We are big fans of Game Center CX here at Wired. It's a popular Japanese TV show in which a comedian attempts to clear some of the wickedest classic videogames ever devised. Although it isn't available in English yet, its producers are working to bring Game Center CX *to U.S. shores. As a first step, two translated episodes were shown at a film festival in New York last weekend. Writer and *CX fan Jenn Frank was in attendance, and wrote about the experience for Wired.com.

NEW YORK – In Japan, Game Center CX is no mere television show; it is a pop phenomenon.

Each episode covers a lot of terrain – there are interviews with developers, trips to Akihabara, phone calls to fans – but the main attraction is a segment called "Arino's Challenge." In it, comedian

Shinya Arino sits at a small television monitor in a mundane, sterile office, struggling (really struggling) through old games for the Famicom, the Japanese version of the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System.

Last weekend, two episodes of the Japanese show were presented as part of the New York Asian Film Festival at the IFC

Center.

Rechristened Retro Game Master, each episode was subtitled and narrated in English. Saturday's inaugural screening was, thrillingly, the first time I've had any inkling of what the people on-screen have been saying.

Game Center CX's charm is undeniable, and thanks to the power of the internet, Arino and his co-workers have found a fan base here in the United States. In some ways, this is amazing: Not even the author of the venerable Game Center CX episode guide speaks a word of Japanese. Then again, the feeling of being stumped by an old Nintendo game needs no translation. That feeling transcends language.

On the show, Arino's assistants bring him junk food and hint books as he attempts to plow his way through games like Mega Man 2 and Hudson's Adventure Island. When

Arino is in a very tight spot, the assistants might carefully diagram a new strategy on a nearby dry-erase board. Arino's tiny victories and failures are underscored by classical music, punctuated by cheers and groans. The show is silly – it knows it is silly – but there is real drama, genuine pathos. When Arino, down to his very last Mario, squeaks out a narrow defeat of the final boss of Super Mario World, it is impossible not to cheer.

Saturday and Sunday's screenings were of the games Mystery of Atlantis and Ghosts 'n Goblins, episodes taken from Game Center CX's second season. Both games are notoriously difficult and, because they are so excruciating, most people have never seen the ending screens. On Saturday, the audience chuckled and groaned when we saw, for instance, the final screen in Mystery of Atlantis ("CONGRATULATION!"). It was hilariously underwhelming. Ghosts 'n Goblins is similarly anticlimactic: The screen recommends that you play through again, from start to finish, for the "real" ending. In that episode, the beleaguered Arino refuses to play the game again, instead passing his controller to his young assistant.

Word of the Retro Game Master event had traveled the internet quickly but quietly, so it was a wonder anyone arrived at all. But there the fans were (tens of them!), assembling themselves in the IFC's lobby after Saturday's screening. Matt Hawkins, a Gamasutra contributor, was there covering the NYAFF. So was Brett Michel, a film critic for The Boston Phoenix who ardently follows Kotaku. Another Kotaku reader, Brian Balsan, had taken the subway in from Queens. Chris Person, a recent film school graduate with a broken foot, had limped in from Brooklyn. A.J. Mazur – also a recent film school grad, incidentally – had taken a train from Connecticut. David Goldberg, a retro game enthusiast and 1UP reader, recognized my voice from across the lobby and maneuvered over to introduce himself.

Actually, most of the Game Center CX fans were maneuvering their way across the lobby toward a slim, slight woman who stood near me, wielding a camcorder. She was Yuko Shiomaki, Style Jam's VP of international marketing, and she was soliciting on-camera greetings for Arino.

In a way, English-language internet coverage of *Game Center CX *had brought Shiomaki to the IFC Center on Saturday, too. She hinted that the initial impetus for Style Jam's Retro Game Master project was, in large part, English-language blogs and their continued online evangelism of the series. (Apparently, the very existence of said blogs astonished the folks at Fuji Television; I am pleased to report that Style Jam's promotional literature for Retro Game Master repeatedly invokes "a write-up in Wired magazine.")

Shiomaki and I very briefly discussed Style Jam's involvement in localizing *Game Center CX *for North American audiences. With the screenings of Retro Game Master at the film fest, Style Jam aims to generate interest in an eventual North American DVD release (Retro Game Master does not yet have a U.S. distributor), as well as to measure the fans' response. In that regard, the two episodes were basically a proof-of-concept prototype.

