While I was surfing YouTube for Rhythm Heaven Fever songs I came across a few of the Japanese versions. Eventually I found a game that wasn't in the North American release in any capacity. Patrick joked in the Quick Look about rejected Rhythm Heaven game concepts. And while this doesn't exactly qualify as rejected, there is at least one game that didn't make it through translation for English audiences. The Japanese version has an endless game with two birds doing a stand up routine called Manzai. I don't claim to be an expert but it involves a straight man-funny man duo and some physical comedy. I'm sure Wikipedia can offer more specific information if you need it.

But anyway, thanks to the magic of YouTube, you can catch the game in action below.

I know at the very least that Manzai is a product of Japanese culture and gives it a very specific audience where the humor probably doesn't take elsewhere. But considering how crazy some of the mini-games get (Donk-Donk and Bossa Nova comes to mind) I'm somewhat surprised they just didn't throw it in and let people figure it out for themselves. People's sense of humor is a lot like taste in music and artistic preference where you could argue forever without coming to a consensus. It just depends from person to person.

The word on the street says that this was replaced with Mr. Upbeat and I just wanted to get a feel from GiantBomb what people think about it. Considering Manzai Birds was an unlockable side game and not part of the core tiers, I think they could have gotten away with a dash of distinctly Japanese flavor off to the side. On the other hand... Manzai Birds appears to be pretty dialogue heavy unlike most of the other games in Rhythm Heaven Fever. I have a mental picture of the translation team throwing their hands up and going "Forget it! Put another game in there." I think it would have been interesting to try out. At the very least one of those unlockable rewards that kind of mock the player at the same time. Similar to getting the Log in Guitar Hero 2.

That is interesting. It reminds me of when host clubs were taken out of Yakuza 3. I was aware of that style of comedy but never knew the name of it until now. I would like Japanese culture-y things such as manzai comedy and host clubs to stay in translation.

I imagine that the reasoning behind taking it out had something to do with the actual dialogue of the manzai birds. Jokes are notoriously difficult to translate across languages, and any translation made in this case would not only have to fit the subject matter of the manzai birds, but would also have to remain in rhythm with the music.

@Hailinel: Yeah, I guess it goes beyond "make up something funny to fit this situation". And then have to make it fit the beat on top of that. The time and effort to make that work probably couldn't fit into their schedule. I wonder how long they had to translate Fever? Probably not long.