AiAi

AiAi (アイアイ, AiAi^?) is the main protagonist of the Super Monkey Ball franchise. He is obsessed with bananas and likes fighting evil on the island, alongside his friends and family. Although he may seem crazy for bananas, AiAi really does care about his friends and family and would do almost anything for them.

AiAi has appeared several times in the Sonic the Hedgehog series.

Appearance

AiAi has similar traits to a barbary macaque. His tail is short and stubby. He has an orange shirt with the letter A on it. He has brown eyes, a small scruff of hair, and rounded ears that stick out of his head. Later games updated his look, giving him a blue backpack, red oval shaped cheeks, a cat-like smile and a much softer appearance overall.

Game appearances

Sonic Riders

In Sonic Riders, AiAi appears as an unlockable character, along with the Sega Carnival track containing references to the Super Monkey Ball series. In this game, AiAi is a Power Type character, although, thanks to his small stature, he is easily pushed around. His signature Extreme Gear is the BANANA, and when attacking, he enters a Monkey Ball and uses it to knock into his opponents.

AiAi has the following stats in gameplay:

Sega All-Stars series

Sega Superstars

In Sega Superstars, AiAi appears with a minigame based on his own series of games where the player has to use their own body to move him around and get to the end in time, like his own games.

Sega Superstars Tennis

In Sega Superstars Tennis, AiAi makes an appearance as a playable characters with other Sega characters, like NiGHTS and Ulala. In this game and from now on, he has his updated appearance.

Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing

In Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, AiAi makes a playable appearance driving a racer called the Blazing Banana which is modeled after his favorite obsession: Bananas. his All-Star Move has him rolling around in his monkey ball with friends while running over anyone that gets in his way.

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed

In Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, AiAi once again makes an appearance as a playable character with the same vehicle from the previous racing game, though slightly redesigned to look more like a conventional drag race car and with the ability to transform into plane and boat forms like the rest of the game's vehicles.

Sonic Forces

In Sonic Forces, AiAi doesn't appears in person. However, a Costume of him can be unlocked in the game with the game's bonus edition.

Sega Heroes

Sonic Colors: Ultimate

In Sonic Colors: Ultimate, AiAi makes a cameo appearance as one of the many optional profile icons available in the Customize menu.^[1]

In other media

Books and comics

Archie Comics

Main article: AiAi (Archie)

In the Archie Comics, AiAi appeared in Sonic Universe #45 as one of the racers in the story. Doctor Eggman had plans of conquering his world and taking Jungle Islands' banana horde for a lifetime supply of smoothies.

Merchandise

In the 2003 set of Sonic Happy Meal McDonald's toys, Sega included a toy starring AiAi in a Super Monkey Ball themed, banana grabbing game. He was the only non-Sonic character included in that set. This toy was also one of Sega's free giveaways at the E3 convention in 2003.

Trivia

• He has the same name as the Japanese name for Coconuts.
• AiAi is the only non-Sonic character that is on the cover of the American version of Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed.

References