Unused Japanese text (and some interesting Japanese glitch item fan art)
Posted by: Torchickens
Date: 2012-01-19 12:09:49
From top to bottom, you can first see artwork for badges みな (ThunderBadge), (ShellBadge), はぶ (FalconBadge), ひのま (FireballBadge), な (FriendshipBadge), ひ (CoolBadge), (JizoBadge), (RoseBadge).
Next there's artwork for glitch items ま (Egg) and ひ (Chick), and then what are assumed to be referring to unused Trainer classes, (PetitCaptain), (Captain), (PetitMaster), (Master).
Thanks IIMarckus for referencing these items in his disassembly of Pokémon Red and on a threadon Jul, otherwise it would have probably taken much longer for any discussion outside of these names outside of Japan. Also thanks to divingkataetheweirdo for most of these translations and SnorlaxMonster for the (JizoBadge) translation.
Regarding the unused names, if you search for the Japanese text on a search engine, it seems that select button glitch websites have listed these items before. Only relatively recently, IIMarckus updated his Pokémon Red disassembly with the offsets for the above unused text and it was found that the text still exists in the English version, but untranslated - so it appears illegible. I've written some information about these names on Bulbapedia here.
Other than the above, there's also artwork for (Bronze) (another one of the unused names), fan-art for the glitch items based on selectable New Game options such as the Japanese equivalents of the "rival's" and "player's" items (e.g. John/Jack), (Coin), Pokédex, ?????, floor name glitch items and more which I can't immediately recognize.
I find most of the unused text extremely interesting, especially the Bronze, Silver, Gold and Egg/Chick. The unused badges are also intriguing, especially JizoBadge since SnorlaxMonster told me "Jizo" translates to the Buddhist deity Ksitigarbha. These are probably the names for prototype Gym Leaders, and FalconBadge may have been a precursor to Falkner? ShellBadge also reminds me of the Orange League badges…
Some fun trivia that's probably not relevant, but in the game Earthbound, there are items called 'Fresh Egg' and 'Chick'. Ape Inc. who developed Earthbound eventually became the company Creatures Inc. who own 1/3 of the copyright to the Pokémon series.