The first time I ever saw the cover art of Capcom’s Viewtiful Joe, I immediately thought to myself, “What is Proto Man doing in his own video game?” For those of you who aren’t familiar with him, Proto Man is a recurring character from the Mega Man video game series, also created by Capcom. Proto Man is scheduled to make a return to the series in Mega Man 10, an 8-bit game that will be available to download on the Wii, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

I know the two are not identical by any means, but there seems to be a striking similarity between the two, especially if you removed Proto Man’s shield. Take a look for yourself:

Do they look alike?

I asked this question over at ScrewAttack.com and here are the responses I received:

Hoser138: the only similarities I can spot are the face/head and colors.
The helmet shape is very similiar but seeing as everyone knows the Protoman today they probably don’t think people will spot that similiarity.

JesseRobles: I don’t think so. Japanese tend to design characters because of what they represent, tho I don’t go deeper than that.
But that’s the reason why you see many similarities with main heroes, or other characters in different games or anime. Hope you got it because I can’t explain better lol

Lightningandice: They both use sentai style. You’ll also notice that they look similar to Gatchaman, Kamen Rider, and the Power Rangers. It’s just the style.

Lightningandice makes a great point mentioning Sentai Style with the example of the Power Rangers. Just take a look at the Red Ranger from the orginal Power Rangers series:

Jason always knew how to save the day

So really, I guess it is more of a cultural thing than anything else. But man, I still can’t help and wonder if some designers just got lazy…