Thanks to the comments you have left me in the first post of this special dedicated to video games and anime, it has become very clear that there are many of you who follow all kinds of animated series from Japan. And you have given me a lot of names of anime that have ended up treading the world of video games, which I thank you, without a doubt, but you are going to allow me not to follow all your proposals to the letter.
Many of you have told me that in this special I should talk about series like ‘Bleach’ and ‘One Piece’ . Others, for example, say that it would be a sin to leave out ‘Pokemon’ . Well yes, ‘Pokemon’ has a lot of video games behind it and both ‘Bleach’ and ‘One Piece’ have an absurd number of titles based on their stories. They are mentioned there, so that it is not said, but, as I already warned, my intention is not to talk about absolutely all Japanese anime adapted to video games and I have chosen other titles …
In the first post, I told you about four animes that are really well known all over the world. Let’s say I wanted to start the special on solid ground and I helped myself from series like ‘Dragon Ball’ or ‘Naruto’ that, more or less like it, are very popular. Let’s go for today’s ration that, although it contains well-known animes, perhaps they are not as obvious as ‘Pokemon’.
Cowboy Bebop
Despite the title, and as the followers of the series will know perfectly, ‘Cowboy Bebop’ does not have as protagonists that type of cowboys whose typical image we can all have in mind. It is not an anime set in the Wild West of the 19th century, but in a future (year 2071) in which these cowboys are simply a series of bounty hunters that move from one place to another in a spaceship called Bebop.
Created by Shinichiro Watanabe, who we can find after another well-known anime called ‘Samurai Champloo’ and two of the shorts contained in ‘Animatrix’ (‘Kid’s Story’ and A ‘Detective Story’), it was released on television in 1998 and it consists of only 26 episodes. Subsequently, three volumes were published in manga format, a movie and, of course, a couple of video games.
Unlike other anime that we have seen, and as I anticipated at the end of the previous paragraph, these bounty hunters have not lavished themselves too much in the world of video games and only have two titles behind them: ‘Cowboy Bebop’ , a shoot ‘ em up developed and published by Bandai for the Playstation, and ‘Cowboy Bebop: Serenade of Remembrance’ (also known as ‘Cowboy Bebop: Tsuioku no Yakyoku’ in Japan), an action and smack-sharing title for Playstation 2 developed by Banpresto and distributed by Bandai.
Akira
Katsuhiro Otomo was able to take out of his particular hat an excellent post-apocalyptic manga located in Neo-Tokyo (a reconstruction of the devastated city of Tokyo after a nuclear war) called ‘Akira’ and starring a series of incredible characters with Akira himself, Tetsuo and Kaneda in the lead.
The manga appeared for the first time in 1982 and ended in 1990, but before that, in 88, a film based on it appeared on the market that left us all stunned. I think I have lost count of how many times I have seen her and as I write these lines I am feeling like it again.
‘Akira’ did not escape the clutches of the video game world and we can find three titles based on him, although it must be said that none of them reaches the level of Otomo’s work even remotely. The first one is a graphic adventure for the NES loaded with static images and options to select from a list. Later another ‘Akira’ appeared for the Amiga CD32 platform, in this case in the form of an action title, and finally, already in 2002, a pinball game called ‘Akira Psycho Ball’ appeared on PS2. The first and the last, if I’m not mistaken, they did not officially leave Japan, although after seeing what they have seen, nothing happens either.
Fist of the North Star
It’s funny, but in none of the comments on the first post of this special is ‘The Fist of the North Star’ (‘Hokuto no Ken’ in Japanese) mentioned. And I had it in mind from the first moment, since I remember it as one of the wildest and most violent anime at the time.
As in ‘Akira’, ‘The Fist of the North Star’ proposes a post-apocalyptic world, in this case derived from the Third World War, in which only the strongest survive. It is easy to remember the techniques used by Kenshiro, the protagonist, a great connoisseur of the vital points of the human body (known as tsubos) capable of blowing his opponents into a thousand pieces by pressing them. The result is a rather exaggerated blood festival.
Yoshiyuki Okamura (also known as Buronson) and Tetsuo Hara were the creators of the original manga in 1983. Later would come the animated series, movies, novels and what concerns us: video games. The list is endless and the most curious thing is that we can find several typing titles for PC and Mac based on ‘The Fist of the North Star’ such as ‘Typing Ōgi Hokuto no Ken Gekiuchi’ or ‘Typing Shūgyō Hokuto no Ken Gekiuchi Zero’ .
There are fighting, adventure and also in the Pachinko plan (a kind of video pinball machines), where we can even find a title for Wii called ‘Jissen Pachi-Slot Pachinko Hisshôhô! Hokuto no Ken ‘ released in 2007 exclusively in Japan.
Mazinger Z
Just as I wanted to start this special with ‘Dragon Ball’, one of the most beloved Japanese series in our country, I want to end this second post by talking about one of the anime that most hooked me as a child and of which I still have more What a nice memory: ‘Mazinger Z’ .
The series, originally created in manga format in 1972 by Go Nagai and later that same year, transferred to television, presented us with a story with super robots involved in the eternal battle between good and evil, represented here by the Dr. Hell and his desire to dominate the world after having made a certain archaeological discovery related to gigantic robots.
In the world of video games we can see our beloved robot in the ‘Super Robot Wars’ saga , although in 1994 Banpresto launched a shoot’em up with a zenith perspective in arcade format simply titled ‘Mazinger Z’ in which we could control Mazinger Z, Great Mazinger and UFO Robo Grendizer.
With this we come to the end of this brief review of animes that have subsequently appeared in the world of video games. In the inkwell there are, in addition to those I mentioned at the beginning of the post, a lot of titles based on anime such as ‘Neon Genesis Evangelion’, ‘Fullmetal Alchemist’, ‘Golgo 13’, ‘Detective Conan’, ‘Hikaru no Go’ , ‘Mach Go Go Go’ (where the Wachowski brothers’ movie ‘Speed Racer’ came from), ‘Gundam’, ‘Yu-Gi-Oh!’, Etc., etc., etc.
In the next post, if all goes well, we’ll go the other way and take a look at some of the video games that have spawned animes.
| Videogames and anime (I)
