Posts Tagged ‘video games’

99-Year-Old Woman Plays Nintendo Every Day

“Nanikore” travels to Sendai and meets Umeji Narisawa, a 99-year-old woman who plays video games every day:

Narisawa’s game of choice is Bomberman for the original NES. She started playing it 26 years ago, after noticing how much fun her grandchildren were having when they played it. Playing Bomberman for a couple hours a day soon became part of her daily routine.

Her years of bombering have made her an expert at the game; she’s cleared all 50 levels of the game countless times. Some days she beats the game twice.

Playing Bomberman every day helps keep her mind sharp. Pressing all those buttons has also kept her fingers nimble (and capable of threading a needle).

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

Real Life Mario Kart

If you are every driving through the streets of Nara, Japan and see what looks like Mario riding a go kart, do not be alarmed. You are not hallucinating:

“Mario” is actually Satoshi Imanaka, the wealthy 57-year-old manager of S.C.A.T JAPAN, a company that does disaster and emergency preparedness consulting work. Imanaka uses his Mario Kart act to help give something back to his community. Together with a group of friends, he drives around town on 50cc go karts, occasionally stopping to hand out candy, toys, and school supplies to children.

The location of Mario manor, also the office of S.C.A.T Japan:

View Larger Map

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

72-year-old Resident Evil Badass Shiro Suzuki

72-year-old Japanese announcer/actor Shiro Suzuki has a hobby that is unusual for his age group. He likes to play video games. He loves the Resident Evil (Biohazard) series of games, and is quite proud of his mad gaming skillz.

Here is he getting a very high score on Resident Evil 4 that is apparently almost doubled the required point total to be considered a “pro”:

It does not appear to be a hoax, nor are his skills limited to the Wii version of the game. In fact, there are several videos up on YouTube in which Suzuki shows off his Resident Evil abilities, including this one from 2 years ago:

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

Muscle March

A fantastically strange-looking game coming out this month for the Wii [via Jean Snow]:

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
• Kirainet.com – A geek in Japan (Subscribe)

Fight! — Legal game in video games

The video games industry is seeing some real-life action and suspense this month. In early June, Tomonobu Itagaki, head of the Team Ninja development team at Tecmo, and the man behind titles such as Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden, recently announced his resignation from the company and has filed complaints against it for unpaid bonuses and against Tecmo president Yoshimi Yasuda. Two of his colleagues at Tecmo later followed suit with similar complaints of unpaid overtime. At face value, the cases may seem altogether unremarkable especially to those not particularly interested in Tecmo games or video games in general, but given Japanese reticence towards litigation versus the recent clamor for work-life balance, the possible ramifications may spread to other industries as Japan struggles with labor practices and workers’ rights.

For those of you who haven’t been keeping score, here’s a brief rundown of key events:

June 3, 2008 Itagaki announces his resignation and discloses complaints against Tecmo concerning unpaid bonuses and against company president Yoshimi Yasuda.

June 4, 2008 Tecmo responds to Itagaki’s complaints, stating that it has regularly paid Itagaki’s bonuses every year, and that the unpaid bonuses Itagaki is referring to are separate and were agreed to by previous management. [Japanese pdf] [Summary at Gamasutra]

June 10, 2008 Tecmo files for a gag-order on Itagaki, which would in essence prohibit him from talking about the company in any way to anybody. [Summary at GameSpot]

June 16, 2008 Hiroaki Ozawa and Tatsuki Tsunoda file a separate lawsuit against Tecmo. According to Game Watch Impress, the contents of the suit allege that Tecmo used a ringer to act as “Employee Representative” — Tecmo Union leader — in order to forge documents to avoid paying workers overtime. [Commentary in English here and evaluation of the documents here at kotaku]

June 18, 2008 Itagaki and Tecmo submit almost identical but conflicting documents regarding “special incentives”. [itmedia via kotaku]

From a more base perspective, this case pretty much has everything — a rock-star plaintiff, a ringer, forged documents, millions of yen at stake and even some violence and undulating bosoms! While I cling to slender hope that the cases may bring about some positive precedents, others in the industry have a somewhat more cynical take, and expects that in the end business will continue as usual.

Should Mr. Itagaki win his suit, it might have interesting repercussions. He could, with a little image make-over, be considered somewhat of an example for other, embattled employees struggling with Japan’s changing corporate atmosphere where employee rights are becoming more important. On the other hand, this being Japan, it is equally likely that, win or lose, everything will stay just as it is. Actually, that is far more likely an outcome. (original emphasis)

Video: 8-Bit Yamanote Line

YouTuber VodkaYNVGw has uploaded this very cool NES-style video of Tokyo’s Yamanote Line (cool 8-bit musical representations of each station’s melody are included):

If you liked this video, you might also like VodkaYNVGw’s “Yamanote Line Outer Tracks” video.