For 35 years, English-speaking NES gamers have been debating one important topic: how do you pronounce the name of the Bubble Lead weapon from Mega Man 2? Now, all these years later, the game’s original director has put the issue to rest.
The second word of Bubble Lead, of course, could be pronounced either ‘led,’ as in the metal, or ‘leed,’ as in guiding someone forward. The correct pronunciation here was the subject of no end of schoolyard debates, but now, finally, long-retired director Akira Kitamura has weighed in.
“‘Lead’ means to guide,” Kitamura says in a Twitter response (Google translated) to a fan asking about the pronunciation. “It is a weapon that crawls along the ground and senses danger ahead. It is not made of lead.” You can now feel free to call up your old childhood friends and settle the old fights once and for all. (Or keep silent and never speak of it again, if you were a ‘lead as in metal’ person.)
Technically, this debate was solved before it even actually began, since in the game’s original Japanese version, the transcription of the English word left no doubt that it was ‘lead’ as in ‘guide.’ But, as Protodude of Mega Man fansite Rockman Corner notes, “access to the JPN game+manual, which prevented fans from confirming the usage of ‘リ－ド’ and ‘Lead’, was severely limited from 1989~the 90s. Even then, English-speaking had sparse access to that info online. Thus the ‘Lead’ versus ‘Led’ debate continued.”
There’s a reason why Mega Man 2 is still regarded as one of the best NES games of all time.
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