User:Becarbone/sandbox/Mugman (The Cuphead Show)

""Come on, Cuphead! It's time for a double down!""

""And you owe the Devil your soul!""

Mugman is one of the 2 main protagonists (alongside Cuphead) of the Netflix adaptation of ''[https://cuphead.fandom.com/wiki/The_Cuphead_Show! The Cuphead Show!]'' series. He is the younger and more responsible brother of Cuphead and he lives in a Kettle house with their caretaker, Elder Kettle. Back then they used to be more bored doing chores but then he's actually scared of doing adventures with Cuphead.

While he is usually a likable character in the majority of the Cuphead franchise, his TV show counterpart isn’t as good and is a different story.

Background
Mugman serves as the deuteragonist of the nostalgic hit 2017 game Cuphead, and it's television show, The Cuphead Show! He is usually portrayed as Cuphead's much more sensible younger twin brother (although he has his moments) and, like the rest of his family, lives on Inkwell Isle. He is controlled by the second player and can join or leave the game at any time. Due to his deuteragonistic role, Mugman formerly could not be controlled by the first player. However, as of the update in April 2019, the first player can choose to play as Mugman instead of Cuphead, making it so that Mugman won't have to be controlled by the second player.

Mugman is just as fun-loving as Cuphead, but he is shown to be more careful and less rash compared to his brother, and acts as the voice of reason for him. While he cares for Cuphead, the two of them bicker a lot of the time. His voice actor Frank Todaro describes him as "the more cautious one, and does love adventure, but usually just tries to make sure Cuphead and him stay alive". Although there are times where he’s more reckless than he is. Mugman is very good-natured despite his flaws and issues, and shows great care for his friends.

Mugman also appears in The Cuphead DLC.

