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Rongo Swirll (Japanese: カミナラス五郎 Kaminarasu Gorō) is a Lightning-attribute Boss Yo-kai introduced in Yo-kai Watch 3. He is one of the Ghoulfamily's executives.
In Yo-kai Watch: Wibble Wobble, he is a Rank SS Yo-kai of the Shady tribe.
Appearances[]
Video games[]
- Yo-kai Watch 3: Boss Yo-kai
Biology[]
Rongo Swirll is a mostly humanoid Yo-kai, with a large, more reptilian head and maw. He has blonde hair that flickers like a flame, with one strand that has a purple tip. His eyes have blue irises and pink scleras, and on top of his head are two small, brown horns. His outfit consists of yellow tuxedo with a red bow-tie. He is always seen riding on a dark cloud, alongside his drum set.
He plays his drums with lightning bolt shaped drum sticks, which he also uses to attack people by throwing them. When playing his drum, he can charge it with electricity, and he also has the ability to summon thunder clouds.
Rongo Swirll is best friends with Agent X, referring to him with the nickname Jany (Japanese: ジャーニー Jānī) in Japanese and John in the English version, and used to be a regular jazz drummer in New Yo-kai City, but was eventually taken under The Ghoulfather's wing and joined his Ghoulfamily. His reason for joining was to fulfil his dream of letting everyone listen to his drums.
Profile[]
Yo-kai Watch 3[]
Recommended Level - Lv. 35
Rongo Swirll appears as the boss of Chapter 9, where he takes over Komajiro's club. He mostly uses Lightning-attribute attacks, so it is recommended for the player to bring Earth-attribute Yo-kai to the fight. He has various attacks:
8-Beat Thunder - Attacks a single Yo-kai with the Lightning attribute.
16-Beat Thunder - Attacks all Yo-kai with the Lightning attribute.
Snare Heart - Inspirit’s a Yo-kai to still their heart, rendering them unable to act sometimes.
Stick Boomerang - Targets a random row to throw one of his lightning drumsticks at.
Swirling Storm - Drums up a thundercloud into existence, which targets a random tile that a Yo-kai is on. After 4 turns, the cloud will strike lightning onto the tile. Target and damage the big swirl on his drumkit, and all clouds will disappear.
Thunder Ball - Throws a ball of electricity onto the battlefield, preventing Yo-kai from using it.
Soul Solo - A special, non-damaging move. He temporarily stops the battle, as well as preventing the player from attacking, to perform a drum solo. On the bottom screen, the text “We interrupt this battle to bring you an epic drum solo from Rongo Swirll.” will appear. There is no way to skip this cutscene, so the player can only watch and wait for the solo to finish.
Storm Thunderbeat (Soultimate) - If enough thunderclouds are called into existence, he will unleash an unavoidable Soultimate Move. If he is charging it up, the player must switch out any Water-attribute Yo-kai to avoid them taking devastating damage.
Game data[]
Etymology[]
In Japanese, his surname "Kaminarasu" is likely derived from "kaminari" (Japanese: 雷 lightning), or "Kaminari-sama" (Japanese: 雷様 Lord Kaminari, an alternate name for the lightning god Raijin), while his given name "Gorō" (Japanese: 五郎 Gorō, a masculine given name) sounds similar to "gorogoro" (Japanese: ごろごろ onomatopoeia for thunder rumbling).
In English, "Rongo Swirll" is a reference to Ringo Starr, one of the former members of The Beatles.
Buddy Blitz is a reference to Buddy Rich, one of the most influential drummers of all time.
"Ray Baqueto" is a reference to Ray Barretto, a Puerto Rican percussionist, with "Baqueto" being a corruption of baqueta (percussion mallet).
Origin[]
Rongo Swirll is based on lightning deities from Japanese mythology, such as Raijin.
These deities are typically portrayed as causing thunder and lightning by beating their drums, with the word "kaminari" (Japanese: 雷 lightning) actually being derived from a phrase that roughly means "god is sounding."
Trivia[]
- Rongo Swirll's drum solo was suggested by director Ken Motomura, which would be accompanied with shamisen. Kenchiro Saigo never thought about adding the combination based on his own ideas and was impressed on how it sounded.[1]
- Rongo Swirll is the only Boss Yo-kai to stop in the middle of a battle to do something for a while. In this case, he stops to play his drum solo.
- Rongo Swirll is the first Yo-kai to have an interchangable boss battle theme that changes after the drum solo when he's low on health. The theme on the official soundtrack is also five minutes and eight seconds long.
In other languages[]
| Language | Name | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
 Japanese
|
カミナラス五郎 Kaminarasu Gorō | |
 Spanish
|
Ray Baqueto | |
 French
|
King Keskler | |
 Italian
|
Baketon | |
 German
|
Buddy Blitz |