any references to the term prior to 2004, and the term didn't become popular until around 2006. Though lower back tattoos existed before 2002, the stigma associated with them didn't start until around the time Krystal was revealed. It's entirely possible that the tattoo was added by the design team without meaning for it to be a tramp stamp.

That's it for Smash Bros news today! Hope you all enjoyed the Nintendo Direct.

New social media app/platform, Amino, is starting to become popular. It's a place primarily focused on creating groups around specific subjects, characters, shows... whatever! Anim Fox has created a Krystal Amino Group if you are interested in joining one. It's just starting, but he hopes to build it into a large community. Apparently, Amino is pretty restrictive on adult content, so it should be a relatively safe social network if you are worried about that.

It's happening! The Nintendo Direct where Mr. Sakurai surely announces Krystal, Waluigi, and Goku as playable characters for Super Smash Bros Ultimate is happening in less than 22 hours. Ok, he probably won't announce Waluigi as playable. :P

In all honesty, I don't expect them to announce any new playable characters, but it is always fun to see what Mr. Sakurai is up to. Check out the stream above or watch it on Nintendo's Direct site. The Direct goes live on August 8th, 2018 at 7AM PST (10AM EST). You can also check out the Japanese stream, which sometimes shows slightly different information.

Maybe they'll do a profile on our new favorite Assist Trophy!

It's high time I finish these up! Here's this week's Star Fox Assault cutscene. General Pepper and the Star Fox team make plans to use the Core Memory to find the Aparoid Homeworld. However, Krystal senses a distress call from Sauria, hearing cries of agony.

This is the Waifu2x-enhanced version of the tiny pre-rendered frames to bring this video all the way up to 4K resolution.

We also have the "original resolution version," which has the subtitles.

Lastly, if you're into the original Japanese, there's the Japanese 4K Version and the Japanese Original Resolution Verion too, for your viewing pleasure.

Nintendo just tweeted about the Krystal Assist Trophy coming to Super Smash Bros Ultimate. We got an excellent front-view of her and her staff. They also spoke about the staff's ability to freeze opponents.

Warning: Mild adult humor.

At Anime Central 2018 last month, several Star Fox cosplayers got together and put on a skit about the Star Fox team getting together to beg Miyamoto for a good game. Unfortunately, Wolf shows up with other plans.

This skit was performed by Mirisha as Fox, Dali-Lamb Cosplay as Falco, Senmurv as Peppy, and SailorGaia as Wolf.

Starting today, the Krystal Archive will begin featuring one Krystal fanart every day on the official Twitter and Gab.ai accounts for the site. The goal is to promote the great new Krystal fan works as they come out and give some love to the artists. When there are no new Krystal fanarts to show, we'll post classic Krystal fanarts to remind everyone of old favorites. I'm hoping to run this forever, but for now, let's just see how it goes for the next few weeks.

Soon to be Krystal cosplayer, Kuridel is doing the fanart research. She will also be featured herself, since she plans to do some Krystal fanart on a regular basis. Thanks for your help, Kuridel!

I will be doing the actual posting, but with some work, I hope to automate that task to bring you Krystal fanart at a regular time each and every day, whether I am here or not.

Follow us!

• @BlueVixenNews on Twitter
• @KrystalArchive on Gab.ai

The Super Smash Bros Ultimate Invitational Winner, ZeRo, expressed his desire to have Krystal as a playable character in Smash Bros during a livestream analyzing the new game.

Excellent taste, ZeRo.

In a showcase of the new Assist Trophies, Krystal appeared again on the Treehouse livestream. Chiko said it was one of her favorite trophies, and Star Fox Adventures got some major love. Krystal's shaping up to be a very powerful Assist Trophy.

I've spoken to both Estelle Ellis and Alésia Glidewell, the two former Krystal voice actresses. According to them, neither did the voice for the Krystal Assist Trophy in Super Smash Bros Ultimate. It could still be that her voice effects were taken from previous games, or it could be that there's a new Krystal voice actress in the world now.