Bond Man: The Phantom Robot Master
Been a while since we presented any Mega Man mysteries for you, but we have a neat new one today! I’ll admit, however, that this is a more open-and-shut case than our previous features of the Capcom Hand and Wily’s Mystery Pipe. But this story is still an interesting one, because it’s about a Robot Master who’s developed a big cult following among Rockman fans in Japan, and yet he doesn’t really exist. Perhaps in Japanese fan art you’ve seen an odd little robot with a cap for a head and tubes of glue for arms. He is Bond Man, the phantom Robot Master!
While a fairly simple story, details about Bond Man are hard to come by because the sources are a bit obscure. The original source of the story comes from a comic by Hitoshi Ariga called “The Men Who Created Rockman: The Rockman Birth Legend.” This two part comic, which covered the hardships over the development of Rockman and Rockman 2, was originally released in the January 1995 edition of Comic Bombom. While slightly fictionalized (the main changes were the names of the people involved – Keiji Inafune became Kenji Izumi), the events themselves were founded in truth, and it was the first anyone had ever heard of Bond Man. The other major source is an interview with Keiji Inafune on Nico Video, from July 2008.
The story begins as such. Bond Man was already a conceived as an idea in the initial project proposal when Inafune came onto the team as a “graphicer” – he would end up designing the character illustrations and their sprites, or dot graphics as they are known in Japan. The initial proposal called for eight bosses, and since they were meant to be industrial robots gone bad, they were to represent basic elements relating to work and human service, like construction, electricity, timber felling, and bonding (glue, in other words). It was Inafune’s job to consider the ideas and come up with designs for them.
Early in the development stages, it was decided that the number of bosses would be cut from eight to six. At the time, however, Inafune had fleshed out seven designs. It was Bond Man 
who ended up getting cut. This was a little tough for Inafune, and while Bond Man was not exactly an original idea of his, he’d grown to like the character he ended up making and had even gone so far as to make sprite graphics for him. It’s doubtful these graphics made it into the game data.
Time passed and Rockman became a popular game series. Nothing ever came of Bond Man until manga artist and fevered Rockman fan Hitoshi Ariga discussed with Inafune about the comic he was writing to cover the events of Rockman‘s development. Inafune told Ariga about Bond Man, and although he never showed Ariga any of the original development material, it’s said Ariga drew Bond Man based on Inafune’s description, which Inafune said was basically like the idea. In other words, this means that the Bond Man we know today is actually a design of Ariga’s.
Since the printing of the comic in 1995, Bond Man developed something of a cult status among Rockman fans in Japan, but was virtually unknown to the rest of the world. As the internet became more and more prominent in recent years, people outside of Japan caught their first glimpses of Bond Man in Japanese fan art here and there, though they may not have understood what he represented. Additionally, the “Rockman Birth Legend” comic was reprinted in Hitoshi Ariga’s latest re-releases of his Rockman Megamix comic series. (Unfortunately these are not the editions that UDON is currently printing, otherwise the story of Bond Man would have come to light sooner!).
There is another interesting aspect to this story. Bond Man did have an opportunity for return in the 2006 PSP game Rockman Rockman (Mega Man Powered Up). Inafune considered using Bond Man as one of the two new Robot Masters in the game. However, Inafune decided that this might damage the cult status Bond Man had developed. In the interview, Inafune states:
“I thought about reviving Bond Man, but it was a little tough. What we could present in Rockman Rockman was a little different than the time that I created Bond Man. So rather than throwing him in hastily, I decided to leave Bond Man as the ‘legend’ he is, and I created two new characters instead.”
So from that decision, Bond Man still remains as the phantom Robot Master. However, I do wonder if Bond Man will still have his day. Perhaps even as soon as Mega Man Universe? This quote from Anime News Network’s recent interview with Keiji Inafune struck my eye:
“Universe is a unique project. As the title suggests, it’s big. It’s a whole universe. Some aspects from older Mega Man titles that I wanted to revisit might find their way in there, but it’s going to expand far, far beyond that and be all about what fans want to see.”
Maybe Bond Man will make his debut someday, so be sure to keep your eyes glued! Ha ha ha.
Many thanks to CAP Kobun, who has kept extensive details about Bond Man online, and Fireman, for helping me research and translate the source materials. Also thanks to AWD! for the top image, and to Kevin X Nelms for the sprite.
