What are the Pac Man bad guys supposed to be?
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- Опубликовано: 15 апр 2022
- Why do we think of a white sheet creature as being a ghost? And why have the Japanese never thought the same way?
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HASHTAGS: #ghost #obake #pacman
Maxwells world gettin turned upside down
He was getting really defensive lol
Does anybody think that JJ without his mustache looks kinda young?
Maxwell looks like he is extremely tall.
more dumb than buying a 980 ti in early 2016
Bang bang Maxwell’s silver hammer came down on his head.
"We're the ghost monsters" actually made me laugh
A little on the nose eh
What really sells it is right before that when he's like "I've gotta get away from those ghost monsters." and then they just come in and basically just restate that.
And people still insist that Cartoons were more intelligent back then…
@@JJMcCullough EDIT: Never mind. I made the original question comment half way through the video & found you gave the answer a little later at 13:10 to 13:32.
So subtle✨🤣
When I was a kid, I had a CD Rom with a few Namco arcade games on it, one of which was Ms. Pac-Man. The intermission cutscenes in that game don't feature the ghosts so prominently (although the first one does show the monsters colliding with eachother and making an audible "bonk" noise, which I found strange since I figured ghosts would just phase right through eachother). I didn't play the original Pac-Man until I was an adult, and I too had my reality shattered seeing the intermissions depict the "ghosts" tear their skin off and sew it back on.
One thing I don't think you mentioned that also played heavily into the idea that they were ghosts is that there's a prominent "woo-woo-woo" noise constantly playing in the background during the game.
True
Yoo its tier zoo!
Along with the woo woo woo I always felt them getting eaten and turned into eyes felt like the spirit/soul of the ghost was left without a physical body so it had to go back to try and posses something physical again.
Yesss I had Ms Pac-Man too!
Hey it's another famous RUclipsr
Pac-Man expert here. The "ghosts" in Pac-Man are, no lie, animated bubble gum. Pac-Man 2 The New Adventures and Pac in Time both feature the ghost's leader, the Ghost Witch, who is busy assembling an ABC (already been chewed) gum monster. To this end she has the four spooks collecting chewed gum from across Pac-Man's hometown. Knowing that her speciality is endowing gum with life, and considering that Blinky without his "sheet" (wrapper?) looks an awful lot like a chewed wad of gum, the conclusion is obvious. Some spiritual force, represented by the eyes, animates the gum. Pac-Man can eat the gum, but not the spiritual energy, which returns to the ghost house for a new gum wad and wrapper.
This sounds like something you're pulling out of your ass but you have a Pac-Man pfp so I believe you wholeheartedly and will not do any further research
Dang! Thanks!
@@Nonya_Busyness My pleasure.
Yeah thats true
@@magma1675 True. It also calls the red ghost Clyde, but that is neither here nor there. You might also point out that the PC exclusive Pac-Man Adventures in Time reveals that the ghosts have existed since prehistoric times. Real world reason: the programmers of said games likely didn't know or care about the gum monster and it's implications. In game explanation? Perhaps the ghosts have always existed as spectral energy, needing a physical core to interact with the living. The Ghost Witch provides enchanted gum (I love being able to type sentences like that with a straight face) but anything solid will do in a pinch. That would explain why KInky from Pac-Man Arrangement needs to combine with other ghosts to attack Pac-Man, he lacks the gum center. Going back to your example, notice how the ghosts in Pac-Man World 3 are able to touch and even bump into Pac-Man without killing him? Without the Ghost Witch in the picture to give fresh gum their power has decreased drastically, even going back to World 1 they are only able to shave off a single health wedge per hit, a far cry from the one hit kills of the gum empowered ghosts of yore.
I think the fact that the enemies in Packman are practically immortal, being turned into disembodied eyes which reform in the Central pod of the "maze" further cemented the idea that they were not living creatures but some sort of undead
just scrolled down to say this same thing
Except cartoons have depicted any person, animal, or thing being burnt down to only their eyeballs and reforming later so yeah.
@@MazinGo-1972 Yeah but coupling that with their ghost like appearance and you see where the confusion settled in
He sounds like a Satanist who's mad that everyone thinks he worships Satan (They don't, but you can't fault anyone for thinking that). These monsters wear sheets, that they replace once they get eaten... actually they sound more like poltergeists. The short explanation is that a poltergeist is an invisible ghost who moves objects around to announce its presence. But then, generally nobody can tell the difference between ghosts and poltergeists anyhow, so they're usually used interchangeably. So, in short, they look like ghosts, they act like ghosts, they're based on a character who themselves are based on a crappy child's ghost costume... there's no confusion on why this is a thing.
Next he'll do an episode on why we think my Dad, Koopa "the Ox King" looks like a turtle.
@@Wendy_O._Koopa I always saw him as a dragon turtle, since Western dragons tend to have horns, and breathe fire.
I never really thought about what the characters in Pac-Man are called. In Latvia, we always call them "spoki" or "призраки," which are both the same as "ghosts." About a decade ago, I came across a Vietnamese forum of people arguing if they were "ma/ghosts" or "quái vật/monsters." However, I think "ma/ghosts" is more common. This was a very interesting video!
yoo I'm from Latvia too lmao
why did you write that in cyrillic
I'm from Latvia too
@@Sunrah a bunch of people in latvia speak russian so
Kopš kura laika latvieši skatās JJ?
