An Alternate View of the World via Capcom’s Red Earth

Oh video games, and your unique perspective on the world around you.

In the 1996 arcade game Red Earth — a Street Fighter-like brawler with RPG elements, released in Japan as Warzard — your chosen character moves from location to location, vanquishing monsters and ridding the world of evil. You know, as one often does. But though Red Earth is a fantasy game — among the four selectable characters are a sword-wielding lion-man-thing and a witch — the setting is actually just a warped version of the real-world. See the map that shows you which destination you’ll next be duking it out with a monster:

In fact, this map is what I’m writing about. Given that the basis for Red Earth is the regular old green and blue earth, familiar, real-life geographic locations appear, just in odd ways. See the location in the upper-left corner, marked with an ice statue? The text on the map itself refers to the location as something beginning with frost, and when you actually fight at this stage, the screen introduces it as Icelarn. Obviously, it’s supposed to represent the frozen reaches of Scandinavia. The center of Africa, on the other hand, is Sahada, with the stage marked by the sphinx being Sangypt — you know, because Egypt has a lot of sand. (Wikipedia notes that in the Japanese version, this area was called Alanbird, a name I can’t make heads or tales of.) And the stand-in for Japan — oddly labeled The Kingdom of Reece on the map — is introduced when you arrive at this stage as Zipang, an alternate name for Japan.

What seems especially about Red Earth’s map screen, however, are the locations that are labeled even though no battles are fought there. For example, there’s Australia, called here Auster. Or there’s North America, referred to as Indean Land — a little awkward, I guess, but not offensive. And finally there’s the Middle East area of the map, marked with the less benign-sounding Evelious, which seems a little wrong. And the closest stage fought to Evelious? The Greece-themed one — called Savalia in the English version but Greedia in the Japanese one. This all seems suggestive attitudes toward this region of the word, at least when filtered through my American ears.

In all, it’s just interesting to see how one culture interprets the world for the purposes of a video game, and then how another would change or retain parts of this interpretation for another culture. Leaving Evelious but changing Greedia? Odd. Leaving Icelarn but switching out Alanbird for Sangypt? Also weird. I’m fascinated by how anyone would go through the process of saying “Yes, keep this but, no, get rid of that,” and what the motivations might be for protecting or indulging one culture’s sensibilities over another.

Not on the subject of national representation in video games but nonetheless worth mentioning in what will probably be my only-ever Red Earth-themed post: Tessa (Tabasa in the Japanese version), one of the four heroes and one who’s gotten a lot of play in other Capcom titles. In the story sequences that break up the fighting, Tessa speaks this line:

And I’m noting here because it perfectly exemplifies the logic of heroic characters in video games.

Finally, there’s also this:

You get this screen in Tessa’s ending if you choose the “bad” option: not destroying the horrible little alien creature being kept by the game’s main villain. Again you have to love video game dialogue. And the presumable logic behind the art design here: “Hey, wouldn’t this be better if Tessa was totally naked? Like, for no reason?”

(Images via this Red Earth playthrough.)

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It Gets Ugly

As a forewarning, I'd like to state now that this post features more ugly than a high school colorguard halftime show. Proceed at your own risk.


The rather tragic woman depicted above this text is Beatriz Pinzón Solano, the title character in the former Colombian telenovela, Yo Soy Betty, La Fea. It translates to "I am Betty, the ugly one." I don't watch the show's American incarnation, Ugly Betty, but I have a passing familiarity with it, mostly through poor America Ferrera's connections to terrorism and thievery alleged by faulty image-pulling mechanisms in Google news searches for "Santa Barbara." Looking into the show, I've been thoroughly amused by the literal translations of Ugly Betty's various permutations. That, plus what horrendous features different countries cobble together to make what they think is ugly.

The first nation to rip off the show and make it their own kind of ugly is India, who dubbed it Jassi Jaissi Koi Nahin. The translation: "There's nobody like Jassi." Let's hope not.


In Israel, it's Esti Ha'mechoeret — ir "Ugly Esti." I can't help but to read that long, apostrophed Hebrew word as "hatchet-faced."


In Germany, it's Verliebt in Berlin, which makes no remark about it's protagonist's nuclear disaster of a face but apparently is a pun that can translate to either "In love with Berlin" or "In love in Berlin." Also, she's ugly, though not quite as ugly as her international counterparts.


In the former Soviet Union countries, the show was called Ne Rodis' Krasivoy, or "Be Not Born Beautiful." I'm not clear whether that's a command or just good advice.


The Turkish Sensiz Olmuyor translates to "Won't Work Without You." That's not funny. However, the fact that the lead ugly's name is "Gönül" that makes me laugh. Even more ugly-sounding: the actress's name, Özlem Conker, the sound of which strikes my ears like battering ram.


Not to be outdone by the original Colombian series, a Mexican network made its own version,
La Fea Más Bella, or "The Most Beautiful Ugly Girl."


The real prettiest ugly girl, however, would have to be the woman playing Lotte Pronk, the Dutch version of Ugly Betty. Literally, this character strikes me as not ugly in any manner whatsoever, save for a slightly out-of-date mop of Shirley Temple ringlets. Lotte's show is simply called Lotte — not Ugly Lotte, not Lotte With the Thing on Her Neck, not Lotte Has Orthopedic Shoes. I guess the Dutch are really such a fantastically beautiful people that Lotte is as ugly the best attempt at ugly they can put forth.


Spain too put forth a verion of the show, Yo Soy Bea. According to Wikipedia, the title is a pun. Bea's name sounds like either bella or fea, depending on whether she's wearing those goddamn glasses or not.


And finally the clear winner in the ratty hair and caterpillar eyebrows department, we have
the title character of the Greek series, Maria, i Asximi, or "Maria, the ugly one."


And an honorable mention in the ugly race: the translation of the Japanese name for the original version Betty, Ai to uragiri no hishojitsu, comes out to "Betty, love and betrayal secretarial office," which perhaps gets more to the point than anything any other country has put together on the subject.