Contra, Kontora, Probotector, Gryzor

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tepples
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Contra, Kontora, Probotector, Gryzor

Post by tepples »

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Facts:
  • Japanese Famicom version was named 「魂斗羅」, which on-reads as 「コントラ」, spelled in romaji as "KONTORA".
  • USA NES version was named "Contra".
  • European NES version was named "Probotector" and characters were sprite-hacked to robots, presumably to avoid censorship.
  • No NES game is named "Gryzor".
But was the name 「魂斗羅」 chosen for any special meaning (literally "soul liquid-peck bird-net"), or just because it on-reads as 「コントラ」? And what would 「塊魂斗羅」 be?
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Quietust
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Re: Contra, Kontora, Probotector, Gryzor

Post by Quietust »

tepples wrote:Was the name 「魂斗羅」 chosen for any special meaning, or just because it on-reads as 「コントラ」?
From the game's intro:

”魂斗羅”とは、
熱い闘魂とゲリラ戦術の
素質を持つ、最強の闘士の
呼称である。

I suppose the "[hot] fighting spirit" (熱い闘魂) could be part of it, though it's most likely that those characters were chosen solely for their readings.
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zx-1
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Post by zx-1 »

This is called "ateji" (当て字) and is basically a form of rebus used with kanji. The practice started from the view that it was necessary to have kanji equivalents of foreign loadwords (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_w ... ese_origin)

I guess its used for the same reason you would say "effervescent" instead of "fizzy", a bunch of 80-stroke kanji that haven't been used since the US was a British colony is more impressive than plain old katakana. It's also fun to apply to your name and sign your Japanese 9 homework with it.

P.S. Suprising that no one mentioned Salamander.

P.P.S. For the record, Gryzor was the name of the Speccy/C64 ports of the game by Ocean.
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Quietust
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Post by Quietust »

zx-1 wrote:P.S. Suprising that no one mentioned Salamander.
Good point - 「沙羅曼蛇」 (サラマンダ), yet another example from Konami.
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