The boss character contest (ボスキャラ募集, bosu kyara boshuu, roughly "boss character application") is a contest held by Capcom where fans send ideas for boss characters to appear in a Mega Man game.

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Contests and characters

The first boss character contest, which had 8370 entries and decided the eight Robot Masters that appear in the game. 10 participants received a "staff only" blouson, 100 received a Rockman 2 Original Music tape, and 500 received seals.[1] Besides the eight winners, forty participants were listed in the game's Japanese manual.[2]

As the game had a strict deadline, the staff couldn't wait until after the submissions had arrived and selected the winners to start development. Instead, work was made on the stages and enemies, and the staff had a loose idea of what kind of boss would be needed for each stage (wind and electric themed boss characters for the air themed stage, animal and nature themed bosses for the forest, etc). They selected the motifs they found most interesting from the many submissions, Keiji Inafune cleaned them up and redesigning them as necessary, and they selected one of the designs.[3]

The contest decided the eight Robot Masters. Had 50,000 entries. Some runner up entries received a pencil case and ID card as prize.[4] Some participants also had their names listed in the special thanks from the ending credits.[5]

Similar to Mega Man 2, the staff could not wait for the submissions to start development, so some placeholder bosses were used while planning out the stages. When early designs from the game were compiled for R20 Rockman & Rockman X Official Complete Works in 2008, Keiji Inafune didn't remember which of the unused bosses were designed as placeholders and which ones were part of the contest.[6]

Boss Designer Submission name DWN-017 Needle Man Nobuhiko Akatsuka ( 赤塚 信彦 , Akatsuka Nobuhiko ) Iron Man DWN-018 Magnet Man Nagashi Kii ( 紀井 長 , Nagashi Kī ) Magnet Man DWN-019 Gemini Man Yoshihito Hattori ( 服部 嘉人 , Hattori Yoshihito ) ? DWN-020 Hard Man Kazuhiko Oguro ( 小黒 一彦 , Oguro Kazuhiko ) Press Man DWN-021 Top Man Yasushi Konjiki ( 近喰 康史 , Konjiki Yasushi ) Top Man DWN-022 Snake Man Yuhjiro Ishitani ( 石谷 裕二郎 , Ishitani Yūjirō ) Snake Man DWN-023 Spark Man Mikihiro Suzuki ( 鈴木 広 , Suzuki Hiroshi ) Spark Man DWN-024 Shadow Man Takumine Yoshida ( 吉田 拓峰 , Yoshida Takumine ) Ninja Man

The eight Robot Masters.[7] Had 70,000 entries. The winners from this game's contest received a golden Rockman 4 cartridge.[8] Everyone that participated received the booklet Rockman Character Collection, and towels were also given as a gift.[9]

↑ Named after a Japanese lamp brand.

Like previous contests, it decided the eight Robot Masters. Had 130,000 entries.

The only contest from the original series with non-Japanese winners, with a contest being held by Nintendo Power. Had 200,000 entries. One of the non-Japanese winners, Daniel Vallée, recalled that, besides his winning entry of Knight Man, he had submitted enough Robot Master designs to fill eight whole games, with names including Wave Man and Samurai Man (the former of whom had coincidentally had a shared name with an unrelated Robot Master in Mega Man 5).[10]

Wily Prize:

Japanese Light prize:

Boss submission Designer Whip Man Saori Tsubaki Puzzle Man Tsuyoshi Shinoda Mirage Man Tomoaki Hirose Splash Man Miki Kawashima Oil Man Satoshi Sakamoto Saboten Man ("Cactus Man") Tomoko Miyamoto Smoke Man Mitsumasa Nagaya Box Man Tomohiko Sato Hook Man Waka Maeda Fish Man Kenji Tsujimoto Ōedo Man Takako Asami Tank Man Yasuko Watanabe Rope Man Seiichi Honma Screw Man Shigeharu Kagawa Quake Man Akio Ofuji Yamato Man Kenichiro Ueda Ship Man Katsuki Mugishima Alo Hameha Man Yuichiro Haruyama Pair Dancer Man Aya Hattori Ganesha Man Shunji Terauchi

International Light Prize:

Boss submission Origin Designer Cord Man Canada Luc Miron Artillery Man America David Dunn Lance Man Spain Pol Santamans Bacart Chain Man Italia Nicolas Fels Virtuose Man Australia Marco Varga Shock Man America Nathan Campbell Flame Man Sweden Pelle Lövholm Wolf Man America Juson Soule ????? Korea Shin Kyung Bong Ball Man Germany Aron Bundels Saw Man America Lee Konstantinou Korten France Patrick Ruefeuillat

("Patrik Nahon" in the game credits)

The eight Robot Masters. Had 220,000 entries.