Why He Sucks

 * 1) To start off the list and to get the elephant out of the room, while he did it accidentally and unintentionally, he is heavily responsible for The Devil owing Cuphead's soul in the first place, and while it could be argued he wasn't looking, it's still a pretty messed up thing to do and is one of the more unforgivable acts in TV Show and Movie history, especially for 2022 standards.
 * 2) He was flanderized from the supportive, if timid brother of Cuphead, into a selfish, mean-spirited, cowardly pushover and a unlikable wuss who gets worked up over everything (you'd be hard-pressed finding an entire episode where he does not get worked up), and is often afraid of just everything from stage fright in "Roll The Dice", "Root Packed" and "Cupstaged", to losing his handle in "Handle With Care", and the list nearly goes on and on.
 * 3) * Mugman may have been cowardly in the Cuphead video games, but not to this extent.
 * 4) He is an absolute jerk and killjoy to Cuphead, as he keeps nagging him and ruining his ideas (and at one point, abandoned him in "Another Brother"), despite him being his brother. And as such, despite the fact he tries to be the responsible younger bother of Cuphead, he is anything but that and is often just as reckless as his brother, and while Cuphead can be bratty for the most part, Mugman is arguably even worse.
 * 5) All his dialogue are horrendous, like "And you owe the Devil your soul", "I'm not apologizing for doing my job!", "A mug without a handle is just... a bowl! I'm Mugman! Not Bowlboy! I don't wanna be Bowlboy!" and "Nobody asked you Bowlboy!"
 * 6) Aside than Cuphead, he is also a major jerk to some of the other minor characters as well. On the side note, he can be rather psychopathic and rude at times.
 * 7) *Mugman is pretty chill at taking care of Baby Bottle and repeatedly tell Cuphead to be nice with it. But the very moment the baby rips his favorite teddy bear apart, he loses it at a drop of a hat and attempts to kill it in retaliation. Although he didn't kill it, killing a baby is still  EXTREMELY  messed up and shows he attempted infanticide.
 * 8) *His first solution to Ludwig choosing Cuphead as his prodigy over him? – mutilating Cuphead's hands with Elder Kettle's garden shears. Elder Kettle's annoyed reaction implies Mugman has tried something similar in the past.
 * 9) *He tried to attack the Ice Cream Man for being for being a minor annoyance and for having his hat crooked.
 * 10) *Although he didn't threaten to kill him, he is quite rude towards Bowlboy for no apparent reason whatsoever. In fact, this may imply he is racist towards bowls.
 * He, alongside Cuphead, is especially rude, selfish, and disrespectful towards Elder Kettle as in “Say Cheese” he shows no sympathy towards Elder Kettle when it’s revealed that he was in an embarrassing billboard advertisement when he was a kid and got bullied over it. Mugman shows no sympathy towards Elder Kettle and cares more about going to the movies, using a photo of the billboard to try to blackmail Elder Kettle.
 * 1) He is an absolute Butt-Monkey, as, besides the Telephone, he is the most unlucky member of the cast, as he is always at the end of suffering from other characters, mainly from Cuphead's antics, and he doesn't seem to be as worshipped and loved by the citizens as Cuphead is. Not that he doesn't deserve it half the time due to his rude behavior towards Cuphead and several other characters.
 * 2) In Dead Broke, He, his brother Cuphead, and Ms. Chalice create a fake ghost-removal business to make some money for ice cream, which is against the law.
 * 3) Annoying voice acting from Frank Todaro, which comes off as grating
 * 4) Unlike Cuphead, who loves to be the center of attention, Mugman gets bad stage fright and freezes up in front of an audience, which makes him kind of wimpy at his worst.
 * 5) He's a bit of a hypocrite. At the end of the first episode, he tells Cuphead multiple times that he owes The Devil his soul, despite the fact he actually caused him to do so. Also, he often calls out Cuphead for being reckless, yet he is also careless and impulsive himself.
 * 6) Although his design is still good for the most part, it can get very scary at times, such as in "Roll The Dice". If you don’t believe us then just look.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) He was a better character outside of the television series, and in addition, he is far more likable in the third season of The Cuphead Show.
 * 2) Kensho Ono's voice for Mugman in the Japanese dub is also pretty decent at best.
 * 3) He isn't as selfish and deceptive as Ms. Chalice.
 * 4) You can feel bad for him sometimes. Such as the fact that he's a total Butt-Monkey much of the time, and for the fact that him being a jerk towards Cuphead is somewhat understandable, since Cuphead is a reckless and impulsive rebel with zero impulse control whatsoever. As such, there is a handful of people who do like him despite his numerous flaws.
 * 5) He ultimately cares about his brother despite how harsh he can be towards him. Examples of him being nicer to him than he usually is was when he gives him the invisible sweater and saved his soul frequently, which shows he isn't always as mean or cowardly as he lets on.
 * 6) His design is still great to look at.
 * 7) There are quite a few instances where he gets karma for his actions (much of it comes from his Butt-Monkey status), as he is frequently tossed around by the other characters and Cuphead at least does call him out for his selfishness in "Carn-Evil".
 * 8) If you compare him to Cuphead and/or Mrs. Chalice, then he is at least a better role model despite his flaws.
 * 9) One of the only episodes where he isn’t being a tightly wound is in the episode Dance With Danger, but even then, he just appeared as a background character along with his brother.
 * 10) Unlike Cuphead, he isn't too much of a Gary Stu, and he does have realistic flaws unlike him.

Trivia

 * It has never been revealed in the game nor in the show who Cuphead and Mugman's parents are or their current whereabouts. It is also unknown if the brothers ever knew their parents (though that is debatable as Elder Kettle has raised them since they were babies), or if Elder Kettle knew them. Though there are some fans who have theorized that their souls were taken by the Devil.
 * His Japanese actor, Kensho Ono, also voices Floch Forster from Attack on Titan, who is yet another unlikable character.
 * Mugman's personality is somewhat similar to Luigi from the Super Mario Bros franchise.
 * For some strange reason, He and Cuphead don’t have the finger pistols so far and don’t gamble, which is probably due to the show being geared towards kids.
 * The morality-and-franchise ranking YouTuber WickedBinge has painted Mugman as the good and mature sibling compared to the more reckless Cuphead in their Cuphead Show Good To Evils. However, they do acknowledge the bad things Mugman has done throughout the series, and give him the Death Penalty in the video, Sentencing The CUPHEAD Show Characters for Their Crimes'