Author: sashahenriksen

MissingNo

image of a glitchy sprite composed of black,beige, purple and white squares in the shape of a key

MissingNo or Missing Number is a glitch appearing in the Pokemon franchise. First appearing in Pokemon Red & Blue in 1996. The glitch has become infamous for both its use in duplicating items in the game but also for corrupting data in the game.

The glitch occurs because the game is trying to access data that isn’t there in the buffer that would tell the game what wild pokemon to encounter and the edge of Cinnabar Island has no data for that buffer.

Its data classifies it as a “Bird” type pokemon, an unused type in the game.

Notes

  • Bugs aren’t inherently characters and not made by humans therefore are not bound by copyright. The name Missingno is in the code but it’s just short for Missing Number.
    • The UK and Hong Kong give some protection for computer generated imagery for 50 years after its creation, which in the case of MissingNo would be 2047 but that only applies to the image shown here to the right not the concept of MissingNo itself. Outside of those places it should be fine.
  • Pokemon is obviously copyrighted and trademarked so Missingno can only be used if its association with the franchise is filed off such as its cry being that of a Nidoran male.

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Casper

A cartoon ghost with a smile on his face walks around with arms outstretched on a starry night background.

Casper is a happy and pleasant ghost that depending on the media can be found in the cemetery or a haunted house. Despite being a ghost he likes to make friends with people.

Originating in the Noveltoon “The Friendly Ghost” he eventually became the subject of comics by Harvey Comics who eventually purchased the character outright.

In 1984 Harvey Comics sued Columbia Pictures for the Ghostbusters logo, feeling like it looked too much like Fatso, a side character of their Casper comics. The judge found that they had failed to renew copyright and therefore Fatso was public domain. Later research found this to be the case for Casper as well.

Notes

Dreamworks owns the trademark for “Casper, the Friendly Ghost” through its Classics Media subsidiary. Therefore any media using Casper can not be advertised under that moniker, but still can be freely used if trademark is respected.

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Hakaba Kitaro

image of a young boy with a disheveled hair, one bulging eye and one eye partially shut. his hands are claw like and he's wearing tattered clothing. he's in a cemetery in front of an officer with a sword. the image is in black and white

Kitaro originates from 1930s kamishibai, which were a kind of paper theaters where traveling storytellers would mix oral storytelling with illustrations.

Kitaro was born in a cemetery after his parents died and is an adaptation of earlier yokai folklore Kosodate Yūrei or “the candy-buying ghost” about a woman who appears for seven days and buys candy, turns out to be dead and when the shopkeeper digs up her grave she has a live baby in her arms.

This folklore is similar and most certainly inspired by the Chinese story of “the woman who buys rice cakes” which first appeared in print in 1198 in Yijian Zhi, a compilation of Chinese stories put together by Hong Mai of the Southern Song dynasty.

These days Kitaro is known primarily because of the manga and anime GeGeGe no Kitarō and also its crossover with Yokai Watch where he appears as a character in some games and other media.

Notes

Kamishibai stories were not registered for copyright at the time due to that just not being really a priority or due to the medium. Therefore they fall outside the parameter of the Uruguay Round Agreement Act of 1996 and are therefore public domain in the United States and everywhere else.

Any appearance outside of the initial Kamishibai appearance are still under copyright, such as the manga and anime.

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