Un tik agri pēc video izlaišanas? 😯
Ja kas, par kuru vjetnamu forumu tu tieši runā? Esmu pārsteigts ka tu vispār zini kaut ko par to.
It also probably didn't help that the fact that their eyes could fly back into their box and regenerate a body feels very noncorporeal. May or may not have been a factor.
Yeah that is true.
My girlfriend is actually crying after I told her they weren't ghosts, I'm on the verge of tears too. We are incredibly obsessed and invested in them being ghosts
Oh Ok
They’re ghosts. They look like ghosts, everyone sees them as ghosts, just because Namco didn’t originally intend for them to be ghosts doesn’t really change how we perceive them as ghosts
@@magma1675 You’ll be a conventional dead spirit after I’m done with you, square up
Ghosts are in the Monster Manual, and are thus a type of monster. Ghosts, werewolves, vampires, dragons, all types of monster. There's no contradiction with them being ghosts and monsters simultaneously, like a car is a vehicle too.
I don't believe a word of what you just said.
The difference between ghost as dead person and ghost as a type of monster is fascinating. Reminds me of stuff like Scooby Doo or urban fantasy where each “race/species” of creature gets its own worldbuilding.
A lot of that difference comes down to Japanese folklore compared to American. There are certainly American monsters too like Bigfoot, Mothman and the Jersey devil but they are far rarer.
For some reason didn't the European immigrants bring many such myths to America because in Europe they are all over the place and the Native American monsters like the Wendigo never made it big.
Ghosts have always been the main creature of folklore in America and have always been seen as the spirit (or in some cases the animated remains) of a dead person. Vampires had a popularity in the late 1700s too.
It is very fascinating. I think that ghosts like Casper that isn't a traditional ghost probably comes down to commercial reasons though. Children stories in the west in general and America in particular have become a lot less scary since WW2.
kinda how Dwarfs can either be just short people or an entirelly different race
@@KingArthur39 Dwarf is from Norse mythology (as are elves) but why people started to call short humans that is beyond me.
So you are right, it is likely something similar happened here even though it was likely the vikings and their weird humor who started this.
If someone was called "Eric the tall" it meant he was either very tall or incredible short, vikings were weird.
Somehow they must have started calling some short people after the smiths of legend, likely because they had a short but excellent smith.
It is also possible it was a mistake when the word was adapted into English and it just is a faulty translation that got stuck.
In either case was indeed some people linked to mythological creatures they had some likenesses with here just like the Pac Man "ghosts".
There is a difference here since I don't think anyone confused short people with the mythological beings though.
Like skeletons. They can be undead or simply animate entities.
@@oatmealman1586 technically, that would be a bone golem but they do look about the same.
But you are right, it is the same difference like with a ghost and a spirit. We tend to depict those the same way as well.
That is however the western culture, other cultures often have a very different distinction. Japanese ghosts are depicted differently (and often look far scarier).
It comes down to art, comics and movies really and in the skeleton case D&D and computer games.
A lot of these things want to sell their products to kids and teenagers and you can't have things look to scary or the parents wont let them buy the stuff.
“…and in this 1982 ruling from the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals” is a phrase I did not expect to hear
Please acknowledge that "ghost" is a subset of "monster" and therefore if they are defined only as "monsters", that does not preclude them from being ghosts
But you saw part of their costume rip off
@@IcyDiamond to be fair that kind of joke would be done in in an old timey cartoon with ghosts too.
Like yeah them being ghosts is a retcon but not a lore breaking one. Even that Japanese commercial they'd walk for a bit then they'd kinda shimmer for a bit.
Apparently they’re chewed gum possessed by spirits. When the costume rips it’s like the “wrapper” ripping off. And the weird shaped creature from the 3rd cutscene is the gum itself.
yeah true, but not really the point of the video, the point was how and why they became "ghosts" when nothing really said they should be.
But thanks to culture things turned out this way.
@@MouseGoat Except this YTer was being rather harsh in calling his friend "wrong" for calling them ghosts, as if ghosts aren't monsters.
You forgot to mention a big thing about the sheet ghost cliche, as ghosts are invisible, they are depicting wearing sheets to make themselves visible to people.
I would say “monster” would be the best interpretation of “obake” from context alone. They both seem like a genera name for a general antagonist of a story told for a purpose. Where “ghoul, ghost, goblin,” etc. are definitely more specific
They are not always antagonists. They are more like mythological creatures than characters, really.
I think cryptid might also be a similar enough in our modern interpretation
He actually used the wrong definition of Obake in the video. He was describing what a yokai is. Obake are a sub-group of yokai that are known for shapeshifting like Tanuki of example. Obake doesn’t define every supernatural being in Japan
Not exactly. The talking furniture from beauty and the beast could be classified as youkai or obake, but they're clearly not monsters. Fae may be a more apt translation, but not all obake are humanoid.
The best translation to english might just be "Entity"
As a Japanese guy, this video was super interesting. “Ghost“ is often translated as “obake“ since “yuurei” has a very specific image among the culture and the depiction of a typical western ghost doesn’t fit that image. I think obake is like the ghosts of Christmas since they aren’t actual deceased spirits but a creepy otherworldly thing so I think it’s ok to refer to these monsters as ghosts in a broad sense.
