Ashley

Ashley and Red are a duo of WarioWare, Inc. employees, first appearing in WarioWare: Touched!. Ashley is a young witch who lives in a haunted mansion in Diamond City. She often takes trips outside her mansion to train in magic, and frequently thinks about her parents. Red is a shapeshifting imp who acts as Ashley's best friend and loyal assistant. Since their introduction in WarioWare: Touched!, the pair have become recurring characters in the WarioWare series.

WarioWare: Touched!
Ashley's microgames in WarioWare: Touched! (collectively called "Total Drag") consist of tapping and dragging objects. Continuing the WarioWare tradition of having at least one set with a lyrical theme, Ashley's theme song play throughout the microgame set.

In her stage's opening cutscene, Ashley attempts to cook a potion, but fails. As she and Red leave the mansion, Orbulon, whose Oinker had crashed earlier due to a lightning storm, accidentally bumps into her. Ashley gets angry, and Orbulon runs off. Red asks her if she is fine, but she only replies that the alien is the last ingredient needed for the potion. Red volunteers to catch him, but fails and asks Ashley to forgive him; she does, only to decide she is going to use Red as the ingredient instead.

WarioWare: Smooth Moves
The duo returns in WarioWare: Smooth Moves, where their level is named "The Loquacious Spell Book". Ashley attempts to cast a spell on a potted plant using Red as her magic wand, but she fails: it only causes the sprout to become a daisy. Suddenly, Ashley is addressed by a sentient spell book with a skull on the front that states it can help. Once the level is complete, the player is shown Ashley trying the spell again after receiving help from the book, which causes another potted plant to grow into a gargantuan, monstrous venus flytrap which bursts through the roof. Red is visibly frightened by the development, but Ashley herself simply smiles.

Ashley's stage introduces the "Big Cheese", "Thumb Wrestler" and "The Discard" forms. The minigame Can Shooter is unlocked after completion of the level.

The Japanese Smooth Moves website feature a blog section for the WarioWare developers. In her blog entry, Ashley states she isn't interested in blogging and orders Red to write something in her place. Red then tells of an occurrence where the pair went to practice magic at a riverbed near their mansion, and Ashley paused when she saw a family of monkeys, as it reminded her of her parents in her distant hometown. The blog receives encouraging comments by other WarioWare employees, but Ashley is nevertheless angered.

WarioWare: D.I.Y.
In WarioWare: D.I.Y., the duo stars in a film named Magical Witch Ashley. It shows the pair looking off into the sky. If the player fails, Ashley turns to the screen wearing a mask, scaring Red. If the player passes a microgame, some shooting stars are seen. This is shown to indeed be a film, as a bunch of ghosts with cameras show up when the player gets a Game Over. Ashley is also shown in a mask store that she owns whenever the player beats a boss microgame; her expression depends on the number of masks, which is chosen randomly. If there are only a few masks, Ashley's expression may appear normal or disappointed. If there are a lot, Ashley smiles.

Ashley's records are usually peaceful, romantic, or very cheerful, and are generally described as the kind the player wants to sing to. While this seems uncharacteristic for her, Ashley usually has a snide comment in the record's description (for example, City Nights, a peppy city music-like song, has her comment "Cityscape at night? Big deal."). She is also a fan of Sekaiichi Asaruka's comics, due to their creepy tone. Her microgame set is themed around food.

Ashley, with Jimmy T., 9-Volt, Orbulon, and Mona, apparently left WarioWare, Inc. to work for Diamond Software in this game. Though the reason they switched companies is unknown, various residents of Diamond City consider possibilities in the D.I.Y. Forums feature of the game. One reason is that Diamond Software may actually pay them.

Game & Wario
Game & Wario features the pair as the hosts of a self-titled minigame. The minigame's opening cutscene shows Ashley reading a book and coming across a picture page depicting monsters. Ashley casts a spell to be materialized inside the book page, but she is inadvertently transported inside another page themed around candies and sweets instead. Red likes this development, but Ashley is furious and Red transforms into a broom so that they can escape the candy world.

