I will not be moved!
Pointless trivia about Mega Man. I may have done this before, but I'm doing it again anyway.
Some of the names considered for the main character in development were Battle Kid, Mighty Kid and Knuckle Kid. The first game was originally going to be called The Battle Rainbow Rock Man, in reference to Rock/Mega Man changing colours when he used a different Robot Master power.
Zero was originally the design for Mega Man X. Keiji Inafune designed the main character of the Mega Man X series to look like Zero originally, but it was thought that having the main character look too different from classic Mega Man might alienate fans, so the original X design was reworked as a different character and Inafune made the actual Mega Man X look closer to his classic counterpart. Inafune would get his wish to have Zero be the main character when the MegaMan Zero series began.
Fans argue about whether or not the Zero from the Mega Man X games and the Zero from the MegaMan Zero games are the same character, due to their different design and MegaMan Zero being an alternate continuity from the X games. This was given a nod in Zero's ending in Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds, where Zero flat out states "I'm Zero, not MegaMan Zero." However, Marvel vs. Capcom games are not considered canon to the Mega Man universe.
Mega Man X4 was intended to be the final game in the series, but Capcom wanted to continue making more because of how profitable the series was. This led Keiji Inafune to leave Capcom and start work on MegaMan Zero on the Game Boy Advance.
Mega Man's blue colour scheme is due to the NES, since it has a limited colour palette with a slightly larger selection of blues than any other colour, and the designers wanted the most detailed sprite possible for the character.
In Japanese, Vile's name is VAVA, which given his appearance is almost certainly based on Boba Fett, the famous bounty hunter from the Star Wars movies. It was most likely changed to avoid copyright issues.
One of the X-Hunters in X2 had his name mistranslated - Serges was originally Sagesse, which means "wisdom".
In the voice acting for Mega Man 8, Bass's name is incorrectly pronounced "bass", like the fish, rather than "base" like the musical term. This has led a lot of fans to insist that it actually is pronounced "bass", despite the fact that most of the characters in Mega Man are named after musical terms, and Bass's partner is named Treble.
Speaking of mistranslation, a line in X5 confused many English-speaking fans - namely, when X apologises for what happened to someone called Octopardo. Who? It turns out he's actually talking about Launch Octopus, a Maverick boss in the first Mega Man X game, and "Octopardo" was a misspelling of his Japanese name, Launcher Octopuld.
And speaking of translation in Mega Man X5, in the American version the Maverick bosses were named after the band members of Guns N' Roses. This was a translation choice by Alyson Court, one of the translators for the game, who put the references in since her husband was a fan of the band. She knew next to nothing about Mega Man and just happened coincidentally to put a musical reference into a game series that was already full of them.
Crescent Grizzly became Grizzly Slash (from lead guitarist Saul Hudson, a.k.a. Slash)
Volt Kraken became Squid Adler (from drummer Steven Adler)
Shining Hotarunicus became Izzy Glow (from rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin)
Tidal Makkoeen became Duff McWhalen (from bassist Duff McKagan)
Spiral Pegacion became The Skiver (from Michael "High in the Sky" Monroe, real name Matti Antero Kristian Fagerholm, lead singer of the band Hanoi Rocks and a friend of Guns N' Roses who's collaborated with them a few times)
Spike Rosered became Axle the Red (from vocalist Axl Rose)
Dark Necrobat became Dark Dizzy (from keyboardist Darren Arthur Reed, a.k.a. Dizzy Reed)
Burn Dinorex became Mattrex (from Matt Sorum, who replaced Steven Adler on drums)
A certain boss in Mega Man X8 is named Gigavolt Man-O-War in dialogue and in the manual, but Gigabolt Man-O-War on his splash screen when selecting his stage. This is due to the B/V confusion in Japanese.
The male and female leads of the Mega Man Battle Network games (called RockMan.EXE in Japan) are named Netto and Meiru in Japanese, which are puns on the English terms net (as in internet) and mail (as in email). The English translation kept the spirit alive by changing Netto to Lan (as in LAN, Local Area Network) and Meiru to Mayl, which still sounds like "mail" and also looks like a girl's name. Unfortunately, the English dub of the anime sort of ruined this, as they called the girl Maylu in order to make it fit the lip flaps.
In the English translations of the Mega Man Battle Network games and anime, AquaMan.EXE is renamed to SpoutMan in order to avoid copyright issues with DC Comics.
Other name changes that have happened throughout the series include:
Obviously, Rockman to Mega Man (which ruined the pun on his girlfriend being named Roll, as in Rock and Roll)
Blues to Protoman
Forte to Bass
Gospel to Treble
Eddie to Flip-Top, and then back to Eddie again
YamatoMan to JapanMan
FootMan to GridMan
SwallowMan to LarkMan
KillerMan to EraseMan
Dream Virus to Life Virus
In the anime, BeastMan was renamed SavageMan, FireMan became TorchMan, ColourMan became WackoMan (possibly the name "ColourMan" might have been misconstrued as racist), PlantMan became VineMan, NeedleMan became SpikeMan and StarMan became NovaMan.
In the MMBN games, the HeelNavi enemies were mistranslated as HealNavi. These are big muscular brutes with spikes on their shoulders, who have nothing to do with healing at all.
The Mega Man Battle Network games overall suffer from very shoddy translation and a complete lack of proofreading - grammar and spelling mistakes abound, such as "Leg's go!", "Want to saver your progress?" and "Be areful Lan!", and just general mistranslations, such as "I'm on flames!" and Lan asking Mister Famous "What am I, Mister Famous, doing here?" instead of "What are you doing here, Mister Famous?" The best line has to be "What a polite young man she was!" in reference to the (admittedly very androgynous) character Ran.