What did you call the pac man things growing up? What do most Japanese people call them today?
@@JJMcCullough hello
@@JJMcCullough I don’t remember any conversation about it growing up but if I did we’d probably just call them enemy “敵teki”. I did a quick google search and they are called in a few ways, monster, obake, ゴースト(the Japanese transcription of ghost) but not much calling them yuurei.
japanese monsterminology has always been so awkward and confusing..
@@KairuHakubi it's just a different culture, dont look at it from a western tinted lens
That is a fascinating history. And yeah, if they were supposed to be ghosts in Japan, they'd have little blue flames hovering to either side of their heads, and instead of eyes, they'd probably have hands floating in front of them, like an American kid playing at being a T-rex might hold his. (If you watch in anime, ghosts always hold their hands limply before them as a "rest position," and they'll often have 'spooky person' characters naturally default to that pose, as well. And also in Japan, their "traditional ghost" costume isn't a bed sheet, but instead is wearing all white with a headband holding a pair of candles on either side of the head, lit to give the "ghostly flames" to the undead representation.)
In this context, it makes sense that the "monsters" of PuckMan would've been oozes or jellies, I suppose. Explains why PuckMan eats _them_ if he gets empowered, too. Delicious gummy-monsters!
What's interesting with the second and third intermissions is that they could be interpreted as the "monsters" being people in "ghost costumes," in the American sense.
There are a HUGE number of traditional ghosts and monsters in Japan, well outside of what you describe.
When I first saw the game Pac-man, and heard that waka-waka sound, I thought the four creatures were supposed to be squids. Later on, I heard they were ghosts so I went with it. Thanks for the video, J.J. It explains a lot.
To be honest I always thought of the cut-away scene where the “Ghost” rips his costume as a 4th wall breaking joke
I've also heard people point out that the flickering nature of the Atari 2600 ghosts (due to the game only being able to show 1 of them at once) might've made them seem more ghostly, but obviously the term was used somewhat before that.
I wish I had mentioned this fact in the video because it’s a good one. It’s a fun urban legend as the “sole” reason but given the popularity of the home game it surely played a role in popularizing the ghost idea more broadly, particularly the idea that they were just traditional Halloween ghosts, as opposed to “ghost monsters” and some unique thing.
Especially since, on an actual tube TV at the time, the "flicker" would have been nearly imperceptible but instead have the effect of making them look semitransparent.
The commercials for the 2600 port specifically refer to them as "ghosts".
This one features animated footage rather than actual gameplay.
ruclips.net/video/hfEn1aHldfA/видео.html
This one features actual game play, and a girl telling her grandpa that "those are SUPPOSED TO BE the ghosts".
ruclips.net/video/juH2qHYX9aI/видео.html
(Her grandpa is played by the actor who played Mr. Hooper on Sesame Street, a character that famously died.)
Monsters can be ghosts. Ghosts can be monsters. It sounds like even though the japanese word used was monsters, Toru Iwatani the creator of the game himself intentionally designed the "monsters" in PacMan to specifically be ghosts.
"Iwatani cited Casper the Friendly Ghost for the ghosts. Their simplistic design was also attributed to the limitations of the hardware at the time, only being able to display a certain amount of colors for a sprite."
There's something I think is more important to the ghost interpretation than the shape. when you defeat one of them they are immortals that turn into non-corporeal eyes that phase through walls so they can return to the regeneration center before trekking back out again. I think a lot of us understood that immortality floating through walls mechanic as something a ghost could do. Also, to some of us, "ghost" doesn't always mean a dead spirit in every context. ghost is also sometimes used as a crude catchall for non-corporeal creatures. a "ghostly being" doesn't always imply that you know what that thing actually is. Ghost is a convenient name for them, like a "Bogey" aircraft in military terms, which also has its origins from words meaning specter or ghost.
The sheet/cloak/covering of some kind is a common trope with Japanese monster characters, and you will see a lot of generic ghoulish/monster type characters in anime, manga, and videogames alike depicted as just a set of eyes with some sort of disguise that obscures their true form. The lore behind this often has to do with the monster character being embarrassed to be seen because of their grotesque physical form, and often the reason they are evil is because of the ridicule or societal rejection they experienced because of their appearance. In all likelihood, the reason the monsters in Pac-Man ever wore a sheet in the first place is simply because it’s an easy, cop-out character design for a monster character that comes pre-packaged with a well-understood, easy to digest backstory.
That’s interesting. Mimiku in Pokémon would fit into that. Who else is there?
@@JJMcCullough no face from spirited away sort of loosely fits into the trope, there’s also Kombu Infinity from once punch man, who shrouds herself in seaweed, just like the Pokémon tangela. The Pokémon Jinx was originally modeled in this same way, an unseen character cloaked in a disguise, which is why its face was originally black, but when Pokémon came to America the black face, red lips, and bulging eyes brought racist imagery to mind, so Nintendo officially changed jinx to a purple character with a clear head shape, which really changes the vibe of the character entirely in my opinion.
@@FuckSmucker Some people have mentioned a bizarre character called Elizabeth from an Anime called Gintama as well.