The minigame is a shoot'em up-esque sidescroller where the player controls Ashley by angling the GamePad. The player can collect magic orbs and presents to increase their score, while shooting down the cookies and other obstacles. If Ashley is hit too many times, she becomes upset and the player has to comfort her by patting her on the head via the GamePad screen in order to continue.

Ashley makes other appearances within the game. In the Bowling minigame, she is depicted on one of the pins. She is also featured as the subject of the 13th Mona Superscoop capsule. In it, Mona states that she took a photo of Ashley flying on her broom at night and that she was surprised to see her looking happy. Finally, one of the possible random painting in the Artsy Call Code is a portrait of Ashley (pictured in the gallery).

Ashley is the theme of the third Miiverse Sketch Masterpiece Collection video (commented by Red), a series showcasing pictures of often questionable quality made in the game's Miiverse Sketch mode. Ashley herself is the host of the tenth video, themed after skeleton drawings.

WarioWare Gold
Ashley and Red return in WarioWare Gold alongside the rest of the series cast. The opening cutscene shows Ashley immediately hanging up on Wario when he calls her to explain his newest money-making scheme.

Ashley's story begins with her summoning a demon named Gahrumble to her mansion. Red congratulates Ashley on her skills and learns that their guest hasn't eaten in days as an insatiably-hungry demon named Hum Gree is eating all food in the demon realm. Ashley decides to go to the demon realm to defeat Hum Gree herself.

Ashley's stage is part of the Twist League, meaning all of her microgames use gyro input similar to WarioWare: Twisted!. Her theme is Fantasy.

The pair later appears in the Potluck Gang set of the Ultra League, where they go on a camping trip with Orbulon, 9-Volt, 18-Volt, Dribble and Spitz, and 5-Volt. 5-Volt organizes a potluck, with Red bringing explosive oysters and Ashley a "garlic" (actually a poisonous Mandrake root), to Red's shock and horror. They later play cards with the others. In the stage's ending cutscenes, Dribble says "We better bring Wario next time" to which Ashley responds "... Next time?": Red teases her about the fact she's apparently enjoying herself, making the witch blush. In the ending of the game, Ashley appears with everyone else to persuade Wario into sharing the money from the tournament, snarking "Well, that was easy." when Wario immediately trips over in his escape attempt.

She also stars in the minigame Pumpkin Panic, in which the player controls Ashley from an overhead perspective to defend a field of pumpkin from demons.

Waiwai! Wario
Ashley appears in the gag strip Waiwai! Wario, where she is the last WarioWare Inc. employee to arrive in the company's HQ. A sleepy Wario does not react to Ashley's presence, prompting her to use a voodoo doll in Wario's effigy to torture him.

Super Smash Bros. series


Ashley's Song appears in Super Smash Bros. Brawl as one of the tracks available for the WarioWare Inc. stage and Ashley herself appears as a Sticker, enhancing both Princess Peach's and Zelda's magic abilities by twenty-two. The Sticker is based on her official art from WarioWare: Touched!.

Ashley is also an Assist Trophy in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS / Wii U, in which she conjures a dark cloud of magic on the stage which afflicts opponents with different effects, such as, but possibly not limited to, shrinking opponents, and slowing others down. It appears to be very similar to that of Luigi's original Final Smash in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Negative Zone. An Ashley outfit was added to the game as DLC in February 2016.

Rhythm Heaven Megamix
Ashley and Red make an appearance in the Wario... Where? challenge set of Rhythm Heaven Megamix. The first game of the set is a version of Tap Trial, which features Ashley replacing the woman from the original version. The minigame consists of making Ashley tap dance with two monkeys by following their instructions. Red appears on the left of the screen and provide instructions at the beginning of the set.

In addition to her appearance in Wario... Where?, a stuffed doll of Ashley can be seen on a desk in the entrance of the Rhythm Museum.

