Mega Man/Trivia


 * Rockman was originally destined to be an arcade version of Astro Boy but when the deal fell through Infunae didn't want to give up on his dream so instead they re-sprited Rock (although he still looks like Astro Boy in the very first game) to be light & deep blue vs. the white and blue he was intended to be.
 * Rockman almost became Rainbow Man or Color-Man due to coloring trick that allowed his armor to change colors based on what weapon was equipped.
 * However the color change was a by product of a palette swap bug that happened when switching weapons during a test of the alpha of Rockman 1 -- the line of code was a mistake and it swapped the pallet from blue to silvery when Rolling Cutter was play tested; instead of fixing it they integrated it into all the other weapon switches and thus mutli-colored Rockman was born.
 * The theme names are as follows - Rock & Roll, Rush, Blues, Tango, Reggae, Forte, Gospel, Rightot, and Duo.
 * The American Renames only make sense half the time -> Rockman was turned to Mega Man (to avoid a copyright error with DC comics) Roll, Rush, Beat, Tango, Duo, and Reggae kept their names, but Blues was called Proto Man, Forte & Gospel were oddly renamed to Bass & Treble (for fear that Gospel would be to religious to Americans, and Rightot (which means Right-On-Target) was renamed to Auto.
 * Rockman's name change to Mega Man resulted in a Market-Based Title for every game in the series.
 * The Robot Masters have pre-programmed personalities but have zero free will, they emulate human emotions well but can't really make up their own minds.
 * Which brings up a YMMV moment with Rockman 9...

The series as a whole:

 * Bad Export for You: The Anniversary Collection versions of the Complete Works games did not have all the features from the Japanese versions.
 * Fan Nickname: The Blue Bomber, used for every incarnation with the sole exception of Zero, who is sometimes called the Crimson Red Reploid (some artbooks and fanfics dub him the Red Ripper). Also Mr. Clean for Sigma, and the Wily Eyebrow Thing for Dr. Wily's unusual taunt. Zero's weird green chest lights are also called the Booblights.
 * The Blue Bomber title was actually used in Star Force 2, interestingly enough.
 * It's also used as one of the achievements in 9, so presumably Capcom has said Sure, Why Not? about it.
 * The earliest mentions of the "Blue Bomber" nickname come from Nintendo Power back when it was still a house organ of Nintendo (specifically, the seventh issue, with 2 on the cover). Thus, it's one of the very few instances where the Fan Nickname was created by a company instead of the fandom.
 * And he's called the Blue Bomber because he's blue!
 * Follow the Leader: This series pretty much inspired both Touhou's Gaiden Game Mega Mari and the series Rosenkreuzstilette, and both know it.
 * Fountain of Expies:
 * All main characters in each series are based on Mega Man, and named after him, with the obvious exception of Zero.
 * All the future incarnations of Proto Man, including Zero who variably will play the role of The Lancer, Aloof Big Brother, or The Rival at various points in their respective series.
 * Like Roll's brothers, most series will have a blonde girl who dresses in either pink or red and acts as a sister, love interest, or mission control for The Hero. Alia, Roll Caskett, Roll.EXE, Ciel etc.
 * Ice Man's the first of many, many ice-themed robot masters.
 * For Fire Man, there are a lot of fire-based robot masters in future games.
 * Wood Man is the father of all shield based robot masters.
 * Hey, It's That Voice!: In the Ruby-Spears cartoon, Eddie is voiced by Scott McNeil and he sounds exactly like Waspinator.
 * Not to mention his voice for Proto Man is also the voice of Ken.
 * Likewise, Dr. Light in the cartoon is Merlin and Mega Man is Goku.
 * Name's the Same: The Masters to the original scientists, possibly as a deliberate Homage, Omega-Xis to Ax Crazy Omega, and lastly, Aile to Aile (minor NPC in Command Mission).
 * No Export for You: Capcom had no plans to release Great Adventure on 5 Islands! and Rockman DASH Golf overseas, yet.
 * The Other Darrin: In Japan, Mega Man's voice went from Hekiru Shiina (The Power Battle and The Power Fighters), to Ai Orikasa (8, Battle & Chase, and Super Adventure), to Kaoru Fujino ( ~Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash Of The Superheroes  and  Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age Of Heroes~ ), to Yumiko Kobayashi (Powered Up). In English, Ruth Shiraishi (who was also the voice of X in X4) in 8 to Cole Howard (Powered Up).
 * Dr. Light: Shozo Iizuka to Tomohisa Aso as of Powered Up and Maverick Hunter X.
 * On the English side, he went through a few actors before currently settling on Randall Wiebe (X8, Maverick Hunter X and Powered Up), who also voiced Earthrock Trilobyte and CWU-01P.
 * Proto Man: Ryotaro Okiayu in 8 was succeeded by Daisuke Sasaki in Powered Up. In the English releases, it went from Jack Evans (8) to Jonathan Love (who was also Burn Rooster in X8) in Powered Up.
 * Roll: Hiroko Konishi (8 and Battle & Chase) to Konami Yoshida (Super Adventure Rockman) to Yoshimi Ninomiya (Powered Up) to Hiromi Igarashi (Tatsunoko vs. Capcom).
 * In English, she was voiced by Michelle Gazepis in 8 (Gazepis was also Iris, Zero's Gwen Stacy, in X4) and Angie Beers in Powered Up.
 * Dr. Wily: In English, he was voiced by an unknown/uncredited VA for his brief cameo in Zero's intro from X4. In Powered Up, Dean Galloway, who was also Chill Penguin in Maverick Hunter X, voices him.
 * What Could Have Been: The Ruby-Spears cartoon's art style would have been identical to the original games' (that is, 4 and up), but it was ultimately decided that it wouldn't be very successful with it. And let's face it, Mega was way too cute for American boys in The Nineties. Its pilot of sorts was the three-episode "Upon a Star" OVA, but alas, They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot.
 * Are you kidding?! That OVA was an unintentional-hilarity-filled educational special that replaced a great deal of what you'd think should be in a Mega Man plot with its constant attempts at shoving lessons about Japan down peoples' throats, and such continuity errors as Mega Man being from America even in the Japanese version. Yes, its art-style was closer to that of the games, and maybe Americans wouldn't have minded a Super-Deformed hero as much as the staff thought, but the actual plot was brimming with problems and deserved to stay dead.
 * Also Mega Man Mania, which was going to be a GBA compilation with remakes of all the Game Boy games. It ended up being shelved due to some of the source code for the games being lost.
 * Mega Man Legends 3.
 * Let's also not forget Megaman Universe.

