That Resident Evil 4 remake anime includes memes from the original

Capcom has released a new promotional video for the Resident Evil 4 remake. The dialogue of the villagers in the animated video are actually memes created based on the original game, and Japanese fans are overjoyed that these jokes are now “official.”

The villagers who serve as enemies in Resident Evil 4 speak in Spanish. The majority of Japanese players are unfamiliar with the language, so ever since the original version of the game was released, many have misheard the dialogue as strange-sounding lines of Japanese.

For example, fans pointed out that the line “un forastero” sounded like “Unko da stero,” which means “It’s shit. Throw it away” in Japanese. Similarly, “os voy a romper a pedazos” was misheard by Japanese players as “oppai no pera pera sauce,” which means “flimsy boob sauce.”

While it proved quite popular among fans, it never became anything more than an internet meme. Until now that is, as Capcom’s new video features many of these lines.

The video is a collaboration between Resident Evil 4 and Nippon Animation, a studio best known for the World Masterpiece Theater series. Leon, Ashley, and the villagers with bloodshot eyes are all portrayed in a soft, hand-animated look. The video includes many of the misheard lines from the game, complete with subtitles—although any of the obscenities in the lines have been cut out, of course.

-Original video with Japanese subtitles:

-English subtitles:

In speaking about development of the remake, producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi said that they are more or less keeping all of the villagers’ dialogue from the original, but are paying more attention to the accents so that they sound closer to the Spanish that is actually spoken in that region (related article, in Japanese). “We understand that players in Japan really enjoyed the misheard lines of dialogue, but in the end, those lines are being spoken by the enemies who are attacking Leon, so we are aiming to record them in a way that enhances the feeling of fear.”

It is already possible to confirm that these misheard lines are included in the remake in both pre-release gameplay videos and the recent demo.

There have been some strange promotional videos for the Resident Evil series that have stood out in recent years. For Resident Evil Village, there was a series of videos that featured puppet versions of the characters from the game and mimicked a children’s TV show, as well as a video with famous Japanese singer Ikuzo Yoshi singing a parody of one of his own songs. The new Resident Evil Masterpiece Theater video was titled “EP 1,” so there are no doubt more animated videos on the way.

Written by. Marco Farinaccia based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2023-03-20 14:20 JST)