Super Mario Maker
Ashley is one of the unlockable Mystery Suits for Costume Mario in Super Mario Maker. As with the other costumes, Ashley can only be used in the Super Mario Bros. tileset. When the Mystery Mushroom is grabbed, Ashley says, "Hocus Pocus!" Ashley rides on her broom when she is climbing or swimming, and the death and stage completion jingles are replaced with the jingles from the Ashley minigame from Game & Wario.

Nintendo Badge Arcade
Ashley is featured in various panels of Nintendo Badge Arcade. In addition to being present in the WarioWare panels with the rest of the series' cast, a single badge of Ashley is present in one of Nikki's panels, the Yokai Watch set and in the Splatoon set, and Ashley has her own Halloween, Christmas, New Year, and Valentine Day's panels which depict her and Red wearing a variety of themed outfits. A set of Home Menu screen icons featuring Ashley was also released.

A set of badges parodying The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask featuring Ashley and other WarioWare characters was released in Japan on December 22, 2016. It features Ashley dressed as Link (holding the Deku Mask) and Red as Tingle.

The Japanese description for the Ashley/Nikki panel states Ashley is friends with Nikki, the mascot of the application Swapnote.

Crazy Galaxy


Ashley starred in the Badge Arcade's 2017 April Fool's. On April 1 2017, the Arcade Bunny announced that a "Badge Arcade Direct" would take place, presenting concept art for a new game titled Crazy Galaxy. Crazy Galaxy starred Ashley (now an adult according to the Arcade Bunny's description of the badges) and four new characters who, after an accident in "astronaut school", are flung to the other end of the universe and must fight or befriend various aliens to get back home. The "direct" ended with the Arcade Bunny admitting the game was fake but inviting players to discuss the idea on social medias and Miiverse.

Web comics
Two web comic strips made by Ashley's creator Ko Takeuchi were released on the kids section of Nintendo's Japanese website to promote her 3DS themes. They are called Ashley Meets Halloween and Barbara and Ashley.

In the first strip, Ashley is shown sleeping on Halloween's night, but she then levitates into the air and transform to wear a more conventional witch attire. At the same time, her group of friends come to her home and knock at her door. Red draw Ashley's attention to them and the group head off into the night.

In the second strip, Ashley is hired by Barbara to perform at her Live Club. She attemps to sing in front of a cheering audience (made up of Red and various characters from Rhythm Heaven Megamix), but she struggles due to her stage fright. As Barbara smugly thinks Ashley can make her rich, she says she forgot the song's lyrics and falls asleep on stage, to Barbara's dismay.

Other appearances


Ashley cameos as a background sign in Paper Airplane Chase, appearing after the player reaches 150 points in Endless Mode. Her appearance replaces Wario's from the original Paper Plane minigame.

A music video of Ashley's Song was released as downloadable content for ''Daigasso! Band Brothers P''. The video is a montage of the cutscene clips for Ashley's stages in the WarioWare series. Ashley's Song was also featured as downloadable content for the Japanese versions of the previous Band Brothers games.

A Nintendo 3DS home menu theme patterned after Ashley was released on October 13, 2015 in Japan, October 22 in Europe, and October 29 in North America. A second theme was released on February 10, 2015 in Japan March 3 in North America, and June 3 in Europe. A third theme was subsequently released on August 9, 2016 in Japan, September 23 in Europe, and September 30 in North America.

A drawing of Ashley was used to demonstrate the time lapse feature of Art Academy: Home Studio for its Japanese release.

Physical appearance
Ashley wears a red long-sleeve dress with a little orange stripe on the end, an orange neckerchief clipped on her chest with a golden skull brooch, black tights (except in WarioWare Gold), and red shoes. Ashley usually ties her black hair in two large pigtails with a bang swept to the left, and wears an orange tiara. She was drawn with red eyes up until Game & Wario, which had her with solid black eyes instead, a change also made to the other WarioWare characters. Most media published after Game & Wario would switch to depicting Ashley having solid red eyes with no irises. In WarioWare: Smooth Moves, Ashley also appears wearing a white nightgown when she is going to sleep. In the title screen for her game in Game & Wario, she appears older and is rendered in a more realistic style. In WarioWare Gold, she wears flat Mary Jane shoes, her bang is swept in multiple directions, and retains her red eye color.

