Overwatch players finally got their first look at Echo’s cosmetics as part of a March 31 PTR patch, and there’s plenty of interesting references to movies, anime and memes hidden within.
Just as with most of the post-launch heroes, there’s a wealth of Overwatch spins on entertainment properties that can be quite amusing, if you spot them.
To kick things off, Echoe’s Butterfly spray is a clear reference to the “Is this a Pigeon” meme, featuring Katori Yutaro from anime ‘Brave of the Sun Fighbird.’
For those out of the loop, the meme is a screenshot from the anime series where the confused character looks at a butterfly and asks, “Is this a pigeon?” The meme often replaces Yutaro, the butterfly and the pigeon text to something more relevant to the meme. It’s often used sarcastically.
With Echo’s spray, she makes the exact same pose as Yutaro, grin and all, while a butterfly hovers above her outreached hand.
Next, her “Kung Fu” spray is a reference to the scene in the first Matrix movie, where actor Keanu Reeves stars as Neo. While onboard Morpheus’ ship, the Nebuchadnezzar, Numerous fighting exercises are uploaded to Neo’s brain, causing him to proudly proclaim, “I know kung fu.”
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Moving onto highlight intros, the Maneuvers highlight contains a couple of Dragon Ball Z references near the very end. First, when she charges a beam attack, her pose is very similar to Goku’s when he performed the warp kamehameha against Cell.
While Echo doesn’t teleport, she instead switches stances to something similar to Gohan’s masenko blast.
Finally, as Overwatch TMZ redditor ‘IsASarcasticBastard’ pointed out, the Stasis victory pose could be a reference to retired Overwatch League pro Felix ‘xQc’ Lengyel’s finger stance. However, it also could be a callback to Mewtwo from Pokemon: The First Movie, as both he and Echo were created in a lab. Speaking of which, here’s how you can watch that movie and all the others, for free.
There’s probably even more references that we missed. Be sure to check out all of Echo’s cosmetics for yourself either on the PTR or when she hits the live servers.
So far, there’s no indication as to when that will be, but with the experimental card now a feature in Overwatch, she may get some additional testing there before finally getting added to competitive.