Discussion Main / MarthDebutedInSmashBros

Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: It's OlderThanTheyThink, really, started by Spark9 on Oct 10th 2011 at 7:46:43 PM

• Godzilla. The first time was in 1955 where Toho sent the original film in the US for Japanese-Americans only. Until 1956, it debuted for US distribution as Godzilla King Of The Monsters. Minus Godzilla Raids Again where it was meant to be a non-Godzilla movie (with ridiculous reasons), the US audience would see the Big G again in color with King Kong vs. Godzilla and onwards until Godzilla vs. Biollante when controversy started in regards to Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah. Godzilla would end up with the status again in 1998 where American audience is introduced to Godzilla (1998) (with the creature being renamed to Zilla due to Toho's disapproval), and then Godzilla 2000 and finally Godzilla (2014).

Can someone clarify how this is an example of the trope? I commented it out for now because it doesn't seem like one, not sure where the troper was going with it.

I hate to burst the bubble, but Marth's first western appearance was not in Smash Bros., but the Fire Emblem OVA, released in 1998. http://www.feshrine.net/anime.html

So the trope name and his description are inaccurate. It is correct that his appearance in Melee greatly boosted his popularity and awareness of the series, as the original OVA is obscure even to this day, but it was not his or the franchise's western debut. His case is actually more of Adaptation First.

Mario Vs Wario is an SNES game with no American release that was in fact the first appearance of both Dry Dry Desert and Wario's airplane.

Is it me or is this an awful name for a trope? I really don't know what else it could be named, but this name is just so... not self-explanatory or clever or really anything other than an example of itself. I don't know: maybe other people feel this way, maybe not. Discuss if you like.

A bunch of examples seem misplaced. The trope is specifically about localization and international oddities, not just "This American character debuted in an American comic book that isn't the American comic book he became famous for starring in."

Deleted these:

Comic Books

• During the Silver Age of comic books, DC and Marvel tended to introduce new or reinvented characters in anthology titles and determine the character's popularity from its sales. The second Flash and Green Lantern were all introduced in Showcase. Superheroes debuting in their own titles, though it occurred in the Golden Age, was restarted later on by Marvel. Other anthology titles which debuted characters include:
  • Journey into Mystery (Thor, and the book was later turned into his solo book)
  • Tales to Astonish (Ant-Man)
  • Tales of Suspense (Iron Man)
  • House of Secrets (Swamp Thing)
  • Amazing Fantasy (Spider-Man)

Web Comics

• During the Crossover Wars a character from the Orphaned Series Action Porn (no longer on the web) appeared in Evil Overlords United before he was supposed to appear in his parent comic (and Action Porn ended before he could appear at all.)
• Arguably Bob and George in Bob And George. They were originally to be the comic's main characters, but when the hand-drawn comic flopped, they were later introduced as minor characters in the filler sprite comic.
  • Definitely their mother though; she was presumably to be shown earlier, but she actually debuted in the final comic.
  • Also Nate N4-T3, who was originally one of George's friends named Nate who was never shown in the comic until N4-T3 was introduced. Only, he's not human, he's an anthropomorphic Yellow Demon with glasses the size of his face.

Removed:

• Indeed, they retconned Stafy to "Starfy", and yet Marth never went back to being called "Mars".
  • His name really is supposed to be Marth. It's not a mistranslation.
    • Not to turn this into a Spell My Name With An S debate, but Marth's name isn't written in Japanese the way you write the English name "Marth", but it does match the way you write the god "Mars"' name. So Yeah. "Marth" is his name's official romanization since the original game came out (It's spelled out on the ending, which is written in English Engrish), so it's a Your Mileage May Vary sort of thing.
    • You Fail Japanese Forever? There is no "th" phoneme in Japanese, therefore, Marth and Mars would both be a romanized version of Marusu. Same thing with the Aerith/Aeris thing.
      • Except you'd write the English name "Marth" as "Maasu", never as "Marusu". That's how Japanese works. Who's failing here?
    • I guess Nintendo knows less Japanese than you, since "Marusu" is exactly how they spelled it
      • It's Intelligent Systems, and when it comes to romanization, Japanese people are horrible (As the legend goes, Alucard from Hellsing was named "Arucard" because "that's Dracura backwards"). Just because the company wrote in katakana "Marusu" and in our letters "Marth", it doesn't mean Marusu equals Marth. For example, a character in The Sacred Stones is named "Yoshua" in katakana, but the Japanese romanized it as... "Jhosua". A very normal name. Of course, the English translation team caught to it and named him "Joshua", which is correct. Fire Emblem is full of examples like this. In short, just because the official romanization of his name is Marth, it doesn't means it's correct.

Because a) it's completely irrelevant to the page, and b) the last sentence in the last entry gives the clue: just because it's correct doesn't mean it's official.

(Incidentally, "Marth" isn't an English first name. It's a last name, though, deriving from a German town whose name is pronounced "mahrt".)