Some of the names considered for the main character in development were Battle Kid, Mighty Kid and Knuckle Kid. The first game was originally going to be called The Battle Rainbow Rock Man, in reference to Rock/Mega Man changing colours when he used a different Robot Master power.
Zero was originally the design for Mega Man X. Keiji Inafune designed the main character of the Mega Man X series to look like Zero originally, but it was thought that having the main character look too different from classic Mega Man might alienate fans, so the original X design was reworked as a different character and Inafune made the actual Mega Man X look closer to his classic counterpart. Inafune would get his wish to have Zero be the main character when the MegaMan Zero series began.
Fans argue about whether or not the Zero from the Mega Man X games and the Zero from the MegaMan Zero games are the same character, due to their different design and MegaMan Zero being an alternate continuity from the X games. This was given a nod in Zero's ending in Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds, where Zero flat out states "I'm Zero, not MegaMan Zero." However, Marvel vs. Capcom games are not considered canon to the Mega Man universe.
Mega Man X4 was intended to be the final game in the series, but Capcom wanted to continue making more because of how profitable the series was. This led Keiji Inafune to leave Capcom and start work on MegaMan Zero on the Game Boy Advance.
Mega Man's blue colour scheme is due to the NES, since it has a limited colour palette with a slightly larger selection of blues than any other colour, and the designers wanted the most detailed sprite possible for the character.
In Japanese, Vile's name is VAVA, which given his appearance is almost certainly based on Boba Fett, the famous bounty hunter from the Star Wars movies. It was most likely changed to avoid copyright issues.
One of the X-Hunters in X2 had his name mistranslated - Serges was originally Sagesse, which means "wisdom".
In the voice acting for Mega Man 8, Bass's name is incorrectly pronounced "bass", like the fish, rather than "base" like the musical term. This has led a lot of fans to insist that it actually is pronounced "bass", despite the fact that most of the characters in Mega Man are named after musical terms, and Bass's partner is named Treble.
Speaking of mistranslation, a line in X5 confused many English-speaking fans - namely, when X apologises for what happened to someone called Octopardo. Who? It turns out he's actually talking about Launch Octopus, a Maverick boss in the first Mega Man X game, and "Octopardo" was a misspelling of his Japanese name, Launcher Octopuld.
And speaking of translation in Mega Man X5, in the American version the Maverick bosses were named after the band members of Guns N' Roses. This was a translation choice by Alyson Court, one of the translators for the game, who put the references in since her husband was a fan of the band. She knew next to nothing about Mega Man and just happened coincidentally to put a musical reference into a game series that was already full of them.
Crescent Grizzly became Grizzly Slash (from lead guitarist Saul Hudson, a.k.a. Slash)
Volt Kraken became Squid Adler (from drummer Steven Adler)
Shining Hotarunicus became Izzy Glow (from rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin)
Tidal Makkoeen became Duff McWhalen (from bassist Duff McKagan)
Spiral Pegacion became The Skiver (from Michael "High in the Sky" Monroe, real name Matti Antero Kristian Fagerholm, lead singer of the band Hanoi Rocks and a friend of Guns N' Roses who's collaborated with them a few times)
Spike Rosered became Axle the Red (from vocalist Axl Rose)
Dark Necrobat became Dark Dizzy (from keyboardist Darren Arthur Reed, a.k.a. Dizzy Reed)
Burn Dinorex became Mattrex (from Matt Sorum, who replaced Steven Adler on drums)
A certain boss in Mega Man X8 is named Gigavolt Man-O-War in dialogue and in the manual, but Gigabolt Man-O-War on his splash screen when selecting his stage. This is due to the B/V confusion in Japanese.
The male and female leads of the Mega Man Battle Network games (called RockMan.EXE in Japan) are named Netto and Meiru in Japanese, which are puns on the English terms net (as in internet) and mail (as in email). The English translation kept the spirit alive by changing Netto to Lan (as in LAN, Local Area Network) and Meiru to Mayl, which still sounds like "mail" and also looks like a girl's name. Unfortunately, the English dub of the anime sort of ruined this, as they called the girl Maylu in order to make it fit the lip flaps.
In the English translations of the Mega Man Battle Network games and anime, AquaMan.EXE is renamed to SpoutMan in order to avoid copyright issues with DC Comics.
Other name changes that have happened throughout the series include:
Obviously, Rockman to Mega Man (which ruined the pun on his girlfriend being named Roll, as in Rock and Roll)
Blues to Protoman
Forte to Bass
Gospel to Treble
Eddie to Flip-Top, and then back to Eddie again
YamatoMan to JapanMan
FootMan to GridMan
SwallowMan to LarkMan
KillerMan to EraseMan
Dream Virus to Life Virus
In the anime, BeastMan was renamed SavageMan, FireMan became TorchMan, ColourMan became WackoMan (possibly the name "ColourMan" might have been misconstrued as racist), PlantMan became VineMan, NeedleMan became SpikeMan and StarMan became NovaMan.
In the MMBN games, the HeelNavi enemies were mistranslated as HealNavi. These are big muscular brutes with spikes on their shoulders, who have nothing to do with healing at all.
The Mega Man Battle Network games overall suffer from very shoddy translation and a complete lack of proofreading - grammar and spelling mistakes abound, such as "Leg's go!", "Want to saver your progress?" and "Be areful Lan!", and just general mistranslations, such as "I'm on flames!" and Lan asking Mister Famous "What am I, Mister Famous, doing here?" instead of "What are you doing here, Mister Famous?" The best line has to be "What a polite young man she was!" in reference to the (admittedly very androgynous) character Ran.
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