Tags: Bond Man, Hitoshi Ariga, Keiji Inafune, Mega Man, mystery, robot master
Filed under: Editorials
cool info… never dreamed there would have been a robot master that never made it but still is there…. just not in a game….
I knew that was AWD!’s work up there.
I’m surprised Bond Man didn’t even make Net Navi status. That would’ve been a great way to bring him in while keeping the “robot master” a legend. Sort of a tribute, if you will.
He would’ve made a great DRN 007.
ehh, knowhatImean? nudgenudge?
Would Bond Man’s special attack be similar to Concrete Man’s Concrete Shot?
*checks date*
Okay, so it isn’t April. This story does seem a bit far fetched. I mean, it all seems plausible, but especially him missing out on Mega Man Powered-Up just because of his “cult status”.
Yeah, when I thought of Bond Man, I thought immediately of Concrete Man. Still, I think maybe perhaps it would be nice if maybe in a Megaman game, Bond Man could maybe that some sort of tiny cameo or homage.
And with that, there will now be about 1000 more fan art drawings on DeviantArt.
Uhm, I actually have a copy of that comic. It’s in one of my Bom Bom comic collections. If you want, I can try and scan it.
Cool story. Especially as a hardcore fan, it’s always nice to learn some new Mega Man-related bit of information, because information we don’t already know doesn’t come along all that often.
I think he would of have made interesting boss idea in the game ,but would his stage be like a glue factory?
Oh, so he’s something like a Glue Man (nothing to do with the one in the fangame “Megaman Unlimited”), I can’t find him on Google, when I do, I get a bunch of bullcrap on James Bond, and the James Bond video game announced at ComicCon 2010
Seriously, Google “Bond Man”,”Bond Man Megaman”,”Bond Man Rockman” or any similar names, you get stuff on Megaman Universe and “Bond is back”, refering to James Bond, the closest we even get is a Megaman Starforce fanfic called “Broken Bonds”
Hold on, google updated just recently, and the first result is this very article here, followed by a Go Nintendo article on it made today http://gonintendo.com/viewstory.php?id=133324, and GameHuddle article made 30 minutes ago http://www.gamehuddle.com/comments.aspx?nid=275560
You know Bomb Man, and Guts Man, and Cut Man, and Elec Man…..
…..Fire Man, and Ice Man, and Time Man, and Oil Man…..
…..BUT DO YOU RECAAAAAALLLLLL, THE MOST OBSCURE ROBOT OF AAAAAALLLLLL!?
They could have used Bond Man instead of Fake Man.
Now I’m sort of wanting to make a fanfiction with him and Honey Woman (who hornet man was supposed to be until they decided that they were going to be sexist and not include two female robot masters in one game) where Roll is cleaning and organizing out some of Dr. Light’s old file drawers and finds blueprints of them and she asks what they are for and Dr. Light explains that they were some of his concepts that did not pass due to faults in their designs so instead he used similar elements from what he designed to make Hornet Man and Concrete Man.
However, Dr. Wily was meanwhile spying on them and when her heard it, he decided to steal the blueprints, tweak them a little, and make them his own. Dr. Light and company were unaware for a while that the blueprints were stolen while he was attending an international robotics convention along with Dr. Cossack in Korea. The following months, Wily worked on building the robots and adding his own little touch to them and when they were finished, he decided to this time that perhaps he would finally have his revenge. Now Megaman and his friends must figure out who stole the blueprints and stop the world from being destroyed.
That’s all I got for now… I need to add more to Wily’s sinister plot though… However, I think that’s a start…
He looks a little like commando man
Maybe someday, Bond Man will appear in a game, perhaps a fangame or something…..
@slovaksiren Maybe that could be a possible plot for Megaman 11…..
@Shawn He does have a few elements from him though…..
^ Yeah, I need maybe to brainstorm a little bit more, but that’s the plot. I would probably like Kalinka and Dr. Cossack to help them too since they seem to be in high demand to be back and you never know, maybe some of his concepts were stolen too? (I just need to do more research and find more robot masters that were dropped). As for Dr. Wily, what if sometime near the end, the robots he built using the blueprints turn on him and now you have to save Dr. Wily?
@Splashman Don’t you people get what his joke is? His nam is BOND man and he would be DRN 007?
JAMES BOND IS 007!!!! BOND MAN IS DRN 007!!!
This is very interesting. Good find! Thanks!