The video game series:

 * Executive Meddling: Why Mega Man 3 is one of Inafune's least favorites. He said that it could've been a much better game if the team was given more time to polish it, but Capcom wanted it released as soon as possible to capitalize on the momentum garnered from the second game, and he had to replace the head of production to complete it. However, the third game is still loved by most of the general public, though not as much as its predecessor.
 * Some even consider it better than Mega Man 2.
 * Name's the Same:
 * Wave Man, Oil Man, and Blade Man. Do you think of the DOS game robots, or the ones from 5, Powered Up, and 10, respectively?
 * The other bosses from 3 for MS-DOS were Torch Man, Shark Man, and Bit Man. Torch Man was the name given to Fireman.EXE in the Mega Man NT Warrior Anime and Manga, Shark Man is a boss from the first Battle Network game, and an X-Hunter type boss called Bit attacks X in X3.
 * In Japan, Bomb Man's name is Bomberman.
 * The DOS Mega Man 3 also has a Wave Man.
 * No Export for You: A couple of games, but most notably...
 * Wily and Right's RockBoard: That's Paradise, released for the Famicom (the Japanese version of the NES), which was basically Monopoly with Mega Man characters. It never saw a US release because Nintendo of America believed it would promote gambling among children. Also notable for being a Mega Man game that does not feature Mega Man as a playable character.
 * The Wily Wars--or MegaWorld in Japan--was only made available in the US through the Sega Channel, but when the service ended, you were out of luck if you were living in the US (unless you happen to have an emulator, or a Game Genie, which can bypass the regional lockouts of imported titles). The game saw an actual release--y'know, an actual cartridge--in Japan and Europe, but in a move that defied logic, it never saw that kind of release in the US.
 * Mega Man And Bass, or Rockman And Forte, which was one of the last games for the Super Famicom (the SNES's Japanese counterpart), having been released in 1998. It never saw a release outside of Japan until 2002-2003 when it was ported to the Game Boy Advance.
 * Super Adventure Rockman, an "interactive movie game" that combines text-based adventure gameplay with that of a First-Person Shooter and features Anime cutscenes. Notable for being much Darker and Edgier in tone than other games in the classic series, and as such was apparently disowned by Inafune himself, who thought it contrasted with the mood of other games a little too much.
 * Battle And Chase, which saw Mega Man go-karting with Dr. Wily; initially released only in Japan and Europe for the original PlayStation before being made playable elsewhere as an unlockable game in the PlayStation 2/Game Cube's Mega Man X Collection.
 * Official Fan Submitted Content: Monster designs are often from contests.
 * Remade for the Export: The GBA version of Mega Man & Bass.
 * Uncanceled: 9 might have just been one for the fans, but its sales numbers revived the series, and 10 has been released.
 * What Could Have Been:
 * The first game was originally intended to have eight Robot Masters like the rest of the series. When the decision came to cut the number down to six, only seven designs were fleshed out, and Bond Man, a glue Robot Master, had to be cut. Bond Man had since gained a cult following in Japan, and even Keiji Inafune has taken a liking to him. He was briefly under consideration to be one of the new bosses in Powered Up, but Inafune felt it would be better for him to remain mythic and unofficial. More information on Bond Man can be found here.
 * Putting aside Bond Man, you have the Robot Master fan submissions that were used as the basis for the new Masters from 2 to 8; there are roughly 750,000 Robot Masters who were at one point or another under consideration for the games. While some of the rejects got used eventually (see Development Gag in the videogame page), the vast majority of them are unknown to everyone who didn't directly sift through the postcards.
 * Only the gods know how a possible opening sequence in Mega Man 3 would have looked like, but the slow first part of the title theme is a clear indicator that they had planned one for the game.
 * According to Mega Man Official Complete Works, the original concept for Top Man and his stage was lost when someone tripped over a power cord and the information hadn't been properly saved. It took three days to reconstruct it, and Inafune openly wonders in the book what things would have been like if the original concept survived (among other things, maybe the Top Spin wouldn't be a Joke Weapon/Lethal Joke Weapon).
 * Bass and Treble were originally going to be named Baroque (バロック, Barokku) and Crash (クラッシュ, Kurasshu) in early designs, a play on the names Rock (ロック, Rokku) and Rush (ラッシュ, Rasshu). This would emphasized their role as rivals to Mega Man and Rush. As you can see, their prototype designs were also quite different from the final result.