@@JJMcCullough another thing that came to mind, are what are called "Teru Teru Bozu", this sort of doll/charm. In Weathering With You, the little brother at points wears a Teru Teru Bozu costume to give a sense of ceremony to the business/ritual the main characters run.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teru_teru_b%C5%8Dzu
One other thing this video made me think of was a culturally Japanese shorthand for ghosts that I've seen a lot before - the sort of triangular piece of cloth on the front of their heads. While I understand why the pale robes make sense for a burial & association with death, this head cloth is incredibly common in depictions of Japanese ghosts. It even has a name, apparently
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitaikakushi#:~:text=Hitaikakushi%20(%E9%A1%8D%E9%9A%A0%2C%20%22forehead,by%20y%C5%ABrei%20in%20Japanese%20folklore.
@@JJMcCullough are you still commenting?
"Part II: Where The Heck Did That Come From?" could probably be a title card in all of your videos
Monster (especially モンスター) basically means generic enemy in Japanese. It is an absence of a description, not a positive statement of identity.
I think the most accurate translation would be "creature"
0:29
this image..
stop...
stop stop
astronaut? AND GHOSTS TOO?
WE ALL KNOW IT HAD TO BE ON PURPOSE
Reminds me about a mexican beer name. The beer, made by the Moctezuma Brewery, was originally named "moctezuma beer", and it had the image of that aztec emperor on the label. But people started calling it the beer with "the indian" (el indio), and in some point Moctezuma Brewery changed it's name and today it is called "indio" (indian).
So interesting their affinity for the land of india.
@@DeedeedollieF Well, Columbus was searching for a way to India and stumbled upon a continent (or that is what the mainline story says), so europeans started calling it "the indias" and their inhabitants "indians".
I wonder if "Q-tarō" is more inspired by the traditional Japanese teru-teru bōzu charms. They would look like ghosts to a western viewer but in Japan are a charm to bring good weather.
That’s an interesting question. I’d be curious to know when they were invented.
Draping a sheet over some mysterious form isn't that terribly imaginative. It's easy to believe that multiple cultures came up with similar ideas independently
OMG one time I found one in my yard around Halloween and assumed it was a seasonal ghost decoration… I wonder where it came from
Nah bro qtaro was just a trick jotaro used against enyaba
@@owenchubb5449 like the Ancient Egyptian god Medjed, an invisible deity whose depiction in the book of the dead resembles an stereotypical ghost with legs.
Actually Japan has several words that can be described as, "ghosts." For example, yokai, though yokai in the Japanese culture are different from yurei, but from the descriptions of some yokai they would fit the western definition of a ghost, but not all yokai would because it's a broad term that applies to several supernatural and mythical beings. There's a type of yokai that is a sheet of white cloth that attacks people, it's more of a wide and long ribbon of cloth, but that most westerners would consider that yokai to be a ghost.
So westerners aren't, "wrong," about calling them, "ghosts," since they do fit with what westerners would recognize as ghosts in our culture. It's kind of like the distinction between, "cookie," and, "biscuit," in the United States and I think Canada as well we call it a, "cookie," but in UK it's called a, "biscuit." To us in the US a, "biscuit," is a completely different thing from a, "cookie," but that doesn't make the British wrong about calling them a, "biscuit," it doesn't make us wrong for calling it a, "cookie," it's simply a cultural difference.
Western definition of ghost is pretty much "soul of a dead person" which yokai are not.
@@jamesflames6987 no. Western definition of ghost is just an ethereal entity that is paranormal.
A sheet that floats around would qualify as a ghost.
So like the difference between ghost and spirit?
@@revimfadli4666 All spirits are ghosts. Not all ghosts are spirits.
@@jamesflames6987 what I'm saying is in western culture when someone hears noises at night they're likely to ask themselves, "is that a ghost?" Whereas the Japanese would hear the same noises and as themselves, "is that a yokai?"
7:43 sounds a _lot_ like how rotary phones and floppy disks have become the 'call' and 'save' icons in the Internet age, despite both those things being well gone by the time their new uses as symbols were adopted.
I don’t think I’ve ever been interested in Pac-Man, but this was a very interesting video. In fact, many of the topics you cover would not be something I would usually think about, but you make the material engaging by the amount of thought and care you put into creating your videos. While we have different interests, I think I consume and enjoy your content mostly because I feel like you are a guy who likes learning about things, and I can relate to your passion for learning.
Thank you! Something I like doing is using a familiar pop culture thing as an entry point into a larger cultural conversation.
@@JJMcCullough And as the great modern philosopher JLo would say, “You’re doing it well!”
How can you NOT be interested? Pac-Man is so cool.
@@JJMcCullough if that’s something you enjoy, then you are excelling at it. I came here thinking “what are they if they aren’t ghosts?” And left thinking about western influence on eastern art. How like you said through sheer force of will we basically jus said “nah that’s no monster that’s a ghost” and now it is a ghost. That’s wild that western society was able to do that, and u were able to make me think about that from a video that at first seemingly only said the ghosts aren’t actually ghosts.
@@user-vi4xy1jw7e I was never into any sort of gaming. 🤷♂️
I think it's unfair to depict "Casper" as a learned response on the part of Iwatani. American theatrical cartoons from the 30s, 40s, and 50s were popular in Japan in the post-war period and hugely influential on the culture. Anime and Manga would look totally different today if not for the influence of things like Betty Boop. It's very likely other ghoulish imagery from these old American cartoons were an inspiration for Iwatani and perhaps "Casper" was a shorthand.
