Hey board, been so long I doubt anyone recalls me! More importantly, I've got a question that's been bugging me for... well, *years*.

I'll always take the original Japanese names over whatever they were turned into in the west, but... I've never been able to find Romaji for these guys' names. I know there's already confusion over Fire/Golem Bomber... But what's he *really* called? Faiabon? Gouremu Bonbaa??

...So I'd really appreciate it if some of you nice folks could gimme a hand in decoding the true identities of the Five Bad/Dastardly/Naughty/Not That Nice Bombers. ...Including what they're actually called as a group!  

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Or what exactly they are really, since the manual makes it a point that they are "cybernetic beings".
I mean, I guess I can understand what that's supposed to mean, but a little bit of explicitly stated backstory would not have hurt.

Anyway, nice to see you again pal  

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Metroid: Other M - As in "There's the good Metroid games... we chose to do one of some Other Make altogether."

I have the original Japanese Super Bomberman 3 manual, so I'll be glad to show you that yes, they're exactly what they've been called in the west. Oh, and about the "Fire Bomber" thing, that was just a manual error, he is explicitly referred to as Golem Bomber in the storyline page. If you look at that page with all five of them and their boss machines, you'll also see that Plasma Bomber's machine (final boss) is shown instead of Pretty Bomber's (sun), at least in the American version.

Now:

マグネツトボンバ - Magunetsuto Bonba - Magnet Bomber
ゴ-レムボンバ- Goremu Bonba - Golem Bomber
プリテイ-ボンバ- Puriti Bonba - Pretty Bomber
ブレインボンバ- Burein Bonba - Brain Bomber
プラズマボンバ- Purazuma Bonba - Plasma Bomber (If you're wondering about the lightning bolt, lightning is a form of plasma, or at least plasma is present in it)

Also:

プロフェツサ- バグラ - Purofetsuso Bagura - Professor Bagura

For some time now, I've been under the impression that they are called the Five Heinous Bombers. However - and yeah, sorry about this switch again, but it seems accurate - they are really the Five Fiendish Bombers.

From the Super Bomberman 3 manual:

凶悪 ボンバ -
凶悪 translates as "Fiendish" or "Villainous." Try here or url=http://www.saiga-jp.com/kanji_dictionary.html]here[/url].

In any case it's not Dastardly, I hate that name.

As for what they are, I am quite sure they are human cyborgs, evidenced in about four ways:
1) The helmets. They are not traditional Bomberman helmets, they are more rounded and have chins.
2) SB3 password screen, you can see Pretty Bomber's face (which looks nothing like Honey, mind you), and it is human.
3) Max is a human from Phantarion, who was turned into a Bomberman cyborg because of events involving the Five Fiendish Bombers. Hmm.... Brain Bomber, anyone?
4) In the story manga for SB3, on the line right below the one I translated above, is another line, which I have not fully translated. What I can show is this:
5 人 _ よつ!
The blank space indicates a kanji I am currently unable to find. The 5 is obvious; the next character, though, is 人 which, by itself, means "person" or "human."

Also, if you'll remember, at the end of Super Bomberman 2, when the ship explodes, Shiro falls back to Earth. In the intro to Super Bomberman 3, Bagura flies to Earth to pick up the Fiendish Bombers, NOT the middle of space. Ergo, the Fiendish Bombers (along with their wreckage) fell to Earth as well. I'm stating this because someone earlier had thought they'd been thrown into a trash dump or something of the like, and I'm certain that's not true. They likely survived the fall, though needed reparation by Bagura.

If I can find that missing kanji, I'll get back to you about that. Also, if anyone has the Japanese Super Bomberman 2 manual, I'd very much appreciate scans the story and character pages, if at all possible. I have the entire SB3 manual scanned also, if anyone wants/needs it.

Oh yes, and welcome back to the board.  

EDIT: Here is the panel with the text I translated in the latter portion of this post. I'm looking at the third line, and yeah, I'd like to know what exactly those tiny prints above each line are for.

http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/9061/bagurapanel.png

The furigana above each line is to allow people that don't know the kanji to be able to read it, it's common in japan for furigana to be put above, below or to the side of kanji- depending on which way the text is being written. As for a translation to that text, I just did a quick read of it and translated what it sounded like.