Wily Prize:

Light Prize:

32 participants were included in the credits as special designers.

Hitomi Yoshimasa

Hiroaki Sugawara

Tomoko Tanabe

Masatoshi Yamazaki

Madoka Ayabe

Mayumi Ito

Miwa Kikuchi

Masaomi Shimono Makoto Ohkawara

Kyosuke Harada

Noriyoshi Takahashi

Kunihiro Kaneda

Hiroyoshi Nakanishi

Kenta Yatsuda

Daisuke Hanai

Katsuya Onose Susumu Matsunaga

Satoko Nogi

Hirofumi Yamauchi

Hitoshi Takehana

Mie Iida

Tsutomu Nagai

Yuka Takeda

Kenji Ito Maiko Miyaji

Saori Tsubaki

Yusuke Watanabe

Hideto Kishimoto

Haruo Kubo

Ai Nadatani

Sayo Ohsawa

Akiko Iinuma

For this contest a template was given for three of the six bosses that would receive the Dr. Wily Prize: one boss character with a sword (the winner being Sword Man), one with extendible arms (Clown Man), and one with two heads (Search Man). The other winners were Frost Man, Grenade Man and Aqua Man. Tengu Man and Astro Man were made by Capcom. Besides the six winners, some submissions are displayed in the game's credits and the Sega Saturn's Bonus Mode,[11] and some participants are listed in the credits as part of the Dr. Light Prize. Some participants won a Mega Man themed calculator.[12] Had 110,000 entries.

The Dr. Wily Prize:

The Dr. Light Prize:

Kazuya Miyauchi

Takamasa Yamada

Shinya Miyamoto

Naoki Wakabayashi

Syoutarou Aihara

Ryouichi Takahashi

Takuya Tasaka

Kenji Satou

Yuuhei Tamura

Takeshi Uemura

Youhei Shinbori

Katsuhiko Fukui

Toshiya Oobu

Kanichirou Asano

Yukihiro Katano

Katsuto Fujiwara

Naoshi Kataoka

Kenzou Umino

Kenji Kobayashi

Yuuki Maehiro

Kunihiro Kanada

Takehito Kusuhara

Takayuki Hida

Kouta Toshi

Eiko Hasegawa Kouzou Tsukamoto

Syouji Yamamoto

Atsushi Matsumoto

Takuya Tsutsui

Makoto Furukawa

Masashi Taniguchi

Akari Nakamura

Naoyuki Watanabe

Syun Tanimura

Akiko Kawaguchi

Hiroshi Yanagi

Ikkou Tatemoto

Tomoaki Hirose

Teruo Momiyama

Hitomi Igarashi

Syun Yamada

Isara Suwanpramoth

Shinichirou Naganuma

Takahiro Saitou

Syouichirou Sekiguchi

Sikharin Eiamprapai

Kazunobu Nakata

Tsukasa Itabashi

Ai Nadatani

Kenichi Igarashi

Mega Man Legends series series

Mega Man Battle Network series series

Mega Man Star Force series series

Two contests were held. In the first, the winner was Arcade Man, and he was included as a boss. Besides Arcade Man, three runner-ups (Tabletman, Zehr, and Daruman) were added as Battle Memory.[14][15]

The second contest had a Japanese motif, with eleven characters being selected to be redesigned in a Mega Man style, and two of them (Udon Man and Sudachi Woman) also being included as Battle Memory.[16]

Gallery

Trivia

Due to the large amount of submissions, many coincidences could occur, with submissions having names and/or designs similar to others that would appear in later games. For example, a Drill Man was considered for Mega Man 2 , and a Drill Man would later appear in Mega Man 4 . [3] This could occur even in the same contest. In the Mega Man 4 contest, two submissions were named Pharaoh Man, but "Mummy Man" was selected and renamed as Pharaoh Man. [17]

, and a Drill Man would later appear in .