Random Stranger Nov 27, 2009











Game Center CX is a super low budget show. Arino is the sole star and as a result the crew often wind up being a big part of the show themselves. Arino regularly calls for assistance from one of the assistant directors, the show's creator provides narration in order to save money, and the cameraman regularly gets out from behind the camera to pitch in.







The AD's







The most visible crew members are the assistant directors, or AD's. Usually at least once per episode one of them will step up to help Arino through a tough spot. Sometimes they're good at the games, sometimes they just make things worse.



The AD's typically work on the show for about a year (one or two seasons) before they move on to other tasks. Several of them have moved up to higher positions in the production company and continue to make regular appearances.



On the show they're referred to as AD Name and that has generally been picked up by us even when they've become producers and directors.



















































Other Staff























What's up with the episode numbering?



Season one of Game Center CX was a completely different show from what came after. The episodes centered around Arino visiting the corporate headquarters of a game publisher and interviewing major figures involved with developing classic games. There was one segment in the show where Arino played one of the company's games and was given a special goal for it.







After one season and one special the show was retooled. The challenge segments became the focus and the goals changes from things like "Catch seven monsters" to "Complete the game and get the best ending."



When this retooling occurred they also officially reset the episode numbering. So in episode guides, the information guides on the channel, and on the website the numbering of episodes starts with season two.



Why are episodes nearly one hour long? Don't they have commercials in Japan?



They do but Game Center CX airs on a pay television channel which doesn't really have a lot of commercials. Think along the lines of HBO.



What are the Nintendo Channel episodes?



Much like the Nintendo Channel on the Wii here, the Nintendo Channel for the Wii and 3DS in Japan often features videos about games. A series of short, twenty minute long Game Center CX episodes have been produced for the channel. Most of these are challenges but a few of them are just Arino playing around. Some of the episodes are multipart series; the Super Metroid challenge is as long as a full episode.



What are the Bonus Stages?



There are versions of the episodes edited down to a length for television broadcast that are referred to as Game Center CX - Bonus Stage. The only new footage they feature are the bumpers and they have one or more segments removed.



What exactly was the North Trip?



The North Trip was a set of replacement arcade visit segments that were used for some reruns. They're all about Arino making a road trip through the very cold northern island of Hokkaido looking for the furthest north arcade.



On a holiday special Arino also went to Okinawa to look for the southernmost arcade.



What is a revenge attempt?



On the most recent two DVD sets Arino and other staff members try to finish a game that Arino could not beat during a regular episode. It looks like this will be an ongoing feature of the DVDs.



What are the live specials?



There are six challenges that could be considered "live".



The first is Mighty Bomb Jack which was a taped episode but the challenge to complete Mighty Bomb Jack occurred in front of a live audience. That episode was the conclusion of a three part challenge; the first two parts were translated for Kotaku while the SA Team translated the final part.



There were also four challenges that were presented in their entirety live on television. During these challenges Arino is attempting to beat a game that stymied him in some way before. He receives faxes of encouragement from fans as he plays.



The first was the Christmas 2008 challenge of Quest of Ki. Though initially scheduled for two hours Arino played for nine hours. Seven of those hours were spent on one extremely short level.







During season ten Arino revisited the original episode and Takeshi's Challenge in a two-hour special. The hour long wait required to complete a segment of the game was handled by using a password.



The most ambitious of the live episodes was the twenty-four hour Lemmings challenge. Arino had twenty-four hours to complete insane difficulty. A streamlined version of this challenge was released on DVD.



For New Year's Day in 2011 Arino teamed up with his comedy partner Masaru to play Kirby Super Star. The challenge took about seven hours and is notable as the only cooperative challenge that has been done for the show.



In February of 2012 Arino played Pilotwings for his birthday. He started when he was 39 years old and ended when he was 40. There was a birthday party at midnight that's notable for Arino being presented with art by the SA Team's zari-gani. In addition there was a goon effort to get as many birthday greetings from around the world faxed into the show and they were overwhelmed by outpouring of support by international fans.



While the shortest of these live challenges may be translated someday it's extremely unlikely that the long ones will be. Besides the length, the fact that they present the challenge without editing out the "boring" bits means that they're generally not fun to watch. It's Arino sitting there mostly in silence failing the same level over and over again for hours. It just isn't worth the effort.



