I've been meaning to do this for the last couple days. For those who care to know, there are going to be two new additions to the Kuriboh family coming out in Japan. One is part of the Dimension of Chaos booster set being released in Japan this Saturday, and the other is a promo card.
Ever since the original Kuriboh showed up in Yugi's ill-fated duel with Kaiba in Duelist Kingdom, several little variations of it have popped up throughout the entire franchise. But these two variations are the most interesting ones I've seen yet.
Kuriball: For some reason, Kuriball's design seems to be based on The Winged Dragon of Ra - Sphere Mode. Why, I do not know. Appearances aside though, Kuriball has a pretty nice primary effect. Just by discarding it, you can change an attacking monster to Defense Mode and prevent what could be a major setback. Kuriball's secondary effect on the other hand, seems to be geared towards supporting Ritual Monsters by allowing players to use it as a Graveyard sacrifice. Why Kuriball has this effect, once again I do not know. I'm guessing it might have something to do with the fact that Kuriball is being released in a set full of new cards related to the original version of Black Luster Solider, since in the anime and manga the original Kuriboh was used as a sacrifice to summon said Ritual Monster.
Sakuriboh: With the name this little ball of fur has, one would think that it was some kind of cherry blossom-themed version of Kuriboh. Oddly enough though, that's simply not the case. Sakuriboh's name is actually a combination of Kuriboh and Sacrifice, which is the original Japanese name of Maximillion Pegasus's ace monster, Relinquished. In fact, Sakuriboh's claws are like the claws of Relinquished, and the back of the little guy's head/body has the front of Relinquished's eyeball/head. This seems to have something to do with how Kuriboh was one of the monsters Yugi used to defeat Thousand Eyes Restrict. Sakuriboh seems designed to be used as a sacrificial offering for Relinquished and as a layer of protection when Relinquished loses whatever monster its equipped with at the time. Of course with the way Sakuriboh's effects are written, it can potentially be used for other purposes.
The interesting thing about both these monsters is that they seem to be geared towards supporting Ritual Monsters, which could signify some kind of comeback for said type of monster card. Only time will tell, I guess.
