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Can anyone tell me the gist of Bubble Bobble's Japanese story? (Manual inside.)

ReyVGM

ReyVGM

The US version of Bubble Bobble's instruction manual story doesn't really match what happens in the game, or in the arcade version. Since the original Japanese Arcade version doesn't have a story description anywhere, then the only place left is the Famicom Disk System release. I'm not looking for a literaly translation, just a summary or what happens and the characters mentioned.

Here are good quality scans of the pretty manual, go crazy:
https://imgur.com/a/ZnIdw9V

Thanks in advance!
 
Kishi

Kishi

Little Waves
(They/Them)
Staff member
Moderator
Once upon a time, there was a peaceful village in the country. Everyone who lived in the village was very friendly.
Bubblun-kun and Bobblun-kun, along with their girlfriends Betty-chan and Patty-chan, spent every day having fun.

One day, Betty-chan and Patty-chan left the village to go for a stroll in the woods nearby.
They became so caught up in their conversation that they did not even notice when their surroundings grew dark and gloomy.
The two of them had stumbled into the Wizard's Forest, filled with terrible caves!
When the wizard who ruled the forest found them, he trapped them in a cave one hundred levels underground.

Hurry and save them...!
Bubblun-kun and Bobblun-kun transformed into bubble-spitting dragons and entered the cave.
Many terrible monsters await them!
How will their adventure end...?
It's up to you to find out!
Click to expand...

This gives context to the girls who appear in the two-player ending, but it glosses over the boys' transformation into bubble dragons. It would appear the idea of the bubble dragon form being a curse, as well as the boys' names being Bubby and Bobby when in human form, was introduced in Rainbow Islands. And aside from a mention on the Characters page that Super Drunk's true form is unknown, there's no mention here of "Mama" and "Papa" who appear in the Super Mode ending.
 
ReyVGM

ReyVGM

Kishi said:
This gives context to the girls who appear in the two-player ending, but it glosses over the boys' transformation into bubble dragons. It would appear the idea of the bubble dragon form being a curse, as well as the boys' names being Bubby and Bobby when in human form, was introduced in Rainbow Islands. And aside from a mention on the Characters page that Super Drunk's true form is unknown, there's no mention here of "Mama" and "Papa" who appear in the Super Mode ending.
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot!!
So in the Japanese version they are dragons. In the US manual they are dinosaurs.
 
estragon

estragon

nosimpleway said:
The Japanese word is the same for both.
Click to expand...

In this case they use the English loan word "dragon" (ドラゴン).

Also while the word for dinosaur is a compound that includes the character for dragon, there's not really any ambiguity between dragons（竜）and dinosaurs (恐竜).

Kishi's translation is correct, and Rey is correct to note that there is a distinction between how these characters are presented in the two languages.

More broadly:

ドラゴン: A mythical dragon, tends to have European aesthetics but not necessarily.
竜: A mythical dragon, tends to have Chinese aesthetics but not necessarily.
恐竜: Dinosaurs.
 
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