BombermanBoard

Plasma Bomber · #1 Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2008 11:10 pm

Well, for a few years or more I had wondered what the real names of those villains from the Virtual Boy game Panic Bomber were. I believe I may have mentioned that I looked at some Japanese manual scans and noted that the same set of Japanese characters in Pretty Bomber's name were also present in the other villains' names, which meant that they must have the word "Bomber" in their names. Therefore the Americanized names were not correct, probably not at all. Whether this was because of laziness, the tendency to Americanize names at the time, or just a creative tendency on the "translators'" parts, I didn't know. Nevertheless....

I saved the two character pages and was going to upload them and post them here in hopes of someone else translating just the names, but then I took the initiative to at least go out and try to translate them myself first. I don't know any Japanese and had never really translated it before, but I found a little website that has Japanese characters and their phonetic equivalents, and after finding that Pretty Bomber's name matched up correctly, I went away at the rest. Now if I with no previous knowledge or experience of this could just translate this in a half hour or so (much of the time spent trying to figure out the vampire's name), why couldn't professionals who are payed to do this.... do this? Oh well.

Anyway.... without further ado....

Firstly, the scans themselves. You'll find the character pages on 26 and 27, under the lower box labeled "JPN."

Obviously the first two translate as Bonba-man (Bomberman) and Puriti-Bonba (Pretty Bomber). Now for the rest:

US Name: Zach
Original: Bonba-Urufu- Wolf Bomber. Not to be confused with Bomber Woof.
Why Zach? That's my question.

US Name: Partz
Original: Monsutu-Bonba- Monster Bomber.

US Name: Rahtut
Original: Bonba-Mami - Deceiving Spirit Bomber.
Not exactly sure on how this should be put in English, beings as Mami is only four letters and the English equivalent is two words. Suggestions?

US Name: Count Draco-Boom
Original: Bonbaia - Bompire
This one took me forever to understand because it was all one word - no dash between the name and the word "Bomber." I got the name "Bonbaia" but it made no f@#$ing sense to me. Then I did a search for the Japanese equivalent of vampire and realized that it was a name pun. "Banpaia" is vampire in Japanese.
EDIT 3/15: So Bonbaia would really be Bompire in English, not Bomber Vampire.

Well there you have it. Sorry if I go a little too in depth on the largely unimportant details. I might try translating the character descriptions soon, and possibly the stuff in my SB3-4 manuals as well. Then again, it might get too complicated in those areas.

[EDIT:] I'm just going to start translating parts of all the manuals I can get a hold of, mainly the character, boss, and stage names, but possibly other parts as well.