What's that music from that episode?



Zari-gani translated this list of music used in the series:



zari-gani posted: Taken straight from the ridiculously extensive Japanese wiki article on Game Center CX, here's every music used in the show!



OPENING:

Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes (part of "Castle") [Season 1]

The Legend of Zelda (fanfare when having rescued Zelda) [Seasons 2-3]

Dragon Quest (part of "Title BGM") [Seasons 4-8]



TITLE BGM:

Junkie XL "JXL Radio Technical Support"

Beethoven "Ode to Joy" (techno version)



EPISODE PREVIEW SCREEN:

Donkey Kong 3 [Seasons 2-10]

Mappy [Season 3]

Elevator Action [Seasons 4-5]

Yellow Magic Orchestra "RYDEEN" (cover version) [Season 6]

Namco Classics Collection Techno Maniacs "Pacman (Aho-aho Mix) [Season 7-Season 9, episode 2]



GAME SHOWCASE:

Fantastic Plastic Machine "The King of Pleasure" "Reaching for the Stars"



POST-EPISODE PRIZE PRESENTATION:

Cartoons "Diddley Dee" "Witch Doctor"

Space Cowboy "Across the Sky" [Season 4]

capsule "FRUITS CLiPPER" [Season 5-6]

Milly "GIVE ME UP 2006" [Season 7]

Clea "Lucky Like That (Uniting Nations Remix)" [Season 8]

sweet Vacation "HONKY TONKY CRAZY" [Seasons 10-11]

AD Nakayama "Last Continue" [Season 12]

AD Watanabe "Sayonara Game" [Season 13-15]



STAFF INTRO THEMES:

Ginbae Yokohama "Bucchigiri Rock 'n' Roll" (Cameraman Abe)

Eikichi Yazawa "Toubousha" (Cameraman Abe - 24hr Challenge only)

American National Anthem "The Star-Spangled Banner" (Toujima)

Junichi Inagaki "Christmas Carol no Toki ni wa" (Toujima - live Christmas broadcast)

Shoten theme (Toujima - 24 hour live broadcast)

Checkers "Giza Giza Haato no Komoriuta" (Urakawa)

"Kiga no Zeronen" original soundtrack "Fuufu no Ketsui" (Inoue)

SPECTRUM Stan Hansen theme song "SUNRISE" (Inoue - Legend of the Mystical Ninja episode)

Jenny Rom "www.Blonde Girl" (the female Takahashi)

AKB48 "Aitakatta" (the male Takahashi)



IF YOU'RE GOING TO A GAME CENTER, TRY THIS ONE (TAMA-GAME):

"Hiwou War Chronicles" anime soundtrack, track 2 "Ikoku no Shirabe"

"Hajime Ningen Gon" anime theme song

"Azumanga Daioh" various tracks from the anime soundtrack (since the Northernmost game trip)

Kuricorder Quartet "Ureshii Shirase"



ARINO'S! RING RING TACTICS:

Godiego "Gandhara" "Monkey Magic"



NORTHERNMOST GAME TRIP:

Chiharu Matsuyama "Oozora to Daichi no Naka de"

Hakase Tarou "Angel in the House"



THE ACES OF HARDWARE WON'T APPEAR:

Candies "Heart no Ace ga Detekonai"

NHK Special "Miracle Planet" soundtrack "Jinrui e no Tabi" (main theme)



THE ROMANTIC WON'T STOP:

C-C-B "Romantic ga Tomaranai"

Minnie Riperton "Lovin' You"



GAME & WATCH CAN'T BE IGNORED:

Seishirou Kusunose "Hottokenaiyo"



FAMICOM MANGA CAFE:

Yoshie Kashiwabara "Hello Goodbye"

JAM Project "FIRE WARS"



GO AHEAD AND SING:

Kenji Sawada "Katte ni Shiyagare"



A WASTE OF COLOR:

Onyanko Club "Sailor Fuku o Nugasanaide"



"KING" BGM:

Kid Icarus (The "Queen" and "Prince" and other variations are the show's original music)

Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes (part of "Castle") [Season 1-3] used during the end with the "incantation"



MUSIC WHEN HAVING CLEARED A GAME CHALLENGE:

