Bobobo-bo bo-bobo Oneshot : Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo (Akamaru Version)

Over the last 999 scripts, there have been many two-word combinations tied to the works of StrangerAtaru: Choujin Wrestler, Hell Teacher, Dream Soldier, Lazy Policeman, Cyborg Grandpa, Minmei Publishing, F**k Mii (OK...he's trying to forget the last one...) But for his 1000th script on Mangahelpers, he goes back to the two words that got him into translating manga in the first place (again)...and the two words that will possibly best define the one work he may be best known for...

HANAGE SHINKEN!!!!!

So sit back, relax, and enjoy the 1000th StrangerAtaru script, as we see how the saga of a certain nosehair warrior began...

Special: Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo (Akamaru Version)
(StrangerAtaru 1000th script special)
As published in
Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo? - Sawai Yoshio Short-Story Collection

25.
Narrator: 300X: the Earth was heading towards an era where it was ruled by the Maruhage Empire.
(TN: Considering this is the first Bo-bobo pilot and it's been a long time since we've had these terms understood, I think it's time to maybe get a few translations understood for my scripts regarding the early part of the series. First of all, "Maruhage" is the Japanese term for "utter, complete baldness")
Narrator: As symbol of his own authority, Tsuru Tsurulina the 4th, emperor of the Maruhage Empire, started a Hair Hunt on the entire world to make his whole nation bald.
(TN: A couple terms this time
1. "Tsuru Tsurulina" is a play on the onomotopeia for "tsuru tsuru", or "smooth and slippery"
2. "Hair Hunt" in Japanese "kegari", a combination of "ke" or "hair" and "karu", the verb for "cutting hair")
Narrator: As its name states, a Hair Hunt is the taking-out of fresh hair growing on the head; by the Hair Hunt, the Maruhage Empire grew in might.
Caption: Loguru Village
Man: It's the Hair Hunters. The Hair Hunters have come!!!!
Man 1: Uwaaaaa
Man 2: Run----!!!
Hair Hunter: Ha--hahahahaha: WE ARE THE D-BLOCK DISTRICT HAIR HUNTERS

26.
Hair Hunter: FROM NOW ON, THIS TOWN IS UNDER MARUHAGE EMPIRE JURISDICTION: BEGIN THE HAIR HUNT!!!! HA--HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

27.
Wakahage: Ha ha ha: before the arrival of the general leader, everyone will come to have bald heads.
Caption: D-Block Leader: Wakahage
(TN: A slight joke here: "wakahage" is Japanese for "Premature Baldness")
SFX: BAKI (BONK)!!!
Wakihage: N
"Girl": Haa haa: don't harm the hair of a friendly person.
Beauty: The Hair Hunters have finally come to this town as well. I absolutely hate baldness.
Caption: Fashion-Conscious Girl of the Town: Beauty
Wakahage: WHAT ARE YOU DOING~~~!!!
Beauty: UWA!!!
Hair Hunter: GYAN!!!!
Beauty: What? That seemed like a whip now? Who exactly was that?...
Voice: Are you alright?
Beauty: !

28.
"Nosehair-Man": THAT WAS CLOSE
Beauty: NOSEHAIRS!!!!!!
Bo-bobo: Do you understand the pain of hair a bit?
Wakahage: Gugu...
Wakahage: YOU DEFY THE HAIR HUNTERS...WHAT EXACTY ARE YOU...?

29.
Bo-bobo: I AM BO-BOBO!!!! BOBOBO-BO BO-BOBO!!!!!
Wakahage: SO MANY MYSTERIES...
Hair Hunter: AAAAH, LEADER!!!
Hair Hunter: HE DEFEATED THE LEADER!!! RETREAT!! RETREAT~~~!!!
SFX: SUPO
Bo-bobo: HMPH
Beauty: ..........

