Plasma-chan

About

Plasma-chan (Japanese: プラズマちゃん or ぷらずまちゃん, Purazuma-chan), also called as “Plasma” (ぷらずま) simply, is a fanmade chibi character inspired by Inazuma^[1], a fleet girl from Japanese online card game Kantai Collection (KanColle). Since late 2013, she has established her own “violent and black-hearted” personality opposite to the original fleet girl by the playful mind of KanColle fans in the Japanese textboard community 2channel.

Origin

A fleet girl in the sixth destroyer corps, Inazuma, is one of the most popular characters among KanColle players because she is one of the 5 selectable fleet girls at start-up and most of the players choose her for the missions which require her. So, her pure-hearted but very timid personality and her characteristic suffix “Nanodesu” (なのです) are familiar to all of the players.

Meanwhile, the concept of this character was ignited by an illustration in which a chibi Inazuma with black circle eyes is slamming both hands against the table powerfully along with the remark that can be read “I Hate Eggplants” (ナスは嫌゛い゛な゛の゛で゛す！！, Nasu wa KIRAINANODESU!!). This illustration was posted to Twitter by user ‏@suki_suke (すき)^[2] on August 21st, 2013^[3], and it was drawn simply for a joke reply to his friend @Nasu_e (ナス).^[4]

Spread

This illustration was soon imported to the main thread series for KanColle in /gameswf/ (browser/smartphone games) board in the Japanese anonymous textboard community 2channel and got free from the original context. This chibi Inazuma shouting a name of her least favorite vegetable powerfully was loved by 2channel users because it is unexpected from her warm personality. Inspired by this, they made a Shift-JIS art version of her and began making her utter many hurtful and violent remarks. And in the following month, this black-hearted Shift-JIS art character became to be distinguished from Inazuma and recognized as another character called “Plasma-chan” which comes from a pun for Inazuma and the name meaning of “Lightning Bolt”.

In the Kancolle thread, the Shift-JIS art was quickly created when the illustration was introduced to the thread on August 25th^[5], and the first post calling her as Plasma-chan was on September 7th, 2013 (shown, below).^[6]

Translation:

241 ：Anonymous：2013/09/07(Sat) 21:21:29.38 ID:5AHg0Uyr

(Shift-JIS Art) < Anyway, I’m just watching others’ all 999 constructions.
256 ：Anonymous：2013/09/07(Sat) 21:22:07.25 ID:sd5n5eci
>>241
So, who the f**k are you?
275 ：Anonymous：2013/09/07(Sat) 21:23:01.55 ID:8dvoXkc9
>>256
Plasma-chan.
It’s something in Inazuma’s skin.

By getting her own name and personality, the popularity of Plasma-chan spread furthermore on the web. The amount of fan illustration Plasma-chan had earned on pixiv^[7] and Nico Nico Seiga.^[8] in its first year is near 1000. Plasma-chan also got her own article on Nico Nico Pedia^[9] and pixiv Encyclopedia^[10] in the beginning of October, and started threads dedicated to her Shift-JIS arts on 2channel in January 2014.^[11]

In addition, Suki_suke gave his approval to the Shift-JIS art version for his illustration in a blog post on September 16th, 2013^[12], even yadkari, the sixth destroyer corps’s official illustrator, noticed his character’s online fame and mentioned to the pixiv Encyclopedia article on his Twitter in October, 2013^[13], and Plasma-chan made a cameo appearance in a manga published on an official KanColle anthology comic released on October 25th, 2013.^[14]

Various Examples

On the illustrators communities, “Plasma-chan” is used for the tag for both illustrations inspired by the Shift-JIS art and dark-side parodies for the original Inazuma. Hence, the search results include a few amount of old posts uploaded before August 2013.