Mega Man fans are sad, this we know. But I had no idea that Mega Man himself was “imbued with sadness” by his creator.
In Boss Fight’s Mega Man 3, which we’ve run an excerpt from previously, creator Akira Kitamura talks (via Mike Drucker) about the character’s genesis, and “the sadness of being a robot”.
The team used Cut Man as one of the monster-of-the-week villains and designed a protagonist inspired by a character from the Time Bokan anime, Tanpei—a genius boy sporting a blue jumpsuit and helmet equipped with cupcake-shaped cones. Despite the general silliness of this image, Kitamura sensed true sadness at Mega Man’s core.
He then adds:
In the backstory I wrote, Mega Man alone is equipped with the functionality to turn himself off. That very fact imbues him with a sadness. The other robot masters were made for some kind of specific job or work, so there’s no need for them to have an “off switch” they can control. However, a robot helper like Mega Man can make his own judgements, and therefore can decide whether he’s needed or not...the sadness of being a robot is having this inorganic existence.
Well.....:(
You can grab a copy of the book here if you want to be even more bummed out.