30.
Beauty: You're amazing!!! What were those nosehairs now!!? They've gone numb!!!
Beauty: I'M BEAUTY. You're not a person of this town. I haven't seen your face.
Bo-bobo: Hey hey, my name is Bo-bobo. Not you, call me Bo-bobo.
Beauty: Then, Bo-bobo.
Bo-bobo: Don't act familiar.
(TN: The "don't act familiar" line here is Bo-bobo going "kiyasuku yobu na"; since Beauty doesn't use a ending like "san", "sama" and "kun" and just calls him "Bo-bobo", she's acting familiar to someone she really doesn't know, thus Bo-bobo's warning)
Beauty: EH!!?
Bo-bobo: I'm a nice guy traveling around the world in search of a certain man.
Beauty: WHAT, YOU'RE SEARCHING FOR A PERSON? I MAY KNOW HIM BECAUSE I'M REALLY GOOD WITH FACES.
Bo-bobo: It's somehow this man but...

31.
Beauty: SORRY, I DON'T KNOW HIM...
Bo-bobo: Right...
Beauty: Going from there, thank you for earlier, you saved me. Bo-bobo is my benefactor.
Bo-bobo: If you're grateful, then make it to your own hairs on your head that wished to be saved by me.
Beauty: Eh?
Beauty: WHAT'S THAT ABOUT? WHAT--DO YOU--MEAN BY THAT!!?
Bo-bobo: I CAN HEAR THE VOICE OF HAIR.
Beauty: The voice of hair?
Bo-bobo: Yes...
Bo-bobo: Since I was a kid, I could hear the voice of hair.
"Voice 1": There's nice weather today.
"Voice 2": Are you alright?
"Voice 3": Ah--I'll eat curry.
Caption: Bo-bobo, Age 7

32.
Bo-bobo: It was a mystery as to why just I could hear the voice of hair.
Man: Huh? The voice of hair? What are you talking about?
Bo-bobo: One day, I asked that to my own hair. (flashback) Why can I hear the voices of hair?
"Hair": We don't know.
Bo-bobo: They were warriors.
Bo-bobo: It was a bit shocking...
Bo-bobo: As such on one day, I met that man.
"Voice": Wa~h wa~h
Bo-bobo: Oldie, your hair is crying.
Bo-bobo: His name was Iboji. Iboji was also a human who could hear the voice of hair, same as I.
(TN: Just a silly comment regarding all the "weird names": Iboji is Japanese for "hemorrhoid")
Iboji: You can hear them too!? The voices of hair!!!!
Bo-bobo: I asked Iboji why I could hear the voice of hair. (flashback) What is it?
Iboji: I DON'T KNOW.
Bo-bobo: He too was another warrior.

33.
Bo-bobo: Iboji was the president of a hair tonic company and I studied in depth many thing about hair from Iboji.
Iboji: It was Biore.
(TN: "Biore" is a Japanese cosmetics company; while they make a lot of face-cleaning products, I'm not really sure if they make any hair tonic products)
Bo-bobo: And I got to know the reality that hair has life and live with all their might one-by-one.
Hair 1: We're ali--ve
Hair 2: Ya--y
Hair 3: We do--with great--trouble.
Bo-bobo: It's a lie!! An absolute lie!!!
Iboji: I'm serious!!!
Bo-bobo: And thus, Iboji left having taught that thing to me.
Bo-bobo: ...And so I, who knew of the life of hair, searched for hair that requested to be saved and came to not ignore them from that day.
Beauty: So...so then, my head hair requested to be saved by Bo-bobo.
Bo-bobo: WRONG
Beauty: THAT WAS WRONG!!!!?

34.
Beauty: So, what was that story now!!!?
Wakahage: KU KU KU...
Bo-bobo: What's wrong, is something amusing?
Wakahage: IT'S ALREADY THE END OF THIS TOWN: BECAUSE YOU'RE OPPOSING US. OUR GENERAL LEADER HOMODESU-SAMA IS COMING TO THIS TOWN. HE'LL KILL ALL OF YOU...
(TN: Obvious pun here considering "Homodesu" is "I'm a homo(sexual)")
Beauty: WHAT IS THIS HOMODESU? ISN'T THIS DANGEROUS?...
Bo-bobo: Fu, don't worry: you're going to go take the townspeople to shelter.
Beauty: Bu...but...
Bo-bobo: IT'LL BE FINE BECAUSE YOU'RE LEAVING THIS TO ME
Beauty: THEY'VE MULTIPLIED!!!!

