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Fun Club A longstanding debate for Mega Man fans has FINALLY been laid to rest

TreIII

TreIII

A Kool Kartoon
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Whether you were a child of the 80s that played Mega Man 2 when it first debuted, or someone who played it ages later through any one of its numerous re-releases through collections or the like...inevitably, you might have played through the game, surmounted the challenges present in Bubble Man's stage, including the boss, himself. The victory jingle played as you and the Blue Bomber had triumphed, once again. Mega Man then teleported out, and your eyes were then greeted with the familiar "GET WEAPON" screen, only to see:

MM2-Get-BubbleLead-SS.png


So...what was it? Bubble "LEED"? or Bubble "LED"? Believe it or not, this was something that western Mega Man fans argued about for ages. Even after regional and language barriers started to tumble down, and the Japanese pronunciation of "バブルリード" (Baburu Rīdo) would seem to be the end of it.

Well, any remaining doubt should now be stripped away, as Akira Kitamura, Rockman's true "father" weighed in:



Machine translation:
"Lead" means to guide. It is a weapon that crawls along the ground and senses danger ahead. It is not made of lead. :)
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As someone who first thought the bubble was "leading me along", it's nice to get vindication after all this time! But what say you, dear reader? Were you enlightened, as well, or were you convinced the bubbles were made of the 82nd element on the periodic table?
 
Honestly never actually checked the katakana of the weapon prior to this, and I’m admittedly someone who was camp ‘alien weak to liquid heavy metal’.

Nice to have what pretty much counts as definitive confirmation regardless.
 
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It kinda makes sense, but then for the bubble to lead you it needs to be of a heavy material that doesn't pop up easily right?? like lead maybe.....
 
ermitron2 said:
It kinda makes sense, but then for the bubble to lead you it needs to be of a heavy material that doesn't pop up easily right?? like lead maybe.....
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Leaf Shield leaves are titanium iirc? As much as I’m uncertain of the structural integrity of liquid lead bubbles behaving as Bubble Lead does, it’s a break from reality that I’m willing to let slide
Mer.Saloon said:
Still doesn't explain why the hologram is weak to only it.
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Wily probably didn’t think about water / liquid lead in his designs since who’d normally be scared of that
 
ermitron2 said:
It kinda makes sense, but then for the bubble to lead you it needs to be of a heavy material that doesn't pop up easily right?? like lead maybe.....
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The Megamix manga offers what I think has been more or less accepted as the answer.

...The Bubble Lead alters the electromagnetic field to create a strong hydrogen bond between water molecules, which results in the formation of a large bubble. A bit of sulfuric acid is added to these bubbles, which not only makes them more dangerous, but also results in greater pliancy and keeps their water content from evaporating as easily as normal bubbles.
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- https://megaman.miraheze.org/wiki/Bubble_Lead

Considering the tangential relationship Capcom has often utilized with Ariga's manga, it's about as "canon" as I think it gets.

Mer.Saloon said:
Still doesn't explain why the hologram is weak to only it.
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When you consider that's what's actually floating around and shooting at Rock is basically a small, flying turret with a holographic projector attached to it, perhaps the only thing that Wily forgot to implement what otherwise was an ideal weapon was properly water proofing it...
 
I legitimately thought it was a bubble made of lead, and that's why it rolled instead of floating.

But also I'm actually terrible at spoken English (Which is great living with several North Americans) and didn't even know there was a difference between lead and lead until this thread.
 
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ngpdrew said:
Can Sakaguchi take a stance on Tee-dus versus Tie-dus?
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I think that was always an understandable mispronunciation for western players given the games theming and key art. Seeing ‘Tidus’ when the cover art is some guy in waterproof kit, holding a sword made of water, in the ocean, and thinking it was Tidus = ocean tides = Tie-dus.
 
PixelKnight said:
I think that was always an understandable mispronunciation for western players given the games theming and key art. Seeing ‘Tidus’ when the cover art is some guy in waterproof kit, holding a sword made of water, in the ocean, and thinking it was Tidus = ocean tides = Tie-dus.
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Huh. Never thought of it like that. I might need to apologize to some people…
 
ngpdrew said:
Huh. Never thought of it like that. I might need to apologize to some people…
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Well, maybe I’m generalising from self but I think that’s at least what my initial thoughts were when playing it back on PS2 :)
 
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Funny how language works, as a non native English speaker, I never batted an eye at this because "Bubble Lead" makes perfect sense to me as a weapon that leads the way ahead.
 
Leo said:
Funny how language works, as a non native English speaker, I never batted an eye at this because "Bubble Lead" makes perfect sense to me as a weapon that leads the way ahead.
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I think I knew it was ‘bubble lead the way’ the moment i was using it to check for false floors in Wily’s fortress
 
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