Theme song from the movie "King Solomon's Mines" (composed by Jerry Goldsmith)



SEASON 4 FINALE ENDING:

Jesse McCartney "Beautiful Soul"



SEASON 6 #41 FAN APPRECIATION DAY "MIGHTY BOMB JACK" ENDING:

Bryan Adams "Here I Am"



SEASON 6 FINALE ENDING:

Simon & Garfunkel "Bridge Over Troubled Water"



SEASON 11 FINALE ENDING:

AD Tomoaki Nakayama "Last Continue"



SEASON 12 FINALE ENDING:

AD Yuuko Watanabe "Sayonara Game"



GCCX IN USA SPECIAL ENDING:

Ben E. King "Stand By Me"



MISCELLANEOUS

Pirates of the Caribbean title track

Headhunter Soundtrack "Jack's Theme"







She also created a YouTube playlist featuring the songs.



What does the robot voice say at the beginning of the intro?



It's one of the great mysteries of the series. There is no definitive answer that I've been able to find. Even the artist who created the music piece that the voice was taken from no longer remembers what it says.



What's up with the ending to episode 44?



They thought the show had been canceled so the ending of the show is a loving tribute. Fortunately for everyone the sales of DVD's and the licensing of the show for a game kept the series going.



What are those things Arino sticks onto his head?



They're cooling sheets. The idea is to relieve tension and prevent overheating. They've become his trademark and you'll see him appear wearing them a lot.











The Games



Until recently the only Game Center CX product available outside of Japan was their first Nintendo DS game. In the US it was retitled as Retro Game Challenge.







In this cult game Arino sends the player back in time to the 1980's where they have to play some retro-style games and complete challenges to unlock more games. To help you beat the games you could check out gaming magazines for the latest tricks or carefully read over the individual game's manuals. It had eight games ranging from classic space shooters to a full Dragon Quest style RPG.



A sequel to this game was made but was not released outside of Japan. It's title is Game Center CX: Arino's Challenge 2.







It follows the same formula as the first game but expands the time frame to include some portable gaming and psuedo-16-bit games. Nine new games were featured this time including a Pac-Man style maze game, a mystery adventure game, and a puzzle game. In addition several of the games from Retro Game Challenge returned in special editions.



The Disks







Nine DVD box sets have been released of the series in Japan. Each set contains two DVD's with two episodes on each. Typically one of the episodes in a set is a special extended version of the television episode with additional footage. Each of the box sets contains a special challenge that was done for just the DVD release.



The episodes are presented with just the challenge. Other segments may be on the disk but they are not necessarily the ones that were part of the original episode. And every once and a while there is an extra special feature included on the disk.



One of the DVD boxes is different; it contains a shortened version of a special twenty-four hour long challenge that has been cut down to fit on two disks.



An American DVD box set has just been announced. It's coming from Discotek Media and will feature the same twelve challenges that were previously licensed by Kotaku. They will feature a new translation by the SA Team's own zari-gani. More details to come when they're available.







In addition there are a series of related DVD's call The Game Masters. These DVD's are short documentaries about a game publisher. Arino and the show's crew make appearances on these DVD's but they're not part of the series.



Other Things



There are five Game Center CX books that feature information about the games, interviews with creators, and behind the scenes information about the show. The third book also features a comic all about the series which has been translated into English.



Then there is this beauty.







It's been sold out for years and getting one will cost you an arm and a leg.







A Brief History of Game Center CX Translation



The first group to translate episodes of Game Center CX was TV Nihon. They tend to specialize in live action Japanese superhero shows so they translated the two Ultraman based episodes (episodes 21 and 45). After finishing those they went back and did the Arino's challenge segments of the first season before translating the full episodes of the second season. As time passed their releases slowed down and it was over six months between the release of episode 9 and 10. After episode ten we waited more than a year hoping another episode would show up.



Meanwhile over in Japan the DVD publisher Stylejam produced two English language episodes: Mystery of Atlantis and Ghosts 'n Goblins. They used these episodes to try to sell Game Center CX to an overseas market. Stylejam had no success in selling the show and so the only place these episodes have been publicly seen in full is an Asian film festival in New York City back in 2007.



Into that void stepped the Something Awful Team. Episodes began getting translated fast and Clover, another subtitling team that happens to have a lot of goons on it, also started working on episodes.