35.
Caption: 3 Hours Later
Voice: I'VE ARRIVED AT LAST. THIS IS LOGURU VILLAGE.
Homodesu: IT'S EXTREMELY QUIET. IS THE HAIR HUNT ALREADY OVER?
Caption: General Leader of D-Block: Homodesu
Homodesu: ARA? WHAT'S THAT? HAIR
Bo-bobo: GROW~~GROW~~
Homodesu: !!!!

36.
Bo-bobo: GROW---!!!! THEY'RE GOING TO GROW----!!!!!
Homodesu: WILL THEY GROW----!!!!!!
Homodesu: KU!!! WHAT SORT OF PERSON ARE YOU!!!?
Bo-bobo: MY NAME IS BOBOBO-BO BO-BOBO BOBOBO-BO BO-BOBO BOBOBO-BO BO-BOBO
Bo-bobo: BOBOBO-BO
Bo-bobo: BO-BOBO, AM I!!!?
Homodesu: No, even if I heard it...

37.
Bo-bobo: You're Homodesu. I've defeated your subordinates.
Homodesu: Hoo.
Homodesu: IN OTHER WORDS, YOU'RE A REBEL!! REBELS GET THE DEATH PENALTY; DIE----!!!!
Bo-bobo: SEXY BEAM
Homodesu: GUO!!!
Homodesu: WH...WHAT!!!? HE'S ATTACKING WITH NOSEHAIRS!!!?
Homodesu: ...KU, WHAT EXACTLY ARE YOU...
Bo-bobo: I'M A NOSEHAIR USER.

38.
"Star-Head": WHAAT!!!! A NOSEHAIR USER!!!!?
"Star-Head": Haa haa haa
"Star-Head": Haa haa
Homodesu: ...What is a "nosehair user"?
Bo-bobo: HANAGE SHINKEN, AN ASSASSINATION FIST THAT FREELY MANIPULATES NOSEHIARS AND DEFEATS ENEMIES. A PERSON WHO MASTERS HANAGE SHINKEN IS A NOSEHAIR USER.
(TN: A strange note here that has to be said: in the original Bo-bobo pilot, Bo-bobo refers to "Hanage Shinken" using the "Shin" that is Japanese for "God" as opposed to "True". This is the same "Shinken" reading as the "Shinken" in "Hokuto Shinken", the classic Buronson/Tetsuo Hara manga series that Bo-bobo parodies. By the time of the series, the "Shin" changes to the kanji for "True", leading to the "True Fist" style that Bo-bobo has for his "Hanage Shinken"...as well as all further Shinken later in the series)
Bo-bobo: Be prepared: I don't go easy on guys who don't think of hair as hair like all of you.
Homodesu: HMPH, I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT NOSEHAIR USERS, BUT DON'T GET CAUGHT IN THE MOMENT!!!!

39.
Homodesu: HMPH!!
SFX: BUCHI!!!
Homodesu: ORA----!!!!
Page: 3RD PLACE
Bo-bobo: Congratulations, it's a 3rd Place Bo-bobo Doll.
Homodesu: !!!
Bo-bobo: IT TALKS WHEN YOU PRESS THE BUTTON ON IT'S CHEST.
Doll: I'M ON FIRE~~~
(TN: "I'm on fire" is actually in Japanese "aiuchi", which is "set afire")
Homodesu: DON'T WANT IT!!!! (I'm on fire!!?)
Bo-bobo: Though it is rare...
Homodesu: I'LL KILL YOU FOR JOKING WITH ME!!!!
Bo-bobo: O--TTO, NOSEHAIR BARRIER!!!!