Cartoon series:

 * Bad Export for You: Only the first episode was released in Japan, and it was sub-only. (Supposedly, it did get a Japanese dub later, but the sources that claim this never have any proof--not even The Other Wiki.)
 * Executive Meddling: See What Could Have Been.
 * Fake American: Almost, if not, all of the voice actors are Canadians voicing Americans.
 * Fan Nickname
 * "Kung-Fu Cut Man" is generally used to refer to this version of Cut Man, who nicknamed himself this as he prepared to fight Roll. This happened in the time travel episode, with a future version of Cutman using this name.
 * "Scooby Rush" for this interpration of Mega's robo-canine Rush, who acts a lot like Scooby Doo.
 * Hey, It's That Voice!: Scott McNeil (Duo Maxwell, the incarnation of Ken Masters infamous for calling Fei Long a loser) as Dr. Wily, Protoman and Eddie (Flip-Top). In fact, since The Ocean Group provided the voice actors, you'll probably be thinking this to yourself a couple times.
 * Hey, did you forget about Ian Corlett, aka Canadian Goku, as Mega Man?
 * And Snake Man, thus making the Freaky Friday Flip episode that much more amusing.
 * Also Cut Man is Terry Klassen, who was the Ocean Dub voice of Krillin from DragonballZ. This makes a lot of sense when you consider that Cut Man and Krillin are both short, have a lot of orange in their color schemes, get beaten more than other characters, and have cutting attacks as their signature move.
 * Talking to Himself: McNeil in scenes with Wily and Proto Man.
 * What Could Have Been: An earlier pitch for the series featured a much more faithful Anime art direction inspired by the Japanese artwork of the games. The reasoning behind the characters' muscularization in the final version of the series is because boys, the show's target audience in the US, did not gravitate very well towards the cuter art-style. Flash forward to a few years later, where not only has the US become more accepting of anime, but they have made immensely successful cartoons that have extremely Animesque art directions. Hilarious in Hindsight, indeed.
 * According to this interview, originally Dr. Wily was to have a British accent, and Protoman was to have been voiced by Ian James Corlett, Mega Man's voice actor. Wily's design was also more faithful to the games, and Protoman had a red belt instead of torso armor.

The film version:

 * Doing It for the Art: A lot of work and money went into this movie considering that (A) the the creators cannot legally make any money off of it and (B) Capcom could destroy it at any time with a single phone call.
 * Capcom hasn't (And can't) officially endorsed this movie, but they have actively said that they don't mind it, during the production, so at least they were decently safe from B partway through filming.
 * Capcom is one of the more laid back companies when it comes to this sort of thing. They're almost certainly aware of, for example, the Sprite Comic community started by Bob and George, but have done nothing to stop it. Bob and George's author reportedly had some correspondance with Capcom at one point that amounted to Capcom going, "Hey, it's in good fun and you're giving us free advertising. We can't legally say we approve of it, but we're not going to stop you, so go right ahead."
 * Hey, It's That Voice!: Sonicmega, the voice actor for Gutsman, has appeared in various fandubs on YouTube, most notably, a FF IX fandub where he voices Steiner.

The Archie comics:

 * Shown Their Work: In an interview, Ian Flynn said that he did plenty of research on the Mega Man series, from reading the wiki to seeing gameplays. He even manages to insert Fire Man's southern accent from Powered Up.