Rockman Megamix
© N/A
Blue Bombing the Manga Scene
By: Janet HouckDate: Wednesday, April 11, 2007
The combination of a video game and a manga can be as delightful as the union of peanut butter and chocolate … but then again it can also akin to the union of a hot poker and an eyeball. The success of the transition depends on the game that’s being adapted, and even more depends on how much that particular manga-ka feels obligated to screw around with established plot lines and characters.
Mega Man, the little blue robot hero who got his start on the Nintendo Entertainment System, has been around for 20 years. Aside from entertaining you with his games and making you feel old, he and his various incarnations have starred in several manga over the years. One such manga, based on the Game Boy series Mega Man: NT Warrior was brought over to America by Viz some time ago and volume ten was just recently published. I’m obligated to mention NT Warrior because my husband helped bring it over to the US.
The Big M
NT Warrior happens to be the manga Viz chose to license, but there are many more paper-and-ink adventures of Mega Man … rather, “Rockman”, as he’s known in Japan. By far the highest quality publication is Rockman Megamix, written and drawn by Hitoshi Ariga, who also worked on the Big O manga.
Ariga adds his own touches and adorns the Rockman series’ famous robots with even more personality. Shadowman, the ninja robot master from Rockman 3, can “teleport” from shadow to shadow. Skullman, the bony robot master who haunted Rockman 4, acts a creepy sort of Grim Reaper role. And Brightman, likewise from Rockman 4, is just an all-out coward.
Even the evil scientist Doctor Wily is given a little more personality. In Rockman Megamix, he’s outfitted in stylish shades and (oh boy) a skeleton tie. It goes surprisingly well with his lab coat and jeans.
Interestingly, Ariga also turned Wily into a little more of a sympathetic character than he is in the Rockman games. He still stands for everything bad in the world and he has no qualms about altering robots to do his bidding … but at the same time, he fights to protect them (except when he needs them to go on the front lines to do his dirty work, of course). He doesn’t take up pages and pages with the same verbal and physical abuse you usually see an Evil Guy dish out on his underlings.
Ariga has also tried his hand with a short manga based around the Rockman X series called “Mega Mission.” The story follows X and his friend Zero as they battle old enemies, resurrected and enhanced by a twisted Reploid named Doctor Doppler. In the manga, X is also forced to overcome “iX”—a personification of his darker side
In the end, X asks Zero where Reploids go when they die. They go to Heck of course. But let’s focus on finding out humanity’s final destination first, shall we?
Rockman X Manga
Other popular manga-ka who became well-known for their renditions of the Rockman X series include Yoshihiro Iwamoto and Shigeto Ikehara. Iwamoto remains the most recognised artists; his wispy style is distinctive and garners opinions from lovers and haters. Zero, in particular, is made to look very much like a girl. X has a strange personality quirk going on where he cries a lot, and the regal Reploid Storm Eagle has a girlfriend named Teal who meets a nasty end when she falls out of a plane while trying to discard of a bomb set by a maniac. Not cool.
Iwamoto’s mangas have adapted most of the X games up until the end of X4 for the Playstation, although volume 2 of his X4 adaptation is nearly impossible to find. But even though Iwamoto’s manga is a little liberal with its source material, they’re still decent to read … or to look at, if you can’t read Japanese or don’t have a capable friend handy to translate.
By comparison, other manga-ka have gone a little crazy in the past with the property. Hideto Kajima’s Rockman Zero manga, for example, is an utter curiosity. The Rockman Zero games follow an interesting storyline where humans have grown tired of their unpredictable robot servants and shut them down at the slightest hint of rebellion. Only a few, the “Devas”, remain in any position of power. Kajima’s manga follows the same story, but very loosely. Humans still get smacked around –by the Devas who are supposed to be protecting them. No explanation or repercussions are ever presented. It just seems to happen for fun.
Worst of all are the heroes of the story. In the Rockman Zero games, Zero is revived from a hundred-year hibernation to bring justice to those who are needlessly killing robots and Reploids. Kajima, for whatever reason, decided to adopt some antics from a kid’s cartoon. When Zero loses his helmet, he turns weak and wussy; when he has it on, he’s all about cold destruction.
He’s also trailed by an annoying kid named Lito who ends up saving the day far too often. Why do so many writers think tagalong rugrats are a good idea?