40.
Bo-bobo: YES
Bo-bobo: GUBAA!!!!!
Homodesu: You're an idiot.
Bo-bobo: GU
Homodesu: UFUFU: EVEN IF YOU SAY YOU'RE A NOSEHAIR USER, THAT'S NOT A BIG DEAL. BEFORE I KILL YOU, I'LL HUNT DOWN YOUR FLASHY HEAD.
Bo-bobo: Like this?
Homodesu: HE'S SMOOTH!!!!?
Bo-bobo: MY HEAD HAIR HAS RUN AWAY FROM HOME
Homodesu: RAN AWAY FROM HOME!!!!?

41.
Bo-bobo: OUR CHATTERING IS OVER!!!
SFX: KAPO
Bo-bobo: I WILL SHOW YOU THE ESSENSE OF HANAGE SHINKEN!!!
Bo-bobo: WATCH THIS!! HANAGE SHINKEN KYUUKYOKU OUGI: NOSEHAIR FESTIVAL-----!!!!!
Homodesu: WHAT!!! NOSEHAIR FESTIVAL!!!?
Bo-bobo: THEY'RE ENTANGLED
Homodesu: Ha---hahahaha: you're stupid.
SFX: Buchi
Homodesu: I already understand your true power.
Homodesu: DIIE----!!!!

42.
Homodesu: PITHAIR...

43.
Bo-bobo: I'M EVEN A PITHAIR USER.
Beauty: BO-BOBO!!! (Ya--y)
Bo-bobo: Oh, Beauty, it's over
Beauty: WA-----!!!!!
Beauty: THAT'S DISGUSTING----!!!!
(TN: Beauty's final line is "Kishoi", which is a shortened version of "Kishoku Warui" or "a bad appearance". With Beauty's obsession with "style" In this pilot, I had to keep the meaning as well as her slightly vain nature...of course, she'd think that seeing armpit hairs flying about would be disgusting, thus the line here)
(End of pilot chapter)

TN: Ladies and gentlemen reading this script...and those who come across this later: what I said above is true. This script that you are reading is actually my 1000th script on Mangahelpers. It's been a long, strange ride...with a lot of long strange series...but somehow I've made it this far without utterly going insane. I can still somehow remember only yesterday (well it was April, 2008), when my stupid self, sick of witnessing the neglect of "Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo" by all parties involved with it, decided to take my way-out-of practice Japanese skills to "fill in the massive blank" that existed between the already-translated part of the series (which pretty much was from the beginning to the end of vol. 2) to "the part Viz's volume began with"...which essentially was the end of OVER and the start of Halekulani. Boy how the time flies...somehow I've ended up going from "filling in the empty Bo-bobo story" to...well, filling and finishing the original Bo-bobo, doing Shinsetsu (a work in progress), doing a similar "Fill in the Blank" with Kinnikuman (again all the way to the end), starting up several other weird series...and oh yeah, only really doing one series so far from start to finish! (though I do wonder if anyone outside myself really loved "Cyborg Jii-chan G"...but I did that as a labor of love to improve the name of Obata somehow or another) There have been good times, bad times, sad times, glad times, strange times...really strange times...and everything associated with "Desire", which, hopefully, I may never speak of again. (that is unless someone wants me to get back to it...) Honestly, I mostly do this because I want to sort of keep my Japanese in practice as well as get out there interest in a bunch of series that would normally get lost. Yeah I know I do a ton of "older series" and not the "Big Three of Jump" (even though I did do a few Gintama scripts...which sucked miserably) but I guess to me, every manga deserves a shot. Honestly I have a few crazy ideas for my projects in the future, including some stuff I doubt anyone has even heard of! (outside the obsessive who exist) But...I need to give a massive, massive "thank you" to all of you out there who have read my scripts, the series associated with said scripts...and put up with an utter weirdo like me who makes overlong rants about stuff like "How Watchman may be one of the most dangerous Choujin wrestlers in existence" or "the awesomeness of monkeys in Chinese kenpou" or "how a ghost story about a "nun" and a guy with a tengu mask may be the most disturbing thing ever written" or "about the time I probably forgot about that one Cutie Honey bit that one detective guy in KochiKame used" (I can't really remember now) or "how cute Kyouko Inaba is with fluffier pigtails and a dress"...and of course all of my "Tennosuke rocks" bits. You all deserve medals (probably one of those "Scrap-Iron Poop" ones) to have put up with me all this time...and I thank each and every one of you who have, even if you're not reading this right here or now.

