Ten Examples of Japanese Video Games Borrowing From American Pop Culture
Categories: Video Games - Humor
But! What many fail to realize is that most of the "original" game ideas from Japanese video games were stolen (or uh, "inspired by") from other sources of media. Character design and music from these games, in particular, seem to be carbon copies from others. Coincidence, paying homage, or straight-up plagiarism? Scroll through some of our fave instances and decide for yourselves.
Plagiarizing Comic Book Characters
The Revenge of the Shinobi (Sega Genesis 1989)
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When The Revenge of the Shinobi was released for the Sega Genesis in 1989, developer Sega got entangled in a web of legal trouble from numerous American companies. In the Chinatown level of the game, for example, ninja named Joe Musashi battles Spider-Man and Batman for no apparent reason.
The likenesses of the Hulk, the Terminator Godzilla, Rambo and various others were used in the game without the legal right to do so. When the game was re-released for the Wii Virtual Console in 2009, Spider-Man was re-colored pink in order to slip by unnoticed by the Marvel Comics' lawyers. (Pink? What a way to butcher Spider-Man, Sega.)
The guys at Capcom Japan, the developer of the Megaman X series, sure love Guns n' Roses. In Megaman X3, the "Neon Tiger" stage featured a heavy metal track that sounds almost identical to Guns n' Roses' "My Michelle" (see video above). Continuing this tribute, many of the bosses in the sequel Megaman X5 were named after band members of the original Guns n' Roses. Grizzly Slash = Saul "Slash" Hudson, Dark Dizzy = Dizzy Reed, Duff McWhalen = Duff McKagen, Axel the Red = Axl Rose.
Lost Odyssey
(XBOX360, 2007)
Lost Odyssey for the XBOX 360 featured a score beautifully written by Nobuo Uematsu, a composer best known for his work on the Final Fantasy series. After composing complete soundtracks for almost 50 different games over the span of 20 years, some of his originality may wear off. The example featured here is the track titled "Dark Saint" on the Lost Odyssey soundtrack, which sounds very similar to "Hey Bulldog" from the Beatles. Uematsu is known to be a fan of the Beatles, and the inspiration for his work shows a little too obviously here:
Earthbound
(SNES, 1994)
Earthbound has a very loyal cult following and for years, fans have been trying to have the sequel of the game to be translated and released outside of Japan. Unfortunately, this doesn't appear to be happening anytime soon. When Earthbound was released on the SNES in the '90s, publisher Nintendo got into a lot of legal trouble because of many of the game's music, character designs, and logos are much too similar to copyrighted material. In the above example, the music that plays when riding in the Sky Runner (which is poking fun at Skywalker) sounds identical to "Won't Get Fooled Again" by the Who. Because Nintendo likes to play it safe with legal troubles, they simply opted to never re-release this game and its sequel outside of Japan despite the cries (and whining) of fans all over the world.
Japanese Video Game Characters Look Like American Celebrities?
Ever wonder where Japanese Video Game designers get their inspiration for their designs? From the looks of the following slides, I'm sure it's right in front of a TV playing 1980s American TV/movies. Either that, or all black people in Japan actually do look like Mr. T or Dennis Rodman. Check out the following comparison slides. Coincidence, or flat-out plagiarism?
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