Anime News Network brings us the latest tidbits on upcoming Anti-Zombie ‘games’ from our trading partners across the Pacific:

The Onechanbara games started off in the Simple 2000 series, essentially the PlayStation 2 equivalent of Roger Corman’s trash-cinema studios. And like the rare B-movie that hit it big, Onechanbara rose from its budget-label origins on a tide of zombie-slaying violence and underdressed heroines. Heck, it even became a film itself. This brings us to Kagura, the latest in the series and the first game to turn the tables.

…

The two new heroines use various methods of dicing their way through mindless undead hordes. Kagura gets two different sword attacks and a boomerang, while Saaya has a chainsaw, spiked gloves, and a morning star. The vampire element isn’t just window dressing, either, as Kagura and Saaya can heal themselves by gathering up their lost blood. They’re also able to do extra damage and gain new moves by vampirically draining bosses. Aside from these extra features, Onechanbara Kagura Z aims for the guilty, graphic pleasures of slaughtering dozens of monstrous creatures with each level, and there’s a two-player mode that divides the screen. The design of it all isn’t particularly novel, but one expects that from a series that was accurately called Bikini Zombie Slayers by its North American publishers.

Mindless? The Zombies are the mindless ones in, ahem, ‘Bikini Zombie Slayers’?

Somehow that doesn’t add up for us here at the ZRC. Tawdry and violent is no way to go through life, Japan.

On the other hand there’s a promising title featuring the Differently Animated coming out as well:

Many games explore the idea of immortality: Chakan, Lost Odyssey, and, technically, anything with an invincibility code. NeverDead goes one better, though. It follows Bryce, a demon hunter cursed in the distant past by a monstrous overlord named Astaroth (no relation to the Soul Calibur one). Their run-in leaves Bryce’s wife dead and Bryce himself a vengeful immortal, as these things often go. Some five centuries later, Bryce is the midst of a demon rampage in a modern city, and he still can’t die. But he can detach his body parts without much trouble.

Yes, ‘NeverDead’ has a protagonist who cannot conventionally die, it seems, and dismembers himself at will, putting parts back on when it’s convenient. Reminds me a bit of Reg Shoe, actually, who puts the mission first and then gets to sewing on anything that fell off along the way.

What a guy.

So in addition to ‘Lollipop Chainsaw’, which we covered here on the ZRC blog, Japan is giving us ‘Onechanbara Kagura Z’, a gruesome exercise in titillation, and ‘NeverDead’, which features an arguably Differently Animated protagonist?

Hmm. I guess it’s a step toward some balance in the Japanese game industry, anyway.

Tags: Videogames, What's Up with Japan?

This entry was posted by John Sears on Friday, January 27th, 2012 at 5:15 pm and is filed under Zombie Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.