(last updated: 2024/03/17)

Jyamaruiジャマルーイ
reference

For quick and easy reference, check out the model sheets by Shizen Bomber and @Boi_Arctic (and their follow-up size comparison). Honestly, the best reference of my own you're gonna find for Jyamarui is the Power Bomberman sprite sheet...!
But if you want a breakdown of Jyamarui facets then look no further!

What is Jyamarui?
They're a Louie! Louies are friendly kangaroo creatures from the Bomberman series, helpful mounts with a variety of special abilities, and in Super Bomberman 5, unique designs to match. Look up art from that game or Bomberman Fantasy Race for official reference.

hair tuft (w/ highlights)
Louies all have a tuft of hair on top, but Jyamarui's is a little more pronounced, bigger and with white highlights. Who styles it for them?

line eyes
They're always closed! Their eyes open only for shocked expressions.

stubby snout
The snoot!! Almost always in a catlike :3 smile. Presumably your average Louie snout length, but appears stubby because of...

chubby cheeks
These puffy saddlebags! Maximum fluff and squish factor. Makes their face extremely wide and wobbly.

gender-neutral moobs
I'm not here to ask if Louies have breasts, all i know is Jyamarui's pretty flabby up top. What do you call gender-neutral moobs or boobs? Gnoobs??

the soft
Jyamarui's a big critter! It's unclear whether they're actually all that heavy or not, but it's certainly got the big-soft-wobble-squish factor. When in doubt, imagine Jyamarui's physique like a big water balloon.

puffy paws
Beans optional! Louies vary in whether they have traditional fingers and thumbs (usually 4 digits) or just paws (3 digits). Whatever Jyamarui is depicted with, they are puffy and sausage-like.

tail
Louie tails are like that of a kangaroo, so they're pretty big! Jyamarui's is more like a big puffball; mostly because it had to be compressed to fit in the sprite sheet, but interpret it as you please.

flab curtain? legs??
Where Marui's body is pretty spherical, Jyamarui's is more like a dumpling or a potato sack. It smushes and spreads out, and droops under gravity. Some artists depict Jyamarui with legs -- I mean, you gotta have legs to have feet, right? -- but whatever it looks like under x-ray, on the outside it just looks like Jyamarui's body is a big doughy potato sack. See the Q & A!

load-bearing feet
Your average elongated Louie stompers -- probably a bit puffier than usual, but not really visible on account of all the above.

my guff

The first conceptual doodle for Jyamarui! On the left is the original, where I opted for a more noodly snout and a lighter periwinkle, and on the right is an edit to serve as ref.

Power Bomberman sprites! Still the best flippin' art I've done of the big lug. If I draw them at a larger scale I'll have to face the fact I've no idea what their shape is.

April Fools. Don't think for a second that this is canon.

Blazing Beaks sprites! The icon used a commissioned bust by @Dancing_grand as a reference point.

Power Bomberman

Where it all began! Jyamarui is an excuse to fill as much of the sprite canvas as possible, and to take advantage of Nagurui's new ability of blocking enemy passage: sure, Jyamarui can momentarily stun opponents with a belly bash, but blocking people's way is their raison d'etre!

Jyamarui is not a custom Louie with original code, but simply a graphic swap for Nagurui. To insert Jyamarui into the game, you'll need to Power Bomberman version 0.7.7 or higher, and edit its "data.win" file using UndertaleModTool and replace "spr_s_nlouie_red" (found in Texture 48) with Jyamarui's sheet. For the full effect, you'll also want to replace...

Tex48: Nagurui's walking animation on the Louie select; this doesn't show up under sprites, so will need replaced under the Embedded Textures tab.
Tex37 - spr_bcon_handicap_louie: Nagurui's icon on the Handicap screen; graphic number 2212 as of 0.77c.
Tex37 - spr_itemhelp_louie: Nagurui's portrait on the Item Help screen; graphic number 1233 as of 0.77c.
Tex37 - spr_itemhelp_louie_palette: Amends Jyamarui's palette to the portraits.

And for extra authenticity, you'll also want to replace these external files...!

sound/rooey_call_red.wav: Nagurui's cry sound effect
sound/punch2.wav: Nagurui's punch sound effect
language/lang_english.txt: Replace line 2526 with "Jyamarui", then 2527 and 3637 (as of version 0.77c) with:

"This Louie just loves attention! They won't let you past without saying hello!"

"You've collected Jyamarui, a Periwinkle Louie! Press the C button to bash other players!"

If all goes well, Jyamarui will not just be a rideable steed, but also look like a halfway believable addition to the game!
Because of their size, there may be clipping issues with certain player characters when riding them. More importantly, it's very hard to see past Jyamarui's enormous bulk, so be extra careful of any bombs placed behind you where they're harder to see...!

Blazing Beaks

Jyamarui enters the gun-toting world of Blazing Beaks! I do not approve, condone or consent to Jyamarui having a gun, but you give me a tiny canvas and I have to figure out a way to cram a fat animal in there.
The overgrown Louie is a slow mover, but comes equipped with a long-range Medium Purple Blaster and an evasive Feather. This mod had the dubious honour of even being retweeted by the official Blazing Beaks devs.

I swear to god I work on other things too, but Jyamarui's been filling all my headspace lately. So that's why they're in Blazing Beaks now. I shouldn't be entrusted with modding tools. pic.twitter.com/8yxIubJ6er

— ragey0 (@ragey0) May 17, 2022

To play as Jyamarui, download the mod and extract its folder into the "C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\BlazingBeaks\mods\" directory (or wherever the "gamedata.sav" file is stored); placing it with the Steam Workshop content won't work.
Big thanks to WanderingFellow for creating the sound effects for this mod!