Well to be fair, he did kinda stick with the whole “took a slice out of a pizza” story even though its not entirely accurate.
Casper didn't come out until the 60s!
@@timh.2137 To my knowledge the first theatrical appearance of Casper is in a 1945 Noveltoon called The Friendly Ghost. I actually posted it on my channel 4 months ago.
No mention of "Casper" in the Japanese language interviews, lol, but he DOES use the English word "ghost" to describe them...
@@jamesflames6987 Well I don't speak Japanese and I haven't watched every interview with him. I'm only going on what J.J. said in this video. If you think J.J is wrong or lying about the creator citing Casper as an influence then you should comment directly on the video about it.
Keep up the good content, I love videos debunking common misconceptions like this!!
Phenomenal video JJ, love this stuff
I remember seeing a short film in the early days of RUclips that imagined the Pac-Man "ghosts" as terrified creatures running from a monster. I don't know if I could find it again, but I remember being fascinated by the concept
It's interesting that in the Pac-Man strategy book, published in 1982, the "ghosts" were also apparently known as "zombies" and (weirdly) "screw-eyes" by some people at the time.
I wish that "screw-eyes" was the name that stuck around, it's so unique.
Why are they called Zombies? They don’t like Zombies.
@@nickytembo4112 Dont know. You're guess is as good as mine.
This video was utterly brilliant. I went in thinking, "this is an unusually tough in cheek or "silly" video for JJ to make" but while true, it's also a fascinating cultural exploration. Bravo sir, bravo
6:20 I like your rabbit trails, especially this one. I did not see this coming, but so glad you followed it. 8:58 Don't forget Casper the Friendly Ghost.
This also reminds me of the way that cartoon turtles can be depicted as 'losing' their shell, which is embarrassing for them because they are then 'naked' when really a turtle's shell is a part of its body and can no more pop off than we could misplace our bones.
Is a turtle without it's shell naked, or homeless?
@@raymondtillotson6985 it's probably dead, first of all.
But assuming it survived somehow, it'd be a deeper level of naked than we we could ever naturally experience, something closer to amputation.
just once I want to see that kind of turtle where the shell that comes off is just the scute plates, with the turtle's normal skin underneath it but still shaped like a shell..
It is so weird too how we have this idea that any protective thing you can withdraw into is a "house." mentioned for snails and hermit crabs and everything. At least the hermit crab IS using a foreign object, not part of its body. but when it's that tight a fit, how can anyone see that and go "that's his home!" it's.. his armor, dude. We all enjoyed pulling our knees and heads inside our shirts as kids, but a fort that is not.
Well I hate to break it to ya but I have actually misplaced a bone of mine before. I'm not sure where I got that cow femur but it was mine and I lost it.
@@raymondtillotson6985 , it's dead...
hey JJ, can I suggest a topic? Would be interesting if you talked about the concept of "western culture", because it's such a broad, contradictory and quite controversial subject, I think.
That could be interesting!
Be sure to mention the concept of Faustian culture and Infinite Space. Spengler
didn’t have everything right, but he had some interesting analysis of his own culture.
Mr. Beat did a video on that a while ago. It'd still be interesting to see JJ's take on it.
@@CW0123 bad bait
@@CW0123 the power of rennaissance italy compels you. Go to south eastern asia or india where you see true degeneracy
This was such an interesting video, I love how many sources you looked into.
Man, I gasped when you urged me to salvage my memories of the pac man intermissions. I probably haven't seen those since I was five years old, yet I immediately thought of the foot getting caught on that thing, though I don't think I ever saw the ones after that.
To be honest though, the Pac Man creatures were probably one of the first things I was ever taught to call "ghost", even before seeing a more traditional ghost. I guess at that point, my mind hadn't really established what the "rules" were what ghosts were yet.
Toru Iwanti similarly also envisioned the dots as "Cookies", and still refers to them as such to this day, although they were only referred to as cookies in the Wii game Pac-man Party. All other official material simply refers to them as "Dots" or "Pac-dots" or "Pellets"
I swear there was a mobile game based on ghostly adventures which called them cookies (which is odd since I'm pretty sure they're berries in the show)
One of the many ports has art depicting a bizarre humanoid Pac Man biting down on them like a cookie.
I remember in the Pac-Man cartoon, or at least in the Spanish dub, the power-up that Pac-Man used to defeat the "Ghost Monsters" was bubblegum. Though it doesn't make sense eating bubblegum, as a kid I thought the dots in the maze were cheese.
I totally love the energy of the argument with Max
"What if they're not ghosts, **Maxwell?**
Also, you gotta love how LegalEagle is the one reading Judge Wood's statement JSJDJDU
VA work is billable hours.
2:46 thank you for nodding at this. This was what came to my mind when I saw the title of the video.
What a delight this was. Thank you.
"But let us now just take a step back for a sec and discuss why this phenomenon ever occurred"
In my head canon, j j used the idea of the ghosts being a subset of or even different than monsters in his American spooky creatures videos to prepare us for his pac man video that would appeal to gamers.
