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Captain Tsubasa: New Kick Off Heading To Europe

By Spencer . July 2, 2010 . 6:26pm

Captain Tsubasa: New Kick Off Heading To EuropeKonami’s Nintendo DS Captain Tsubasa game is on tour. That photo is from France’s Japan Expo where the game appeared under the name Captain Tsubasa: New Kick Off.

 

Color us surprised.

 

While our friends in Europe are getting a localized version, it isn’t clear if Konami will release Captain Tsubasa: New Kick Off in North America. Anime games, according to another publisher, are having a rough time at retail. Soccer isn’t nearly as popular in the States either. On the other hand, Konami keeps publishing PES games and picked up Otomedius Excellent.

 

Thanks to Remy for the tip!


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  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Tommy-Lee/518924335 Tommy Lee

    do you think with the World Cup vibe going around it might help things a little bit? or are there already too many FIFA games out to consider it?

    • Aoshi00

      The soccer fever in the US will die down as always, the US having been eliminated alrdy doesn’t help either… it’s kind of like the Olympics, Americans only care about it a little bit every 4 yrs. I’m not sure if sports related manga/anime are that popular here either, especially w/ exaggerated ones like Captain Tusbasa.

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Tommy-Lee/518924335 Tommy Lee

        yea i know, i was being half sarcastic about that. the only popular sports manga i know of is Prince of Tennis. As for the others well… I think VIZ keeps selling them for reasons other than the fact Shueisha owns them.

        • Aoshi00

          It’s because Prince of Tennis is relatively recent compared to the classics which are oldies now, like Captain Tsubasa from the 80′s and Slam Dunk from the 90′s. Viz did translate all of the Eyeshield 21 manga, which is about American football. My point is I don’t think Americans (at least sports fans) are too interested in sports manga w/ fantasy elements that are not entirely grounded in reality. They like NBA/MLB/NFL but not the fake anime inter high school stuff, they like real women but not the love sims. Prince of Tennis was really really good up to one point (I’ve always been a big sports manga fan, I’m reading “Kuroko no Basuke” now, the “Whistle!” soccer manga was good, but horrible anime). The thing that bugs me the most is they’re all in middle school, does Ryoma look like a 7th grader and Tezuka a 9th grader? It would be more convincing if they’re in high school, Ryoma being in 9/10th grade and Tezuka in 12th.

          • http://www.facebook.com/people/Tommy-Lee/518924335 Tommy Lee

            Slam Dunk has only started being officially translated. Well, sort of. The latest volume out is 10 as of last month with volumes 11 & 12 coming in the next 2 typical sell dates. You’re right about the age of Captain Tsubasa though. Going that far back is not in a publisher’s best intrest. Manga in general is targeted at the teen demographic in the US though. There may be a few seinen titles mixed in with the rest, but their all mixed together in one section of a bookstore. Given that fact, I think it’s safe to assume anyone older than that is not into any anime/manga if they were never into it before. The target audience teens probably like the fantasy elements in their manga. I know I did, and still do. Sports manga are mostly shonen titles anyways aren’t they?I agree that ages of the characters in Prince of Tennis are awkward. If it was a high school setting instead, I’d be convinced. The original concept probably was to move them all into high school eventually. Of course that still hasn’t yet happened even in the New Prince of Tennis.

    • http://www.siliconera.com Spencer

      I’m sure it helps, but it seems like retailers are getting pickier about the games they want to stock. Aside from the anime debacle, I’ve heard similar things about certain titles and genres.

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Tommy-Lee/518924335 Tommy Lee

        yea, the video game market seems to be starting to get a little over-saturated for less popular titles and genres to be sold on store shelves, which is a shame. A collapse like what happened in the 1980′s probably isn’t going to happen anytime soon, but i’ll be generous and say it’ll be another 1/2 a century before the next one.

  • Aoshi00

    I highly doubt it’d be released here, even basketball/NBA is pretty big, Slam Dunk never caught on either.. did the Eyeshield 21 manga sell well? Sad to see S. Korea and Japan got knocked out in round of 16, and Brazil today too.. big game tmw, Germany vs. Argentina!

    • cowcow

      This is why no region code rules. This gen is awesome for that (PSP, DS, PS3)

      Only Wii & 360 have region coding (though there’s ways around that)

      • Aoshi00

        Yea, but I guess you still need to be able to read Jpn though, I’m not sure how many soccer fans or Captain Tsubasa fans are in the US.. Region code isn’t a problem for me, I just buy the Jpn systems (I have the Jpn PS2 slim, Jpn 360/Wii). Of course it’s better if they’re region free.

        • http://otoboku.se manga

          I played trough the second and third Captain Tsubasa games on emulator :p

          While I didn´t understand that much I could learn just about the right amount to know what the characters names were along with few parts of what happend thanks to the animation.

          Also tried a Captain Tsubasa game for PS2, since I had watched that part in anime format I knew what was going on and thus it was a lot better than previous games :p

          So at least with the earlier games I´ve played understanding Japanese is not really a knowledge you need. It helps sure but you can work your way around it.

          • Aoshi00

            yea, I just meant in general you won’t fully enjoy imports unless you understand the language, I remember I used to play RPGs just by memorizing the general commands like tatakau, mahou, soubi, item, kougeki, bougyo, etc, didn’t even know hiragana back then.. one could certainly go thru the game fine..

            Alemania 4 Agentina 0, Se Acabo! :)

          • http://otoboku.se manga

            Yup. That is something I can also agree on.

            For me it was quite a ride. Started watching Captain Tsubasa on german TV. There they called it Die Tollen Füssballstars.

            When I got to know the original name I searched. Found some games and was pretty irritated by the first game in the series. With the second and third I really enjoyed it.

            The first Captain Tsubasa was translated to Tecmo Cup or something like that. It wasn´t received well.

            For RPGs I wouldn´t even try playing them in Japanese original. I´m much to interested in the storyline and I don´t want to sit and read page after page of text with a translation while playing.

  • http://denpanosekai.blogspot.com denpanosekai

    World Cup of Diving.

  • Natat

    Wh-whaaaaaat!?
    This is awesome, I can’t believe it. I’ll definitely have to import it when it arrives in Europe.

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