Red is a little red imp with sky blue eyes and black hair. In Game & Wario, it is revealed that his trident is actually a part of his body (in which case it may shift into his body, as he held it in his right hand in Touched!, but in Smooth Moves, Red holds the trident in his left hand).

Ashley is stated to be 15-years old on the western WarioWare: Touched! website. However, despite claims to the contrary, she has no specific stated age in any Japanese WarioWare media.

Personality
Ashley and Red are very different in personality: Ashley is a serious, easily angered person. Ashley also seems to have an large ego (as stated in her theme song), and is prone to bouts of laziness; on one of the WarioWare: Smooth Moves secret boards, Red is said to take care of his and Ashley's laundry, and she orders Red to write her blog entry for her on the Japanese Smooth Moves website, although it may be out of shyness. Ashley is portrayed as shy and distant; both Touched! and Game & Wario show her not dancing with the other WarioWare employees (including Red) at the end-of-game party and her response to comments made by her coworkers on her blog entry is simply "Everyone... I hate you.". Her resentment may be the result of her shyness and loneliness, however, since her theme song, her Game & Wario character card and her trophy description all state she wants to have more friends. In Japanese versions of WarioWare Touched! she speaks a little more animated, with quotes like Good Job!, Oh, no!, OK, and Look it!.

Red is the polar opposite of Ashley in many ways: he is outgoing, animated, cheerful, and easily frightened. He is also extremely helpful, as he is always seen assisting Ashley, whether it be with a spell or cleaning the mansion. Japanese material portrays Red as speaking with a Kansai accent (a trait shared with Dribble and Spitz), which is stereotypically associated with fun-loving, boisterous characters.

Powers and abilities
As seen in the WarioWare games, Ashley can use various spells (stated to be "the darkest spells" in her theme song) and potions. When she is using magic or when she is angered, her hair turns grey-white, and her eyes glow red. In addition to casting spells with a wand, she can shoot magic blasts from her hand as seen in Game & Wario. Despite her theme song's boasting, Ashley is apparently a mediocre magician; her Game & Wario character card states she only successfuly cast spells "40% of the time". Red can levitate and transform into small objects to help Ashley, such as a broom or her wand. The Ashley 3DS theme and its accompanying webcomic shows Red is able to assume a winged, bat-like form.

WarioWare: Touched! instruction manual
"What's up? People call me Red. Well, at least my friend Ashley does. She's a pretty wicked sorcerer. We live in this big creepy mansion. While Ashley's brewing up potions and studying spells, I spend most of my time hanging out, collecting ingredients for Ashley, and poking stuff with my pitchfork." "''In Ashley's microgames, you've usually got to grab something and slide it somewhere. You'd better do it fast, or Ashley will freak out on you! I'm not even kidding.

WarioWare: Touched! website bio
''Fifteen going on 500, this wisecracking teenage witch stirs up potions and bewitching microgames in equal measure. Play well or you might find yourself to be the mystery ingredient in her next potion.''

Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS / Wii U trophy
Blue indicates exclusive to the Wii U version.

Tips
"A dark field will appear around Ashley. Any foes inside the field will move more slowly and take continuous damage."

"Unless you summoned Ashley, eating food while within her dark field will cause damage instead of healing it. It's Pit's worst nightmare!"

Ashley
-Witch in training -Considers Red her best friend -Spells only work 40% of the time -Wishes she had more friends

Red
-Ashley's assistant -Can transform into almost anything (as long as it's close to his size) -Trident is actually part of his body

Quotes

 * "I'm Ashley, and I hope you find my microgames a Total Drag. Good luck trying not to embarrass yourself! (There's no way you'll ever, ever, EVER score over 30 points! Ever.)''
 * "Just drag stuff. Even you can do that."
 * (after seeing a picture book page depicting monsters) That's so cool!
 * "I'm... Ashley. You're wondering… what I'm up to? Just open your eyes... It'll all become clear."