The Terrible Trio

Boss: The Terrible Trio
Japanese name	Jankenpon, ジャンケンポン
Hit Points
Species	Goons
Affiliations	Mashtooth
Fought at	Stage 4-4 (Papes), 5-3 (Ronk), 5-4 (Papes and Ronk), 6-4 (Snips), 7-4 (All)
First appearance	The Legendary Starfy
Latest appearance	The Legendary Starfy

The Terrible Trio, known in Japan as Jankenpon are a group of villains in The Legendary Starfy. They are three members of the Daīru Pirate Squad (Japanese: ダイール 海賊団); space pirates who serve under Mashtooth. The other members are presumably lower ranked underlings known as the Swabbies.

Mashtooth orders The Terrible Trio to try to capture Bunston so he can absorb his powers and become the most powerful force in the galaxy. Eventually in the story, The Terrible Trio betray Mashtooth and use their forbidden technique known as Paper-Cut Crusher against him because they start to regard Starfy, Starly, Moe and Bunston as friends for healing them up with the power of the rainbow droplet and lose faith in Mashtooth as his plans are 'not very nice'.

They are related to the game Rock (Ronk), Paper (Papes), and Scissors (Snips), as shown in S.S. Logwater and at the end of the game where they challenge Starfy to a match of Rock, Paper, Scissors. In Japan, Snips is known as Jan (Japanese: ジャン), Ronk is known as Ken (Japanese: ケン), and Papes is known as Pon (Japanese: ポン).

Snips

Snips

Snips (Japanese: ジャン, Jan) is the leader of the Terrible Trio. She is the tallest member of the group and she always wears a tight blue full body suit that covers most of her body except her shoulders and arms, however her arms and hands are still covered by a pair of long white gloves. Also, she has blond hair and long ears. She fights by using bombs and a forcefield.

Toy Description

"Snips is the leader of the trio chasing Bunston. Everything goes through her! She drops more bombs than a bad stand up comedian!"

JP Translation: “She’s the leader of the three idiots. Her bombs pack a real punch! The three of them are getting along with Bunston and are his bodyguards now.”

Ronk

Ronk

Ronk (Japanese: ケン, Ken) is the muscle of the group. He is very stout in appearance and has large fangs and massive forearms with a clam-like hairstyle. He also makes animalistic roars when irritated. He has green hair and wears purple overalls. He fights firstly using just fists and using water is his weakness as he's so big he floats, but later wields an anchor on a belt to weigh himself down.

Toy Description

"For such a big lug, Ronk is pretty quick. Not the smartest baddie around, but his heart is as big as his fists!"

JP Translation: “Don’t let his size fool you; Ronk's super fast when he charges at you! I wonder who’d win if he and Fat Cat Sumo wrestled.”

Papes

Papes

Papes (Japanese: ポン, Pon) is the shortest and least bright member of the squad. He makes most of the plans, but they end in failure most of the time. He is Snips's younger brother. He is light purple in color and wears a pair of green tights, and he also has a blue hat. He fights using a shield and barges into the player with it, but can easily be blown backward by Starfy's Star Spin. Papes is also the funniest of the trio. He can't jump as far as his colleagues.

Toy Description

"Papes has a big mouth that always gets him in trouble. Lucky for him, he's got a sheild that's as big as his yapper!"

JP Translation: ”It’s the little brother of the Terrible Trio! His shield is super strong! Apparently, he likes collecting shields... He should get a new hobby.”

The Paper-Cut Crusher

This technique was first mentioned in Note No. 46: Snips's Diary- "The Forbidden Technique!". It is also the name of a Story cartoon, The Paper-Cut Crusher:

I don't like the way things are going! The big boss is completely wrong! Up to now I wasn't sure, but this is awful! Ugh, what are we going to do?! I wish we could just use the forbidden technique to get Bunston and go home!

This Note was continued in Note No. 49: Terrible Trio Note- "The Forbidden Technique":

What?! That technique will take huge amounts of energy from us! We need to save it for an emergency! And if we don't work together as a team, it might not even work! If we do the Paper-Cut Crusher, we need to be very focused and very careful!

It was finally used in S.S. Logwater's area 4 (stage 7-4), where they challenged Starfy to a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors; initiating the Paper-Cut Crusher Battle, despite the fact that The Terrible Trio were already wounded from the last battle in the same area.

Later on, they became a traitor to Mashtooth and used the Paper-Cut Crusher on him in Planet Bunnera's area 4 (stage 8-4).

Trivia

• In the original Japanese version of The Legendary Starfy, voices are used in the Paper-Cut Crusher Battle to reflect the common rules of Janken. These voices among several others were removed in the localizations.
• The Terrible Trio are comparable to the three evils from the Time Bokan series.
• In the Japanese version of Snips’s toy description, Moe says that the Terrible Trio became Bunston’s bodyguards after Mashtooth’s defeat. This was moved to one of the Collection screen text blurbs, which may replace the original message saying that they live in Bunnera’s castle.

Name origins

• English: Snips is most likely a reference to "snip", English onomatopoeia for cutting. Papes may be a play on "paper", while Ronk is possibly a corruption of "rock". Collectively, they are known as the Terrible Trio, presumably because there are three members of the crew and they were originally deemed to be bad.
• Japanese: Jan, Ken and Pon are named after Rock, Paper, Scissors hand game, commonly known as Janken (Japanese: じゃんけん, two-fists in Japan). A popular phrase to shout when playing Rock, Paper, Scissors is ジャン・ケン・ポン (Jan・Ken・Pon), where Pon is Japanese onomatopoeia for pop.