Lode Runner Legacy

Steam Workshop::Jyamarui

This bizarrely-proportioned Louie has come straight from the world of Bomberman back into the world of Lode Runner to grab lots of shiny things and try really hard to fill up most of the usable voxel space in the character creator!

Courtesy of pal Pulse Commander, Jyamarui enters the baddie-evading, block-evaporating world of Lode Runner Legacy, courtesy of its built-in voxel character creator! Alongside heroic gold-retrieving deeds, Jyamarui demonstrates the uncanny ability to climb ladders and support their entire weight climbing across bars. Who knew?

To play as Jyamarui, simply download the mod from the Steam Workshop by subscribing to it. Jyamarui will be yours to play by enabling them as player 1 or player 2 in the options menu!

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commissions
& gift art

I'm very easily pleased and seeing this big lug is enough to brighten up my day. My many many thanks to all the folks who've drawn this critter, I love all these pieces, and I wouldn't be amiss to seeing more...!

Q & A

Not a joke! Not a jape! People have asked these questions about Jyamarui, and I intend to answer them!

Why Jyamarui?
Self indulgence! I was modding Power Bomberman and wanted to make something for myself, and an amalgamation of silly traits I liked seemed like fun.

Is Jyamarui official?
Despite fooling at least two of the contributors on Power Bomberman's dev team, no, Jyamarui is not official Power Bomberman content, nor do they originate from any other Bomberman game. They are a fan character that exists only as an unofficial sprite mod to replace Nagurui.

What is Jyamarui's ability?
Being wide. Jisho.org defines "jyama" (邪魔) as "hindrance" or "obstacle", which I interpreted as Jyamarui being a living roadblock. Blocking entire passages is kind of their natural state of being! The belly bump to knock people around just comes with the territory.

What sets Jyamarui apart from Marui?

Marui is the fat green Louie from Super Bomberman 5, for the uninitiated. Although Marui's in-game sprite depicts him with a blobby physique not unlike Jyamarui's, his official art and name suggest he's shaped more like a bowling ball -- which is apt, given his ability is to roll super fast and all.
Marui is a smidge shorter than 'standard' Louies, so if the fact Jyamarui is 30 to 40% wider and shaped like a dumpling isn't enough to differentiate them, there's that.

What is Jyamarui's name?
It's Jyamarui! A silly answer to a silly question, I know, but Louies have their names translated a variety of ways, including Rui and Rooi. Power Bomberman opts for the latter when it's part of a Louie's name (Gozarooi, Marooi, etc), so Jyamarooi, Jyamarooey, or even Jyamalouie are all technically valid. S'all about personal preference!
As mentioned above, their name is a portmanteau of "jyama" and "Rui", which also contains the word "maru" (丸), meaning "circle", so they're a big round roadblock!

How does Jyamarui even fit between the blocks?
With a lot of effort, I presume.

What colour is Jyamarui?
The intention was periwinkle, but it got drastically darkened in the name of colour theory. It's definitely something blue-y purple-y, slightly desaturated-y...! It doesn't help that the colour looks far lighter on my monitor than on any other screen, so the authorial intent can't be conveyed. Just wing it, honestly.

How tall is Jyamarui?

Your average Louie size! The perspective's a bit funky on account of their shape, but their eyeline matches up with Kerui, who's your bog-standard Louie. It is fun to perceive Jyamarui as taller when it fits.
How tall is a Louie though? That's somewhat nebulous! Your only decent frame of reference is Bomberman, whose height is never set in stone and his chibi stature makes him hard to measure. It pains me to say it, but the best reference we have is the Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba-Bakunetsu Bomberman manga, where Louie is roughly the height of an average human mother. Make of that what you will.

Is Jyamarui a boy or a girl?
Jyamarui is non-binary, and I refer to them using they/them pronouns. (how did they lose their binary? I personally assume they lost it like any other item when bonked on the head by a bomb. There's someone out there with twice as much gender in them)
The 'official' means of identifying Louie gender from the PB devs, by the orientation of their feet and the way they move their arms, is a smidge invalid when Jyamarui defies all traditional Louie physiology.
I've no strong opinions on folks misgendering Jyamarui, though if anything it'd be nice to see them mistaken for a girl at least once in a while. You'd think having bigger boobs than any other lady in the entire franchise would've prompted a difference in opinion, at least!

What do Jyamarui's eyes look like?

It's uncertain! I gave them little white eyes for their 'stunned' animations in PB, mostly as an "it'll do" answer, but it's up to interpretation. Draw them how you feel like, but give 'em a good reason to open their eyes...!

Does Jyamarui have legs?
We just don't know.
One could ask the same question of Marui, honestly! Louies are kind of known for their legs, being big dumb kangaroo things, so it's odd for Marui to just... not have any. Is its fat masking a traditional Louie shape, or is its physiology entirely different and more like a penguin? Nobody knows, but there are some theories. Do draw them however makes most sense to you though!

Is Jyamarui a blueberry?
Jyamarui is not a blueberry, and you will be hearing from my lawyers.
(this is in reference to a crass in-joke in the Power Bomberman Discord that jyamarui unfortunately resembles by shape and colour. unintentional! no relation!)

Is Jyamarui evil?
Jyamarui is a friend and filled with love. A glutton for attention, perhaps, but too much of a softie for malevolence.
Members of the Power Bomberman community have different ideas though, and according to he devs, evil Louies are distinguished by the off-white fur on their muzzles and undercarriage... and Jyamarui's has a mild blue tint. Say it ain't so, Jyamarui!

Can I draw Jyamarui fanart?
I would be honoured! Nothing saucy, please, but otherwise go nuts.

the reviews are in!

What do people across the internet have to say about Jyamarui?