Black Color/Collar?
Black Color/Collar?
I've read about how Black Color in MG2 is supposedly based on Black Collar in Timothy Zahn's novel. I'm wondering if there's any official Konami text that names him 'Black Color' in English. The reason is that when the Japanese write English using katakana words are written as they are pronounced, and on top of that they are often approximations due to the limitations of Japanese syllable writing. 'Color' and 'collar' are very close in pronounciation.
Last edited by Crowley on Tue Jan 25, 2005 4:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
- Johnny Undaunted
- Major
- Posts: 547
- Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 7:34 pm
This is why playing the game raw helps.
Yes, it's true. The spelling "Black Color" is actually used in the game whenever his name is mentioned (all the bosses in the game has their names in romaji for most of the dialogue).
The character was truly adapted from Zahn's novel, The Blackcollar, which is titled ブラックカラー (burakku-karaa) in Japanese. Blackcollar, as you may or may not know, was a novel about specialized group of intergalatic ninjas that are genetically-enhanced through a drug known as Backlash and wear flex-armor for protection. If you read the backstory of the "Black Color" squad from Metal Gear 2 (the manual makes it clear that there should be more than one), there's quite a few parallels between them and Zahn's novel to be a coincidence.. Kojima inserted quite a variety of homages to other works too. For example, the Minovsky Particle used by the enemy during alert phase that disrupt Snake's radar, was actually a creation of Gundam.
Speaking of bad romanization. Most people are oblivious to this, since they tend to only play the fan-translations, but the actual game itself has some very fucked-up romanizations for other characters too. Everyone remembers how the Previous Operations file from MGS mentions Holly's name as "Horry"? That's how her name was spelled in the MSX game until they fixed it in the Mobile Phone remake (whether the fan-translation was an influence or not, I don't know). Not only that, but Roy Campbell was actually called "Roy Kyanbel" and Frank's last name was Yeager instead of proper Jaeger.
Yes, it's true. The spelling "Black Color" is actually used in the game whenever his name is mentioned (all the bosses in the game has their names in romaji for most of the dialogue).
The character was truly adapted from Zahn's novel, The Blackcollar, which is titled ブラックカラー (burakku-karaa) in Japanese. Blackcollar, as you may or may not know, was a novel about specialized group of intergalatic ninjas that are genetically-enhanced through a drug known as Backlash and wear flex-armor for protection. If you read the backstory of the "Black Color" squad from Metal Gear 2 (the manual makes it clear that there should be more than one), there's quite a few parallels between them and Zahn's novel to be a coincidence.. Kojima inserted quite a variety of homages to other works too. For example, the Minovsky Particle used by the enemy during alert phase that disrupt Snake's radar, was actually a creation of Gundam.
Speaking of bad romanization. Most people are oblivious to this, since they tend to only play the fan-translations, but the actual game itself has some very fucked-up romanizations for other characters too. Everyone remembers how the Previous Operations file from MGS mentions Holly's name as "Horry"? That's how her name was spelled in the MSX game until they fixed it in the Mobile Phone remake (whether the fan-translation was an influence or not, I don't know). Not only that, but Roy Campbell was actually called "Roy Kyanbel" and Frank's last name was Yeager instead of proper Jaeger.
-
- Second Lieutenant
- Posts: 368
- Joined: Sat Nov 13, 2004 4:45 pm