I think you're too hung up on the American "ghost" in its cartoonified form being the literal spirit of a once-living person. I don't know if it really means that anymore, at least not entirely. It's more of an archetype non-corporeal or semi-corporeal monster, with general shapelessness being denoted by the draped sheet.
Ive had similar thoughts about ghosts
we seem to vacillate on that. Sometimes they're too chicken to make them dead people, but then you can also have the most sweet and innocent shows that are still like yeah this is a dead guy.. now he's just a transparent blob that still wants to eat.
There are really two main depictions of ghosts nowadays: ghosts as spirits of the dead and ghosts as their own species, not tied to death or anything like that
Ghost always has and always will mean the apparition of a dead person!
@@timh.2137
>always will
Are you a fortune teller?
JJ, I’ve been binge watching your videos for the past couple days now. They’re so informative and interesting, I love them! However, I have to ask, do you speak with pauses regularly? Or is that just something that comes out in the videos?
that just changed my whole perspective of the game i've known and loved for seven years now
"its not a ghost, its a monster"
monster is an non-descript word that means something unnatural or threatening, or to quote Oxford: "an imaginary creature that is typically large, ugly, and frightening.", "monster" encompasses literally anything from ghosts, werewolves, to even sentient tomatoes
arguing that they cannot be ghosts because they are "monsters" is like saying pikachu cant be a pikachu because its a pokemon
the intermissions are really really surprising though, im surprised ive never actually seen anyone talk about those, seeing Blinky like that is horrifying, but strangely it conflicts with the idea that pacman can eat them and that their eyes are the only thing left, because if theyre an actual fleshy creature.. well, you know
that one handheld game though, you actually see Blinky flying when he chases pacman, and the original pacman arcade cabinet depiction shows Inky as flying too
the idea theyre based on that one manga character (i already forgot the name) makes a lot of sense, they dont seem to really have any overarching idea of what they are by themselves
I don't know how true this is, but I'm pretty sure once the association with ghosts became more mainstream, they altered most versions of the game to end the intermission after Blinky goes off screen, not showing him returning a frame later as fully flesh. And I'm even less sure of this part because it's been a while, but at least every time I've played in an Arcade, I swear there is no skin at all showing when Inky gets caught by the nail.
"Chubby Cherub," one of the first third party NES games to come out in America, was an Obake no Q-Taro game in Japan.
Ive only ever played Ms Pac-Man so those intermissions are all new to me! Thanks for the lore JJ
Man, do I love these weekly factoids -- nice addition to the week!
I think if any western monster is like an obake it would probably be a mimic, which is a Dungeons and Dragons creature that takes the form of something humans fine desirable to draw them in and eat them. Usually they're treasure chests or sets of armor. There are many interpretations. Some modern interpretations suggest they evolved to look this way just because mimics that look desirable to intelligent creatures are more likely to eat and thrive, but originally they're just monsters that blend into underground environments very well.
Obake is more likely to be a creature Japanese consider magical such as a fox. But they transform themselves into scary creatures such as a man with no face or a really long neck.
Life is like a game of Pac Man. You don't ever win, it just gets faster and more difficult until your demons eventually catch and kill you.
I actually went most of my life never knowing that those little intermission scenes existed, because I was never good enough at the game to see them. But at one of my old jobs there was an arcade cabinet in the break room, and one of my coworkers was really good at it, so I would watch him play and lose my mind over the little cut-scenes. lol
love this guy, he asks a question, i immediately want an answer, then he answers it straight away :D
Even though I grew up with the Pac-Man games from the 2000s that call them ghosts, I never really viewed them as literal ghosts; they're just ghost-like creatures that aren't actual dead spirits (with the Ghostly Adventures canon being an exception)
Also, from what I can tell, the first instance of the enemies being referred to as ghosts was on the North American flyer for the first game, which referred to them as ghost monsters.
Interestingly, it seems that the games for a while went back and forth on what to call them. Pac-Mania from 1987 called them monsters, then Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures from 1994 called them ghosts, then Pac-Man Arrangement from 1996 went back to calling them monsters, then Pac-Man World from 1999 went back to calling them ghosts!
The use of 'Q' to denote mysterious/strange creatures is interesting to me too. There's obake no Q-taro in Japan, and the story of ah-Q in 1920s China.
Very Queer, indeed.
The 1966 show Ultra Q which led to Ultraman was meant to be the Japanese TV equivalent to the Twilight Zone.
@@MazinGo-1972 In that case, the Q relates to the word “question”. Fun Fact: Ultra Q was originally going to be titled “Unbalance”.
11:24 The laugh is giving me everything! I love it! So cute! ^_^
11:40 While the sticker is long, long gone, I still have one of those Pac-Man games. It's on my shelf next to me, has batteries, and still works.
I've been interested in retro since my early childhood (enjoying games before my time, being a late millennial/gen Z) and one of my favorite games as a little kid was Pac-Man. I always thought of them as ghosts and never thought of them as anything else. This video opened up my perspective in a way I've never thought of. Leave it to you, JJ for making me question my perspective on the games I love.
Excellent video. JJ always seems able to find some seriously under-discussed things to talk about in videos, all while imparting historical and cultural knowledge people may have otherwise never learned. This channel is unique and valuable in a way so few are.
