2: Magic Tiger of the Mound

#2: Magic Tiger of the Mound is the second chapter of Travis Strikes Back. It depicts Travis Touchdown acquiring the Death Ball for Coffee & Doughnuts.

Summary

Travis and Jeane are on the road in Travis' motorcycle again, looking for the Death Balls. However, Jeane objects to telling this story in visual novel format, as the players buying Travis Strikes Again are expecting an action game. Travis tells Jeane that she can just quit if she cares that much about the game's reviews, but Jeane points out that not getting a good reception could result in the series ending here and No More Heroes III never being made. Travis proceeds with an abridged version of the story known as the Travis Strikes Back Digest, in which he narrates much of what happens rather than having it play out line by line.

Travis describes Coffee & Doughnuts and how it was a collaboration between Dr. Juvenile and the famous Taiwanese game developer Notsuma, most famous for his title Eternal Organic Battle. Juvenile, a fan of his, sent him fan mail and they came together to collaborate on a project. Notsuma wrote a scenario about a Resistance battling against a corrupt government, which was so good that it brought Juvenile to tears.

Travis meets with a Notsuma fanboy at a restaurant to try and get a lead on Coffee & Doughnuts. The fanboy talks for two hours about Notsuma, only after which Travis is able to ask. He is told that a doughnut chain called Texas Bronco purchased the Death Ball at an auction, and later manages to be invited to their HQ. He meets with the chain's owner in his fancy room. The owner knows Travis from the United Assassins Association ranking fights, which he paid large amounts of money to watch. As a fan of Travis', the owner is fine with giving him the Death Ball, and also wishes to make Badman's dream of resurrecting Bad Girl come true.

Travis is surprised that the owner even knows Badman, but finds out that the owner used to be a famous baseball pitcher, Nigel McAllister, who played on the Houston Astros with Badman before Nigel injured his arm playing. Travis is himself a fan of McAllister. Travis wraps up the Digest here, and Jeane compliments Travis on having "just the right amount of text", speculating that the game's Metacritic score has just went up due to it. The two head back home.

Trivia

• The chapter name, Magic Tiger of the Mound, probably refers to Nigel McAllister, who, in Diabolical Pitch, played for the Santa Destroy Red Tigers.
• The framing device of this chapter and the invention of the Digest is a reference to the future of the No More Heroes series; in many interviews prior to the game's release, Suda spoke about how No More Heroes III's existence was dependent on Travis Strikes Again selling, as they would need good sales to convince publishers to fund a larger game like III.
  • Metacritic is a website that aggregates review scores for various media, and is often looked to by prospective customers to get an idea of a work's reception. Suda's previous visual novels did not get very high review scores in the west, so Jeane's comments to tone down the text are reflective of wanting to get a higher score, and thus higher sales, to ensure III's existence. Travis' desire to disregard reception and Jeane reminding him of the realities of game development can be seen as reflective of Grasshopper and Suda's career-long conflict between their desire to embody a "punk" spirit and their need to stay afloat.
• Notsuma is a reference to Yasumi Matsuno, a game developer who, like the fictional Notsuma, is known for his strategy RPGs. "Notsuma" is "Matsuno" spelled backwards (in Japanese).
  • Eternal Organic Battle is likely named after Matsuno's Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen, which is known as Legendary Ogre Battle in Japan. Like the scenario Notsuma wrote, Ogre Battle is about a resistance fighting against a corrupt government.
• Texas Bronco first appeared as the text on a shirt worn by Andrei Ulmeyda and the Ulmeyda Smiles in killer7.