Retro Game Master is, in a word, a success. For most fans, understanding Arino was the biggest payoff. He is witty.

"It was great!" retro gamer Goldberg told me. "I mean, I've watched parts of episodes on YouTube, things like that, but to be able to know exactly what was going on was amazing. It even added to the tension and the drama and everything."

For Mazur and Person, the real joy was the venue itself. "The experience of seeing the show in a theater made it better; (the audience) was sort of playing off each other," Person said. "There was something weirdly communal about it. It's the sensation of 'hand me the controller!' You're frustrated for (Arino)."

"It's frustrating," Mazur added. "You feel helpless, but you want him to persevere. We've all had that experience, sitting with friends, playing games. And now hopefully it'll be on TV."

In Saturday morning's episode of Retro Game Master, Arino tackled Mystery of Atlantis. And it was nice to watch with other fans. It was interactive, participative: There were audible gasps (mine) and applause, sometimes sighs, sometimes a smattering of cheers.

Later, I watched the original episode again, just to compare, and it really was an uncompromisingly direct translation. After Sunday's Ghosts 'n Goblins screening, I again checked the source material, and sure enough: The show is essentially unchanged. As a fan, I count this in Retro Game Master's favor.

In fact, few liberties have been taken, and then only with the cast's names. In the Ghosts 'n Goblins episode, assistant director Hiroshi Sasano is simply called "Assistant S." As for Arino, the two episodes were prefaced by a clip of him introducing himself – in splendidly terrible English – as the kacho. Of course, that isn't really much of name change: Kacho means section chief in the Japanese business hierarchy. Arino identifies himself as such with his pregame battle cry: Kacho On!

In fact, the only place the translation truly strays from the source material is the title of the show itself. "I don't see why they have to name it Retro Game Master," I said to Chris Kohler earlier that week. "I mean, the title was already in English, sort of."

(But it doesn't mean anything, Chris Kohler told her. –Ed.)

Apart from this tiny quibble, the localization was absolutely pitch-perfect. Perhaps some audience members were uncertain about Patrick Harlan's voiceover, which was especially ambitious. (Others loved it.) For most, though, the only real disappointment was that certain segments – the interviews, the phone calls, the treks through Akihabara – were conspicuously missing. In fact, only the gameplay segments had been translated for our English-speaking audience.

For me, this oughtn't have been a problem. Usually, when I watch Game Center CX I get impatient with the culture pieces and human-interest segments. I want the show to get on to the good bits; I want to see the main event. In the screenings of Retro Game Master, though, I realized I missed the interviews, the phone calls, the field trips. Without all those little extras to mitigate the show, the* *gameplay segments seemed, at times, to drag their heels.

Kotaku reader Balsan said he hopes, as I do, that the powers that be intend to subtitle episodes of Game Center CX in their entirety. Cornering Style Jam's Shiomaki, Balsan remarked: "I would love them to show the whole hour. Or at least, if not the whole hour, the 'TamaGe' section, where (Arino) is going around Tokyo, you know. Because he's playing in those retro arcades, which are difficult to find here in America now. So it's great to see him interact with these people, go into these places, and find this old, like, King of Fighters arcade (machine)."

Balsan also insisted that the market for *Retro Game Master *absolutely exists. "There is a lot about this program that so suits my interests," he said, "because I've grown up on games, I talk about games, I write about games. The Famicom, the Genesis.... This is my program, right here!" And while Saturday and Sunday's turnouts were, by any reasonable account, fairly small, the sample audience's enthusiasm should certainly come as encouragement to Style Jam and its potential investors.

Style Jam first introduced the* Retro Game Master* project last May in Cannes, France. Shiomaki told me that "it is the kacho's dream" to, someday soon, be welcomed to American soil by cheering fans.

If you're in New York City, you can catch an encore presentation of the *Retro Game Master *episodes. The Mystery of Atlantis episode will be screened Saturday at noon. The Ghosts 'n Goblins episode airs at noon Sunday and again at 11:30 a.m. July 2. Admission is free.

IFC Center

323 Sixth Ave., New York 10014

Box office: (212) 924-7771

Image courtesy Fuji TV

See also: