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Lost in Translation, Headcanon and the Western Japanese Game fan

If you played games in the 80's and 90's in the Western world, you had to use your imagination for a lot of your enjoyment. Looking at some some 2d 8/16 bit voiceless sprites, incredibly misleading box art and perhaps even more misleading TV adapations and commercials (Captain N, Super Mario Supershow etc), it was real real easy to get a wholly different conception than the authorial intent behind many beloved properties and characters. Especially the Japanese games which had a radically different aesthetic that wasn't super commonly known in the US yet, but really any game series was susceptible.

Moving into the Ps1/N64 era was a real eye opening shock for many of us. The graphics got better to where it was much harder to see something other than what was intended by the creator and if that didn't clue you the arrival of voice acting could be a real rude awakening.

Some series were more or less what you thought (e.g. Street Fighter, Sonic), some made a more gradual reveal (Final Fantasy, Zelda) and some just ripped the bandaid fucking all the way off (Metal Gear, Mario).

These are the ones that came to mind for me. Not intended as a value judgement, the characters are the characters. They were just different than how I personally conceived them.

Inspired by the now years old discussion best exemplified by Maddy Myers discussion on Samus Aran's personality at Paste

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2015/07/you-dont-know-samusand-neither-do-i.html

List items

  • When I heard Mega Man talk in MM8 for the first time, I was floored. Dude is a little kid! Which raises all kinds of uncomfortable questions about "Dr." Light. Are the "Men", that Mega Man fights also basically little kid robots? Is Mega Man just a glorified playground bully going around and beating up kids to take their stuff? Does Child Welfare know that Dr. Light has 2 small children bots at his place as servants?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmMispgpUs0&ab_channel=AZar027

  • My first experience with Mike Tyson was the video game version. So I was pretty surprised when I watched actual boxing and noticed he was short, he has a lisp, he was a hard charging puncher and that he has a taste for human flesh.

  • Playing MGS1 I realized very quickly that Metal Gear was a lot more verbose, philosophical and hella Anime than the GiJoe Bro Commando game series I thought it was back on the NES.

  • The clues were there if you were looking, if anything the gloves should have been a dead giveaway. But like most people I knew seeing & hearing Mario talk in 64 made me realize that he is video game's Mickey Mouse instead Middle Aged world weary Blue collar working stiff I thought he was.

  • And I guess Princess Toadstool... err Peach, is a nearly monosyllabic Minnie Mouse who just says her name over and over. Either that she's a secret Pokemon.

  • Luigi is actually not a surprise, I'm just including so he doesn't feel left out. He gets scared when left alone.

  • A whole lot blonder and wears a lot more low cut revealing clothing than I would have guessed from the NES Ninja Gaiden games.

  • I thought he was just an escaped Ape from a Zoo until DKC. Also thought he was taller.

  • Sonic is pretty much who I thought he was, his fandom however when I encountered them online for the first time was NOT at all what I expected.

  • Wait. "Kupo" is a word they say? Not a noise like the Chocobo's "kweh"?

  • Dragon Warrior sure looks different since it came back. It looks like they hired the Chrono Trigger artist.

  • One of Ocarina of Time's lesser talked aspects that helped cement it's worldwide success, was the way it subtly introduced a couple versions of Link that had universal appeal. So when Wind Waker introduced a radically different Link aesthetically, people seemed to feel especially betrayed. But what surprised me was to learn later, was that A) the wacky Zelda Timeline conspiracy theorists were right and B) that "Toon Link" was actually sincerely a different dude. WTF?

  • Learning Pac-Man had legs and arms (and red boots & gloves) was more upsetting to me than it should have been.

  • Maybe the last of these to occur for me given how late Other M happened. Samus really pulled the long con here, the Metroid Prime games was a brilliant feint that really solidified the taciturn stoic solitary hyper competent bounty hunter image in many Westerners' minds. If only we knew, that Nintendo had a radically different conception all along.
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