Swordfigeter Peach is slashing with a rapier, a sword meant primarily for thrusting. You can slash with it, but it's not very good at it. So that's how good she is, he's using the wrong sword for what she's doing and it still works.
On the Pop Culture Ninja vs Real Nija debate, there's a third category you're leaving out: Folkloric/literary ninjas, the type that would appear in tall tales or the Japanese equivalent of pulp novels, who were... clans or villages of magic-using mercenaries who would do battle with each other using a mixture of martial arts and fantastical powers and selectively bred themselves to develop and maintain unique powers in their bodies, including special abilities only usable through the eyes.
Naruto was almost directly aping that. Lots of references to that ****: The Sanin were lifted directly from The Tale of The Gallant Young Thunder and with the comment about Sasuke having been named after the Third Hokage's father, that means that the Third Hokage's father would have been
Sarutobi Sasuke.
A thing I've noticed is that while all the horses in the cowgirl level are marionettes, the "good" horse has natural movement while the bad ones very much don't. Almost as if the puppeteers on Peach's side, being the actual performers she's helping, are dedicated professionals while the ones on the sour bunch's side have no idea what they're doing and thus can't make the movements convincingly as if they have only just begun to work with puppetry.
Pokemon Uranium was such an interesting concept but... I remember Team Four Star did a stream of it back in the heyday of their gaming channel, back when they were doing Nuzlocks, and they commented on how the narrative depicts the Rival trainer as a whiney brat, and in particular how you can talk to a mentor figure after beating him for the first time and the mentor says "oh, he's upset that you chose the stronger Pokemon?" and I wanna say it was Lani who said "and that's how you know it's a fan game."
Tuxedo Mask's relative uselessness in the orignal Sailor Moon Anime was a deviation from the manga. Dude had powers, he just was as strong. Endymion, his original incarnation, was the Prince of the Earth the same way Senshi's previous selves were the Princesses of the Moon and various planets. He wasn't as powerful as the Senshi, because only a girl could access the full power of a Sailor Planet Crystal, but he was still there, contributing. The Anime basically downplayed his role and also kind of crapped on him in general.
The OG Anime also downplayed the crap out of the power level of the Senshi compared to the manga. The Sailor Senshi were basically low-key Gods.
I remember Metabots.
