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Eggplant Wizard's name for Kid Icarus is a pun, I finally got the answer that was killing me all this years.

SalvaPot

SalvaPot

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,944
So you know this guy?
latest

Well, in Kid Icarus, if he hits you with his magic he transforms you into Resetera's favorite emoji:

EggplantPit.png

This is fun an all, but, for the longest time I always wondered... why an eggplant wizard? What made the game designers think "You know what this greek-flavored game needs? 🍆

Well, worry no more, it turns out the name has a very punny origin. The story goes that the original designer Toru Osawa was thinking about bonuses because he was about to get paid, and while thinking about that he got an idea for this iconic enemy. The japanese word for eggplant is Nasu, and the japanese word for stick is Bo, so an eggplant carrying a stick is a Bonasu, wizards carry sticks... eggplant wizard.

Edit: Bonus -> Bonus Boss -> Bo=stick Nasu=Eggplant-> Eggplant with a stick -> Eggplant Wizard

I took this from this video, pretty good btw.



🍆

Wonder what other ridiculous name origins we are missing out on because of language barriers or inside jokes.
 
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Nanashrew

Nanashrew

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
6,328
Toru Osawa likes eggplants and also made Eggplant Man in Wrecking Crew. And yeah, while thinking about his next paycheck or bonus he came up with Eggplant Wizard for Kid Icarus.
 
mopinks

mopinks

Member
Oct 27, 2017
31,567
an eggplant-themed enemy in a Greek-themed game always seemed perfectly natural to me, so I never even considered that there might be a pun involved
 
stan423321

stan423321

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,676
SalvaPot said:
This is fun an all, but, for the longest time I always wondered... why an eggplant wizard? What made the game designers think "You know what this greek-flavored game needs? 🍆
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When you phrase it this way... erm... moussaka?
SalvaPot said:
Wonder what other ridiculous name origins we are missing out on because of lenguage barriers or inside jokes.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
As a non-native English speaker I can assure you you're missing out on a load of stuff. I was missing out on half the weaponry jokes in Worms until I got to know English well and stumbled upon untranslated versions (they do explain some inside jokes in the games' text databases, at least). The moment I realized what the heck was behind all the air drops (medical strike, lottery strike, mail strike, mine strike) was a good 15 minutes of WTF.
 
Hieroph

Hieroph

Member
Oct 28, 2017
8,995
Never knew that.

Kinda sad that we never got a Kid Icarus game for SNES. Some of those enemies could have been fun to see as 16-bit sprites.
 
Dyle

Dyle

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
31,407
Oh good this is another useful tidbit for my semi-annual powerpoint presentation "Eggplants in Asian Art"
 
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