Characters from Eureka Seven, Fullmetal Alchemist, StarDriver, Darker than Black, and HEROMAN.
Hey there, fans! This week, I found this relatively juicy bit of anime news from Anime News Network about an upcoming card games that combines several new anime from BONES, the anime studio with several powerhouse series:
The Japanese conglomerate Bandai has announced on Thursday that it will launch a BONES Crusade card game with characters from five titles by the acclaimed anime studio BONES next January. The game’s first lineup will feature the anime Star Driver Kagayaki no Takuto, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Heroman, Darker than BLACK – Kuro no Keiyakusha (the first Darker than BLACK series), and Eureka Seven. The game will launch in January with a starter set and booster packs. Bandai plans to post further information on the home page of its Crusade System Card Series. Bandai already released the Sunrise Crusade, Macross Crusade, OG Crusade, and Dynamic Crusade games; these games feature titles from the anime studio Sunrise, the science-fiction anime franchise Macross, the Super Robot Wars: Original Generation games, and Go Nagai’s Dynamic Productions studio, respectively.
Interesting, no? I’m willing to bet that the card game would allow the likes of Heroman, the titular hero of the anime Heroman, the Tauburn, from the new anime Stardriver, and the Nirvash typeZERO, from Eureka Seven, to combine forces to butt heads against Edward and Alphonse Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, all in card form of course. Although I’m also willing to bet that this particular card game will only be available in Japan, where the various intellectual properties would be under one company, who would have free rein to do what they wished with the characters. Here in the U.S., some of these shows haven’t even been licensed yet, so, short of importing the cards from Japan, it’s highly unlikely that this game will ever see the U.S. mass market.
Yugis, Zorros, and Yohs, oh my!
The announcement of such a card game continues the tradition of taking the characters in a company’s properties and have them fight each other, started by Nintendo when they released Super Smash Bros. and continued more recently by the likes of Weekly Shonen Jump’s Jump Ultimate Stars and Square Enix’s Dissidia series. While the latter is available in the U.S. due to Square Enix’s complete ownership of all of their characters, the former is relatively impossible to license here due to the varied ownerships of each series appropriate to the characters playable (and the miles of red tape to cut through to do so). That, and the sheer awesomeness of having Ichigo from Bleach tag-team with Naruto to fight Kenshin from Rurouni Kenshin and Monkey D. Luffy from One Piece would probably cause every American otaku’s head to explode, and no one wants to clean that sort of mess up!
So, this week, I leave you with some awesome footage from a game that will never be licensed here. See you next week!
About the Author
After finding out that the school's library was a welcome respite from the heat of the tropical island he inhabited, Paolo Jasa found out that books were a whole lot better than being a constant target during P.E. class; so much so that he developed a love for them that would last him a life time. His first forays in Science Fiction were in the novels of the esteemed I. Asimov, R. Bradbury, and D. Adams, while his adventures in Fantasy took him to the realms of Discworld, Hogwarts, and a Chicago that houses the only Wizard-For-Hire found in the local Yellow Pages, Harry Dresden.
Then he found out about Gaiman's Sandman comics, Miyazaki's animé, Pixar's movies, and (almost) every single web-comic on the Internet.
This changed things a little bit. A lot, in fact.
Regardless, Paolo's currently enrolled in the College of William and Mary to get a Bachelor's Degree in ... something. Hopefully in English or in Education in order to become a teacher, and to bend the minds of the next generation towards all things nerdy. While not studying or reading, he enjoys playing the alto saxophone and singing unabashedly around campus when no one’s looking.
The game can also be mixed and played with the 4 other crusade games: Sunrise Crusade (with characters and mechs from sunrise shows like Code Geass and Aura Battle Dunbine), Macross Crusade (name says it all), OG Crusade (with mechas and characters appearing in the SRW anime), Dynamic Crusade (old school robots like Getter Robo and Mazinger Z)