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dv8nation.livejournal.comHere’s another little update from the trenches of Naruto fandom in Japan.
Over the last week I’ve discovered some rather neat Naruto goodies. The first is Naruto Data Card Dass. I have no idea what “dass” is (it’s written on the cards in English). But in any case these cards are very cool.
Since they don’t have data card in the West yet (as far as I know) let me explain how they work. Basically, you buy one of these cards for a game you like. The Naruto ones I got were about $1 each. Every time you play the game at the arcade you put the card in and it records how well you do. Just like a PS2 card.
Now one of the really cool things is that in big arcades they keep track of who the best players are and the real aces can sometimes get invited to compete in tournaments. I saw one of these last month for the newest Gundam Seed Game.
I was with a group of other people at the time so I could only grab two cards and have a quick look at the game but here’s what I was able to gather. A pretty wide varity of characters are available to play. Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke, Kabuto, Neji, Temari, Gaara, Kankuro, Hinata, and Orochimaru I’m sure on. I’m also pretty sure Shino, Gai, Jiraiya and Rock Lee are playable.
The battles are based on what looks like a paper-rock-scissors pattern. There are literally only three buttons for you to control you character with. Or it could be like the dueling system in the “Suikoden” series where your options are Attack, Defend or Special Attack.
Anyway, here’s a description of the cards. The top half of a card has a picture of the character and the bottom half is stats. I got Hinata and Orochimaru cards and the art for both is really nice.
In the upper right corner is some sort of element affinity. Orochimaru is water and Hinata is earth. Down in the stats section the first line contains their village symbol and name. The next line has the village name, their rank (genin and sannin), gender and something else I can’t read. On the left side of the next three lines are some sort of battle stats. The only one I can read is “body” which is the last. Orochimaru’s stats go 1800, 400 and 1000. Hinata’s are 1800, 400 and 800.
Yeah, that seems off to me to but I guess the game is gong to try and give every character an equal shot at being good.
On the right of those stats is something that I think is info for a special attack. Orochimaru’s reads “Genjutsu: magen da koku” and is rated 3000. Hinata’s says “Kekkeigengai taijutsu: keirakugeki” and is rated 2700. Maybe those are attacks I’ve forgotten about but the names don’t ring any bells with me. Below all that is info on what the attack does but I can’t make out much of that.
Finally there’s something in the bottom left corner that mentions someone related to the character. Orochimaru’s is Sakon and Hinata’s is Shino. No idea on that one either.
I also grabbed a really cute Naruto pencil board with a Halloween them. It’s got chibi Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke and Kakashi on it. There are these odd glowing light things that look like Christmas bulbs all around them and Sasuke is even holding one. There are pumpkins, swirls, sharingan symbols, (strangely) crosses, and “Trick or Treat” and “Happy Halloween” in English floating around. I guess the kids are supposed to be vampires because they have bat-like capes on. Kakashi, for some reason, has angel wings.
Finally, I saw one Naruto goodie that just blew my mind. A recreation of Itachi’s coat! It was going for about $150.
Anyway, I hope you all found that interesting.
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