Revive them(I'll bring them back)!! Today, I'll go with 5 evil bombers!

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"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they're not entitled to their own facts."

....What.

You mean I can translate this all on my own?! Awesome, and thanks!

First panel of the manga:

"Far away on the other side of the universe, Bomber Galaxy..."

I'll do the whole freaking thing now!   Thanks again, bro!

Hey, thanks for that, it's a relief to finally put "Fire Bomber" behind me!   And hey Serkol, I remember our constant banter about the ideal Bombergame!  

Oh, but wait, is that one of the Dark Force Bombers still called Fire Bomber? And are they even called the DAAKU FOUSU BONBAAZU, or...? Dang, every answer opens up more questions! May as well make this the "All Bad, Villainous, Dastardly and Not-So-Good Bombers of Every Creed and Colour" thread!

...Then there's the Eight Fiendish Bombers from SBM5, the Bombolympics competitors from BM Online, the Crush Bombers from Generations... Not to mention the giant robot bosses (I recently decided that Pretty Bomber's mech in SBM3 is called "Gamebuku", a mixture of "kame" (turtle / Game, as in Gamera) and "buku" (bubbling sound), please correct me if I'm wrong!)... Jeez, I've opened up a can of boss-sized worms.  

EDIT: And while we're at it, I can't find a thread I started last time I was here about the names of the Neo Bomberman characters. I seem to recall that the ninja-esque one was Hayate Bomber, the slimy one was... Slime... Bomber... but most (including the villain; the blue bomber with a golden trim) escape me. Anyone know what I'm talking about?  

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Ugh, do we have to recognize them as legit characters? They were just the 4 bomber Kings & Ghost very very badly re-designed

I'm quite sure that most Bomberman characters are correctly named; especially the Japanese-only ones as they had to be translated by fans. And yeah, all the SB4 characters are correctly named (it's Great Bomber not Ghost Bomber).

As for the Neo characters, the evil Bomberman was Atomic Bomber, I don't have a Japanese version so I can't check. I do however know that the evil Bombermen from the Virtual Boy edition of Panic Bomber were Americanized, and their translated names are in my translation topic, as you know.

While your Pretty Bomber boss machine theory makes sense, unfortunately the name doesn't. It's definately "Gamepuku", the symbol has a circle at the corner, not an accent, so it's a "pu" not a "bu". Sorry.  

And yeah, I agree with you too Hammer Bomber. They're kinda annoying. But, that's how it goes. Never seen the Japanese version though, so maybe they're not as obnoxious in that one.... but, then again they made Golem Bomber sound like a total doofus in Saturn Bomberman Fight! so I guess they're probably the same....

Or revived, why not? Begular himself is later revived from a floppy disk back up, and he has an organic brain.

Also isn't it kind of weird that the five had their areas blown up at different times (as Shiro made his way through the spaceship) yet they all ended up in what looks very much like a dumpster?


Oh, so it IS galaxy, not Nebula? Figures  


Yep. And don't forget also Flame Bomber.


I'm pretty sure those were the Brutal Bombers.


Rubber Bomber.


Atomic Bomber. Then there were the kitty (Kitty Bomber? Even I don't recall) and Fake Bomber who could turn into a block (not to be confused with Fake Bomberman from Super Bomberman).

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Metroid: Other M - As in "There's the good Metroid games... we chose to do one of some Other Make altogether."

That's true - although still very weird. Bomberman Hero was too Star Wars spoof-ish for me, what with the princess and robot escaping, the giant Death/Garaden Star, Bagura all Vader-esque, retrieving the data disks....


And? This is Bomberman we're talking about, I don't think Hudson would take such details into consideration. I never had thought that it was a dumpster, in fact before our previous discussion on this I had always thought that it was the scraps from the ship floating around the planet. Why would they throw them in a dumpster? That's just weird.


The translation is either "nebula" OR "galaxy." Reference. Though the first Kanji means "constellation" and the second means "cloud", so I guess Nebula makes more sense in context.


Cat Bomber.

And I guess by Fake Bombermen in SB1 you mean those chameleon enemies? Or the actual robot Bombermen?