Boss character contest

The boss character contest (ボスキャラ募集) is a contest held by Capcom where fans send ideas for boss characters to appear in a Mega Man game.

Mega Man 2
The first boss character contest, which had 8370 entries and decided the eight Robot Masters that appear in the game. 10 participants received a "staff only" blouson, 100 received a Rockman 2 Original Music tape, and 500 received seals. Besides the eight winners, forty participants were listed in the game's Japanese manual.

As the game had a strict deadline, the staff couldn't wait until after the submissions had arrived and selected the winners to start development. Instead, work was made on the stages and enemies, and the staff had a loose idea of what kind of boss would be needed for each stage (wind and electric themed boss characters for the air themed stage, animal and nature themed bosses for the forest, etc). They selected the motifs they found most interesting from the many submissions, Keiji Inafune cleaned them up and redesigning them as necessary, and they selected one of the designs.

Mega Man 3
The contest decided the eight Robot Masters. Had 50,000 entries. Some runner up entries received a pencil case and ID card as prize. Some participants also had their names listed in the special thanks from the ending credits.

Similar to Mega Man 2, the staff could not wait for the submissions to start development, so some placeholder bosses were used while planning out the stages. When early designs from the game were compiled for R20 Rockman & Rockman X Official Complete Works in 2008, Keiji Inafune didn't remember which of the unused bosses were designed as placeholders and which ones were part of the contest.

Mega Man 4
The eight Robot Masters. The winners from this game's contest received a golden Rockman 4 cartridge. Everyone that participated received the booklet Rockman Character Collection. Had 70,000 entries.

Mega Man 5
Like previous contests, it decided the eight Robot Masters. Had 130,000 entries.

Mega Man 6
The only contest from the original series with non-Japanese winners, with a contest being held by Nintendo Power. Had 200,000 entries. One of the non-Japanese winners, Daniel Vallée, recalled that, besides his winning entry of Knight Man, he had submitted enough Robot Master designs to fill eight whole games, with names including Wave Man and Samurai Man (the former of whom had coincidentally had a shared name with an unrelated Robot Master in Mega Man 5).

Mega Man 7
The eight Robot Masters. Had 220,000 entries.

Mega Man 8
For this contest a template was given for three of the six bosses: one boss character with a sword (the winner being Sword Man), one with extendible arms (Clown Man), and one with two heads (Search Man). The other winners were Frost Man, Grenade Man and Aqua Man. Tengu Man and Astro Man were made by Capcom. Besides the six winners, some submissions are displayed in the game's credits and the Sega Saturn's Bonus Mode. Some participants won a Mega Man themed calculator. Had 110,000 entries.

Mega Man Legends series

 * The Misadventures of Tron Bonne: Although not a boss contest, the Servbot Borer (by べのむ) and the Bonne Bazooka were designed by fans.


 * Mega Man Legends 3: Before being cancelled, the Devroom held events for fan content to be included in the game, including the bosses Donner Wels (by Kobun #46 CAPコブン) and Calamity (Servbot #2395 kankan) and the character Tinker (Servbot #1061 Espiownage).

Mega Man Battle Network series



 * Mega Man Battle Network 2: GateMan by S. Satokawa.


 * Mega Man Battle Network 3: KingMan by K. Umegaki, MistMan by T. Kataoka, and BowlMan by A. Shimizu.


 * Mega Man Battle Network 4: KendoMan by Yuta Koido, LaserMan by Yoshihito Nonaka, and VideoMan by Yosuke Shimizu.


 * Mega Man Battle Network 5: CosmoMan by T. Namegaya, GridMan by H. Aoki, and LarkMan by S. Iwasaki.


 * Mega Man Battle Network 6: CircusMan by Touya Hamanaga, ElementMan by Souhei Nakamura, and JudgeMan by Keisuke Takahashi.


 * Rockman.EXE Operate Shooting Star: ClockMan by Gotou.

Mega Man Star Force series

 * Mega Man Star Force 2: Kung Foo Kid by Kentaro Fujii.


 * Mega Man Star Force 3: Moon Destroyer by Rikuto Mizuhara.

Rockman ×over
Two contests were held. In the first, the winner was Arcade Man, and he was included as a boss. Besides Arcade Man, three runner-ups (Tabletman, Zehr, and Daruman) were added as Battle Memory.

The second contest had a Japanese motif, with eleven characters being selected to be redesigned in a Mega Man style, and two of them (Udon Man and Sudachi Woman) also being included as Battle Memory.

Trivia

 * Due to the large amount of submissions, many coincidences could occur, with submissions having names and/or designs similar to others submissions that would appear in later games. For example, a Drill Man was considered for Mega Man 2, and a Drill Man would later appear in Mega Man 4.
 * This could occur even in the same contest. In the Mega Man 4 contest, two submissions were named Pharaoh Man, but "Mummy Man" was selected and renamed as Pharaoh Man.