I love how J.J's videos work together. Hyper-reality!
i had that shirt ordered before i was done watching , id never seen it before , loved the video JJ
The cut scenes blew my mind... So they are like worm creatures 🤣🤣🤣. So when Pac Man ate the power pellet, the ghosts turn that bluish color and their eyes go all white that I assumed they were "see through" which kinda cemented the ghost vibe for me. But of course now that I say that it brings up all kinds of issues with what the power dot is, what does it do to the "ghosts" and what is happening in the middle box where they regen... You weren't kidding about a rabbit hole 🤣🤣🤣. I will say also at that time ghosts were a pretty big deal with shows like Scooby Doo and the Ghostbusters movie coming out a couple of years later but the frickin cutscene worm creature.... The horror. Loved this JJ!! Hope everyone has a Spooktactular Saturday! 👻👻👻
Well as the ad and first intermission imply, in universe Pac Man actually grows huge when he eats a "Power Pellot", allowing him to "eat" the "ghosts". You could see the ghosts turning blue as sort of like an anime expression of extreme shock and panic.
Nothing actually happens to them with the power pip, they just get so scared they turn blue lol. Technically it'd be the little wormy dudes inside the sheets that would go pale, not the sheets themselves, but we'd not be able to see that :P
When it comes to flowy garments depicting the dead, think of what most people wore when they died. If from sickness or elderly, it was likely they wore their bedclothes. For many years everyone wore nightgowns.
plus even if it had gone out of fashion by victorian times, it makes more sense to depict what they USED to wear, since dead people have probably been dead for a while.
Uh I don't want to be that guy, but it was probably parents explaining what their kids heard or saw when doing the "bedroom hokey-pokey". Think about the most common western ghost stereotype; loud moaning, under sheets, only appearing at night, and "ectoplasm." Now if you think about what these ideas originated from, it starts to sound like the middle of an intimate night interrupted by a child.
@@oatmealman1586 lololol ectoplasm has only been slime for a few decades. in most of the past it was just bits of gossamer or tissue paper left around by the medium to make dumb people ooh and ahh
kids in the past just knew their parents did it, they slept in the same room/bed, it was no crazy mystery. and they ended up a lot more mentally healthy as a result.
When I was young, my first time seeing the Ghasts in Minecraft. I thought they were actually ghosts and I started calling them "ghosts" instead of "Ghasts". now that I'm seeing this video, I don't think they are giant ghosts.
What are the Minecraft ghasts?
Ghosts. The word Ghast just comes from Ghastly, which while not specfically referring to a ghost, is heavily associated with them. However it's also likely because of the fact ghast is just a letter away from ghost. Example one, the first ghost type pokemon is Gastly.
Nice research.. awesome vid, reflection on.. 👍🏼👍🏼
I LOVE that you used the Scott Pilgrim clip rather than saying it yourself
Now that I think about it, it is weird that we call them ghosts even though they can’t phase through walls.
Why would they be able to phase through walls? They're not fire.
@@dapperghastmeowregard I mean, it’s a pretty stereotypical ghost “power” to be able to move through solid objects. It’s part of their incorporeal composition.
I am now interested in knowing how, why, and when the act of moving through a wall became known as "phasing".
@@omp199 Well first off, phasing was already a word that had a pretty similar meaning. But according to Google, the word wasn't that popular until the western ghost craze happened. Like, 1 to 1 association. So probably some early on book.
Well it seems as if they're the intended denizens of this maze like the mythical minotaur. Which would imply that the area was constructed with the sole purpose of keeping them in, which is further reinforced by the fact that not only are there no exits, but if they lose their form they are forced back to the center, meaning they can't leave or stay far from the center for too long.
I knew exactly where you were going when you mentioned the change of name from Puck-man to Pac-man. Great scene
MIND. BLOWN.
Also Q-Taro looks EERILY familiar to Elizabeth from Gintama. Maybe a certain gorilla doing what he does best and parodying it?
For some reason, I always thought suit and tie zombies were just, like, accountant zombies...
You know, the more I think about it the more I realize I have few memories of playing original Pac-Man, but loads of memories playing Ms. Pac-Man, and I remember those cute little cut scenes.
Very interesting video from such a simple , but obvious question! Loved this exploration
The sheet was originally a shroud. In old times, a dead body would be washed and laid out for viewing and funeral rites. Since nobody wanted to see a naked corpse, it would be wrapped in a length of white cloth called a shroud. Typically, the shroud covered the whole body except possibly the face during viewing and would be drawn over the face for burial. Since a ghost is supposed to have the appearance of the dead person, it was no surprise that he would be depicted as he or she was last seen, wrapped in a shroud. If the ghost was part of a stage play, like Hamlets Father, it would be reasonable to cut holes in the shroud for the actor to be able to see where he was. Actual shrouds were not easily available, and since they were usually wrapped around the corpse's legs and feet, it would be difficult for an actor to walk around in one. The closest practical costuming substitute would be a bedsheet. So, the most common ghost costume, especially in amateur productions and low budget silent films, was a sheet with vision holes cut in it. When a child wanted to appear as a ghost at Halloween, that was the easiest costume to make. So, the sheet and eyeholes became the stereotypical image of a ghost.
It is interesting that in most descriptions of actual ghost appearances, the ghost is seen as a normal human figure wearing regular clothing.