It’s strange how he isn’t mentioned in the Official Complete Works at all.
As mentioned in the article, it seems like no original art for Bond Man was ever shown. The only suitable place they could have fit him in R20 would have been the doujin section if the art was completely lost.
I wonder what his theme would have sounded like.
@A Nony Mous
Negative, since Blues, Rock, and Roll were 000, 001, and 002, respectively, and the 6 original RM’s were 003-008, Bond Man would’ve been 009.
Where do Time Man and Oil Man fit in?
I feel that Bond Man should have been made a reality instead of Oil Man in Powered Up. They left him out due to hardware restraints, so why no show in PU for PSP? Oh wells, maybe he will get his spotlight one day…
@Megamansonicdude:
I can run that by the chiptune community on YouTube. Users such as Kevvviiinnn, commandycan, MexicanSunflower, myself (OmegaManZX) and others could compose a Bond Man BGM using FamiTracker or the Chipsounds VST for Fruity Loops.
He can even be seen in the robot master collage!
@A Nony Mous
Haha, that’s so much of a coincidence! weird!
@OmegaMan: All of you working on your own would be quite the interesting sight. Kevvviiinnn seems to be quite active of late, too.
@LanceHeart
Keep an eye out, then. It may happen… At least, from me. Can’t speak for the others just yet.
This may be a stupid question, but does anyone have a full body artwork of that particular Bond Man pic? Talking about the one that cut off only shows his face and partial body. I would like a full artwork pose of that if possible. Looking around, still no luck yet.
Also……….
THE NAME IS BOND MAN……. JAMES BOND MAN!
@N64Mario84: The full artwork isn’t much larger than that. I had AWD! draw it specifically for this article.
Just to clarify MicJord’s point, Fire Man is DRN-007.
Though that still doesn’t guarantee this isn’t a joke… I mean, I’ve made a mistake, then realized it becomes a great joke (especially if other people are apt to make it). Miscounting, misspellings, etc. work well for things like that.
Oh, that being said, even if he is a complete and total fabrication…
I like him! I saw we go with it.
@MicJord: Not necessarily. If Bond Man had made the cut for the first game, he could have had any number from 003 through 008, so 007 would’ve definitely been possible. Not to mention awesome.
haha LOL…. 007 and DRN 007…. funny joke…
BOND MAN ROCKS!!!!
Had he actually been in the original Mega Man… could you imagine all the “cut-and-paste” jokes that would spawn?
You mean “DRN-009″, DRN-007 is Fire Man, DRN-003 through DRN-008 are the Robot Masters of Megaman 1, DRN-002 is Roll, and DRN-001 is our super fighting robot….. MEGAMAAAAAAAAAN!!!!!!!!!!
Am I the only one who read this title in a chintzy dracula voice?
They call me Bond…Bond Man.
*Shoots glue at the camera, coating it in red adhesive*
You know what the funny thing is?
Bond Man was already featured on MSipher’s character group illustration (on DeviantArt) he made back in 2008, before this article came out!
Nevertheless, I’m glad to see that this obscure character’s mystery has finally been resolved. ^_^
@Masterge77:
Two other people stated that, but as Laytruce says, its possible he was meant to be DRN-007, but was cut and the remaining Robot Masters were re-arranged. Whether that means Fire Man was originally DR-008 and slide back a slot, or whether they were significantly re-arranged and he was originally an entirely different number, either could allow him to have been DRN-007.
How likely that is, I don’t know. I mean, how popular is Bond in Japan? Is this the most accurate translation of his name? Etc. etc. etc.
I remember seeing this guy in a recently released wallpaper for the Rockman E-Festa…and now I know why. Thanks for awesome article!
@Otaku
Will someone hurry up and understand that Splashman was joking about the 007 part.
>>how popular is Bond in Japan?
Only popular among long-time fans of the classic series.
>>Is this the most accurate translation of his name?
How would you “translate” ボンドマン? Generally you would say Bondman, but if you really wanted, you could call him Glueman or sctretch it to Adhesiveman.. but apparently adhesive products are not so popular outside Japan sincea lot of people here don’t even know what bond is.
@Otaku I know about this because I played Megaman 3 *whistles Protoman whistle*
For those of you who may still be looking at this 4-day old article, I have posted a video on YouTube urging the Chiptune Community to come up with some Bond Man themes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLcygUyo-ho