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Author Topic: Frogs and Professors and Pigs  (Read 8362 times)

CrossEyed7

  • i can make this whatever i want; you're not my dad
« on: February 18, 2014, 08:20:14 PM »
So I was reading this post on Back of the Cereal Box about obscure Mario characters, and when it got to this one my mind got blown a bit.



That little guy in Wario Land 4 in the pipe rooms that you throw to break blocks to get the diamonds? He's the guy from the newspaper at the beginning! I always saw his glasses and beard as a big metal helmet/robot head (made sense, considering how much you bounce on him and throw him and he never dies, though he does yell ouch) and his butt-shaped-head as like a feather in the helmet? and maybe he was holding a mirror? But no, it's that professor guy, holding a magnifying glass.



He looks a little bit like Mad Scienstein, the scientist/professor guy from Wario Land 3 (and also Dr. Mario 64, which was all WL3-themed for some reason), at least in the ingame sprite, but comparing the full art, they look different enough that they're probably not the same character.

Someone on a message board found a better idea: He's actually Dr. Arewo [dukar]ain, from Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru, the Japan-only Game Boy game that Link's Awakening was built off of, which is translated as For the Frog(s) the Bell Tolls.



So unless there's like some deeper thing in Japan about professors/scientists have butt-shaped heads and little glasses and a big white beard and four teeth, like swirly glasses or tanukis, that looks like a pretty good match (Actually, I do seem to remember thinking the butt-head professor in the newspaper looked vaguely familiar when I first played WL4, but I'm pretty certain I had never heard of For Frogs the Bell Tolls back then... has he been in anything else? Or anyone that looked like him?).

So anyway, what I actually started writing this topic for: In Thousand-Year Door, there was that chapter For Pigs the Bell Tolls. So I'm figuring that's probably a reference to that frog game, right? WL4 wasn't the first time Nintendo acknowledged it -- Richard in Link's Awakening in the town with all the frogs is a character from there too, and also I think there was a sticker in Brawl that had the prince from the game. So I was wondering what the Japanese title of that chapter was, and noticed that our Japanese to English page for TTYD doesn't have chapter titles. Does anyone know?

Also I want to try out that frog game now.
"Oh man, I wish being a part of a Mario fan community was the most embarrassing thing about my life." - Super-Jesse

BP

  • Beside Pacific
« Reply #1 on: February 18, 2014, 09:17:13 PM »
It has a great fan translation.
All your dreeeeeeams begiiin to shatterrrrrr~
It's YOUR problem!

Deezer

  • Invincible
« Reply #2 on: February 18, 2014, 09:54:30 PM »
I can confirm that the WL4 official Japanese guide calls this character アレヲ=シタイン博士 ("Dr. Arewo = Stein"). Not sure what the equals sign means, but it's definitely like that in the guide.

It's interesting to note that Mad Scienstein from WL3 also has an equals sign in his Japanese name: "Mad = Stein" (see website). Later, in Dr. Mario from Nintendo Puzzle Collection, he lost the equals sign and is just "Mad Stein" (see screenshot).

As for the PMTTYD Japanese chapter titles, I'll post back when I find out.

BriGuy92

  • Luck of the Irish
« Reply #3 on: February 18, 2014, 10:55:42 PM »
I had always thought that the chapter title in Paper Mario and the title of the frog game were just totally independent references to the Hemingway novel. It'd be pretty neat if they're actually related, though.
Know the most important contribution of the organ Fund science girls type. It's true!

CrossEyed7

  • i can make this whatever i want; you're not my dad
« Reply #4 on: October 04, 2015, 07:27:03 PM »


Is it just me, or does the For Frogs The Bell Tolls world map feel kinda Paper Mario-ish?
"Oh man, I wish being a part of a Mario fan community was the most embarrassing thing about my life." - Super-Jesse

The Chef

  • Super
« Reply #5 on: October 04, 2015, 08:00:37 PM »
Not necessarily. It looks more like the Mario Land 2 map, but Mario maps in general tend to look like that.

« Reply #6 on: October 05, 2015, 12:35:02 AM »
Note that Hemingway's title is quoting John Donne's Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions from 1624, which also spawned the phrase: "No man is an island."

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