About a month and a half after those efforts got off the ground Gawker Media, owner of websites such as Kotaku, Gizmodo, and Io9, announced that they had acquired a dozen episodes of Game Center CX and would be posting them to Kotaku with a dubbed over narration as "Retro Game Master". That began a period of great confusion. The mods gave approval to continue the translation work so long as we did not post licensed episodes. Gawker did release episodes that the SA Team had translated and the SA Team version had to be pulled.



Gawker's license was for only for a very short length of time and it quickly ended. The license to those same episodes was purchased by Discotek Media who are releasing a DVD box set with a new translation by the SA Team's own zari-gani.



Clover had other translation commitments and weren't able to really work on GCCX so they handed off translations for timing work to the SA Team; they still have one more episode that they're wrapping up themselves but that will probably be their last one. After more than two years TV Nihon released another episode but it's not clear if they're going to keep going or how many years it will be before their next release.



Why'd Gawker change the episodes so much?



For the most part Gawker was working from the DVD versions of episodes. On the DVD's the episodes are presented as just the challenge segments. So there were no arcade visits or other segments available to them. In one case, Ninja Gaiden, this meant that they had access to an extended version of the episode.



What do I do with the subtitle files for episodes?



For episodes that were translated and then licensed we had to pull the full video but our translation could stay as subtitle file. If you have a video of that episode you can open it in certain media players (VLC and Media Player Classic work for this) and also open the subtitle file to have it play both at the same time.



Please remember that for the twelve episodes Gawker licensed that talking about where to get them is .











Who are the members?



Translators: zari-gani, Nagoyan, ShinYaguchi (inactive)

Timing: Gutcruncher, Miscellaneous14, univbee, Random Stranger



How can I reach you?



An e-mail to sagamecentercx@gmail.com will get to me.



How do I know a new episode has been released?



We've taken on a convention of putting a bit of fan art at the beginning of any post that features a new video. If you see a member of the team post a strange picture of Arino then there's there's something new right below it.







Why aren't you guys translating in order?



The translators pick which episodes they're most interested in doing. That prevents things from getting bogged down with unliked episodes. The show has very little continuity between episodes so generally it's safe to skip around.



Will you guys translate this episode?



The long term plans are to translate all the episodes except the extended live episodes. But episode requests generally won't do much good. They're going to get done eventually though.



Are you going to translate this episode already done by another group?



Possibly but they're the lowest priority as long as there are episodes that haven't been touched at all out there. For episodes licensed by Gawker we could only release a translation anyway (besides, the DVD release of those episodes does have a translation by a member of the SA Team).



What's the release schedule?



For a variety of reasons there isn't one. Everyone is working on the show in their spare time and every member of the team has other commitments which have to take precedence from time to time. Also some episodes are a lot more work than others and there's a possibility that an episode will be completed but held back for the sake of other episodes.



Why'd you translate that word/title/thing? Everyone knows what it means!



One of our big goals in the translations is accessibility. We want anyone to be able to pick up an episode and watch with no assumptions that they know anything about Japan or Japanese gaming. We generally stick to the official US localization of things in games because someone looking up an episode for the sake of nostalgia will be familiar with that. We translated the term because a lengthy explanation while someone is watching a show is more intrusive than translating it.



Hey, these guys are reposting your work!



We're aware of a few people at various places around the net that are reposting our videos. Since we want as many people to see Game Center CX as possible that doesn't bother us. These people also have not been claiming that they helped translate the episode (with one rather sad exception that got slapped down hard) so it doesn't matter. Besides, we include a URL at the end of the videos that leads right back to this thread.



I want to help out!



That's great. The team has enough people to handle the timing work for episodes now but more translators are always needed. If you're interested in translating the series send an e-mail to sagamecentercx@gmail.com and I can get into details.



Please do not do some work for the show and then get in touch with us about using it. We've got our own workflow and procedures in place and it's very likely that we won't be able to use something created and then handed over to us since it won't match. If you want to help, ask first and we'll explain things.



Why don't you guys...



There might be a good reason for that or it might just be that we hadn't considered it. We're open to suggestions; it's not like any of us have ever done a translation project on this scale before. Random Stranger fucked around with this message at 02:43 on Jun 8, 2012