So then...enough about me and this milestone thing...I guess it would come to no surprise that my 1000th script would turn out to be a Bo-bobo related one. Honestly, when I saw I was approaching this milestone, I began to realize that the very first pilot, which is actually something really well known thanks to the Bo-bobo anime (due to the adapted elements like Bo-bobo's introduction to Beauty and the whole "hear hair" background instead of the Hair Kingdom stuff) had never really been done or exposed in the US! While people knew of elements from the pilot from the anime, it just wasn't that know considering that the first manga chapter does some introductory things slightly different (well aside from adding Pickles) and that was out there as well as the contradictory stuff in the first anime episode. So in order to clear up things, I decided to do the first pilot to introduce ourselves to the original "Bo-bobo concept" and how it ended up changing from the first pilot to the first manga chapter. (well, there is the second pilot, which is a series of four chapters...but that may be done at a later time)

Looking at the chapter...there are quite a few bits that did become "redone" in the first chapter (the armpit hair at the end, the whole "block leader is some weird gay guy" part, Bo-bobo's nosehairs getting tangled up in his "shield"), but there were also some things that seemed to be cleared up that Sawai never actually got to. The most obvious was how Beauty's character was used between the first pilot and the actual manga. In the manga, Beauty is just a generic tsukkomi, responding and reacting to all of the weirdness that Bo-bobo and everyone else pulls. But here, while we see her tsukkomi side in it's early phase, we also see her as the "fashion-conscious girl", thus why her name is "Beauty"...and why it's so weird for her to see something as weird or disgusting as Bo-bobo, who uses nosehairs as his weapon. Honestly, I actually like the idea of Beauty having a bit more personality outside being the "side screamer" and the straight-man/normal girl of the series, using her obsession with fashion and vanity as a means to contrast with the weird-looking characters and giving her something other than what we ended up getting.

The other thing that really seemed to stand out, especially due to me being on Shinsetsu now where a lot of it did seem to be gone by now, is just how bizarre but brilliant this entire world was. It was obvious from the pilot that there was a bit of a "Hokuto no Ken" concept of a warrior wandering the wastelands fighting against bald soldiers to protect hair. But somehow a lot of the stuff that either was in or ignored later on was in the first pilot, from "random things talking" (like young Bo-bobo "talking to his hair") and the "hair master" who used to work for a tonic company...to just the various weird names used for all of the fighters and even the evil Hair Hunters in the pilot. You definitely see a more freewheeling, bizarre idea similar to the early volumes, where it wasn't just about the Hair Hunter block fights but also about weirdo characters, strange puns and all-out comic randomness that actually made sense. This was a series where a villainous block could have two video stores on top of one another, where teachers could be an old shop lady (and one old man) and masters juice cans, and where the most powerful block leader...was a sentinent slab of tokoroten. (yeah, being quiet on him...) Heck, even the idea of all the villains (outside the weirder ones) being bald felt menacing and like a massive standard outside the highest levels such as the Heavenly Kings and their assistants. Compare that to current Shinsetsu: most of the randomness is gone, none of the villains are bald, we don't get too many weird moments (though we still get a lot of weird and creative fighters) and it just feels like one fight after another after another. (nothing wrong with it but it just feels so different between then and now...and it makes you wonder what could have been.

So...I guess that will be all for now. There will be more Bo-bobo coming (still got 30 Shinsetsu chapters left...and maybe some other stuff like...we'll see), not to mention all the other series that I have to get to work on or keep working on...heck, I still have 2 more scripts tonight and just paused them just to get to this 1000th one! I have to get back to work...