I love how jj will explain the entire history of a certain thing just to explain his point a little more
questions that we all wondered, but never dared to ask. This man is a legend
That cartoon clip is golden lmao
“I gotta get away from those GHOST MONSTERS!”
“We’re the GHOST MONSTERS!”
Interesting topic, you put a lot of effort into this one J.J and I appreciate it. When I think of Pac Man, it is a Christmas morning and that Atari 2600 my sisters and I were pestering for. Pac Man was the game that came with it. Asteroids and Space Invaders also under the tree. Eight Nine years old maybe.
Wow, what a great video! It's obvious you invested a lot of time and effort into this one and it really paid off. I think this is my favourite non-Canadian video in the JJ canon.
I always thought of the "dots" as cheese, and pacman as a cheese wheel wanting to eat all the cheese to become whole again, idk does anyone else share that, cuz I was expecting jj to talk abt them but he didnt
Honestly thats a funnier way of seeing it.
thats really unique and interesting, thank you for sharing! :D
one of the other reasons might be that the game regularly animates them as passing through walls to return to (and under certain circumstances leave) that starting zone...not sure which versions of the game I'm talking about though: the one I had at home did it and a couple different arcade games.
one version I've played also had a powerup situation for them where they just ingored walls entirely for a couple seconds.
on a related note pacman is one of the earliest games I've played that gave the impression that I'm probably the monster here.
Omg was that the Battle against a Clueless Foe from the unofficial Mother 4 ost at 3:19?? Dang, that's a deep cut, but a fantastic song all the same!
What if the Obake-ness of Casper allowed us to connect to pack-man's monsters in a similar way? So it was natural for us to see them as ghosts but not spirits of the dead?
Also, Japanese and Western ghosts differ in some respects, like the fact that the latter are more associated with stormy wintery weather and the former with hot summer days.
I think that's just correlation with how pathetic fallacy is used in eastern and western culture
@@LARAUJO_0 What?
Pathetic fallacy (coming from pathetic, meaning full of emotions, which comes from the root patheos) is the literary idea of basically giving human traits to natural, non-human things. I.e. Rain is when clouds cry.
NICE
I watched to 1/5 of the video and thought "so this is it? What more is there to say about this topic?". I was delightfully surprised :)
Damn, these videos are insanely well researched.
"How the Victorian age forced Namco to change a video game booklet"
My first guess for what they might have been instead of ghosts was that they were actually cephalopod creatures. Cartoonized depictions of octopus and squids are a big trope in Japanese popular culture, so it wouldn’t have been a surprise if that was what they actually were.
Yeah same they either look like stylized octopi or squid. The Japanese really love their giant squid monsters, I'm leaning towards octopi simply due to them having 2 eyes as opposed to the standard 1 squids are typically depicted as having.
This was actually a really interesting and well-produced video! Great job JJ and drop the skincare routine 🔥
“Oh no, I gotta get away from those ghost monsters!”
“We’re the ghost monsters!”
That shouldn’t have made me laugh but it did.
I really enjoy these more creative videos there a nice change. Don’t let anyone discourage from doing them. Keep it up
oh sure the shill from Big Ghost is here
JJ talks about the most interesting stuff, love it
Thank you for including the scott pilgrim clip
I used to watch that cartoon. I loved Pacman Fever. I played that tape until it wore out. We used to get a roll of quarters each to go to the arcade to play it. We lived in an apartment complex that had a rec room with a small arcade, and they had one Pacman machine. In May of 1982, my sister and I stayed there all day long waiting for our turn to play. Back then, you used to put your quarter up on the screen to call next game. There were quarters running all the way across the bottom of the screen. We were lucky to play 4 or 5 times a day. There was one kid in the complex who had it on Atari a little later. She was really popular for a while. I would have killed to have one at home. Now it's on my phone and I've played it once in two years
I used to live in vietnam for a shortwhile and there are still alot of arcades there and people call them jelly fish!
Lol that's interesting! I wonder what people in other parts of the world call the ghosts
I think the concept of ghosts in American/English culture and folklore could be an interesting topic on its own.
They aren't always strictly dead people, but sometimes represent a broad idea, otherworldly non-corporeal (but certainly not humanoid) creatures, or their own creature cannon with esoteric concepts like ectoplasm and hauntings.
Some pop culture examples off the top of my head are ghosts like Slimer in ghost busters, who is just a sort of goblin "thing", or the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future in a Christmas carol, or the ghosts in poltergeist, which are a sort of amalgam of lots of dead people and angry feelings manifested as a single "thing".
Some interesting tangential characters might be Jack the ripper or the "candy man"; who are sometimes mythologized as ghosts or phantoms.
Shut up
Or how cultural stuff like this is based off of ancient long dead practices like the linen cloth thing or anachronisms like he talked about in a previous video.
Ghost-type Pokemon are another big one. The games are very fast and loose over whether they're actual spirits or just a living creature with noncorporeal properties.
I think of Caspar, the friendly ghost when I think of a bedsheet-type ghost, which has been around since at least the 1950s. But I always thought that the first depiction of a bedsheet-type ghost was in an illustration in Alice Hale Burnett's 1916 book. Good to know, thanks for the vid.
Great video! I like it when you talk about video games.