The 10 Weirdest Japanese Video Games Ever Made

Image via Complex Original

Publisher: Taito Corporation
Year: 1986

Say you were given the chance to make a game. Not code the damn thing, but come up with the concept, tone, and direction of a title to be named after you? Pretty tight, no? Well that's what happned in Japan in the 80s. Japanese actor, director, comedian, and poet "Beat" Takeshi Kitano, most famously known for starring in the teacher in the 2000 film Battle Royale was given just that chance.

A few things to note about Kitano kun: he hated video games, he was drunk when he came up with the idea for the story, and he wanted players to feel hated when they sat down to play the title.

Set in a nondescript Japanese city where everyone literally hates you, you play a nameless corporate drone setting out to, well, that's part of the problem. No one has any idea how to play this game correctly. You can just start by punching everyone you come across. Cops, elderly women, co-workers, yakuza gangsters, whatever. Oddly enough, that's the easy part. The only real way to make any progress in the game is to quit your job, collect your severance package, divorce your wife, and drain your savings account. After all of that, you must master karaoke by singing into the built-in microphone in the second Famicon controller. Follow that with hang gliding, UFOs, and an escape to a fictional South Pacific island mark to ultimately finish the game. Takeshi's Challenge is considered by most to be one of the worst games to ever be coded and we are hard pressed to disagree.

Publisher: Outside Directors Company Limited
Year: 1995

We have no idea what the shelf life of a human soul is, but we're guessing it's more than 49 days. That's how this barely psuedo-game begins. You die, your soul gets stolen by the island of Tong-Nou, ostensibly, for eating food (way to go, fattie), and if you don't get it back. You then weaken and eventually die in emptiness. Real fluffy stuff eh? Luckily for you, your buddy Yashiro lends you his sould to unravel the mystery.

It turns out that this beat up Ford Focus of a soul is only good for a month and a half. The island is just a giant, green, floating head that you have to enter through any orifice. Call it the video game equivalent of exploring all of Burt Reynold's Chi holes. This obscure, PC only freakshow was brought to you by the same people behind LSD: Dream Emulator. Thanks again, Japan. I was sick of getting a full eight hours of sleep a night.

Publisher: MIST[PSI]PRESS
Year: 2011

Are you tired of playing creepy, virtual dating sims and sexual predator simulators? How about taking on something far out of the norm. In Pigeon Date, you form a romantic relationship with a pidgeon. Yeah, money where your mouth is tough guy.

You're the new girl at college and you must find a male pigeon to date and bring home to the parents for Christmas break. Set at Saint PigeoNation, an academy for gifted birds, you must navigate class, life, and love in your quest to find the one true pigeon of your dreams. Instead of dating barely legal aged anime-eyed youngsters, you are going to date a bird. We've got to say that's pretty progressive, bro.

There's also a story about a murder and a ghost in Pidgeon Date somewhere but, really, who cares about any of that compared to getting on with a garbage eating fowl?

Publisher: Overflow
Year: 2005

And you thought video game violence got a lot of attention here in the states. School Days was an ongoing interactive novel released on multiple platforms with a number of sequels between 2005-2010.

Players are mostly relegated to the side lines, watching the story unfold from a third person perspective. When it does come time to get in the game, players are presented with choices to make for a specific character. It sounds like a learning tool for kids learning how to read, until you get to the gruesome decapitation, bullet train suicides, and severed heads in bags. The Japanese didn't even bat an eye to this game unlike the U.S. crap-storm around Grand Theft Auto and the hookers. For brevity's sake, we haven't even gotten into all of the high school sex stuff in this title. We just can't get past the severed head of a teenage girl in a sack.

Publisher: TaffSystem
Year: 2001

So, before we even get into what the definition of what "boon-ga boon-ga" is, let's just take a look at this arcade cabinet for a moment. We have the severed, lower body of an individual barely fitting into their mom jeans. We don't know who you're the competition is, but this game wins the prize.  

"Boon-ga, boon-ga" is a game Japanese school kids play with one another on the playground during recess. To play, you form two fingers like your shooting an imaginary ass laser and cram them up the closest school kid's rear end. This seems more like a sexual asssault training program than an innocent arcade game.

Publisher: Square Enix
Year: 1989

It seems like 1989 is a million years ago considering how much video game tech has progressed; race relations, on the other hand, might be moving at a somewhat slower clip overseas. The 1989 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer game for the NES has one of the most jaw dropping racist caricatures of a black dude in video game history. Its horrible portrayal of Jim The Slave as a huge lipped, black faced sprite should get the Olympic Gold for setting race relations back 100 years. 

Publisher: Nippon Computer System Corp.
Year: 2007

Sensing a recurring theme of homo-eroticism turning up in Japanese video games, Cho Aniki is about as PG-13 a game can get before they start charging you a Brazzers monthly subscription fee.

Originally launched in 1995, this side scrolling shooter has players collecting semen in order to defeat the evil Balzac. Spawning multiple sequels, the series has recently been reincarnated as a downloadable PSP title, Cho Aniki Zero. Some of the highlights from the press release include, "Cho Aniki Zero will be oiled up and ready to thrust its way onto your PSP" and "Collect enough Man Protein to unleash the devastating attack of the Men's Beam!" Gallons of man juice and number of eruptions can also be found in your inventory screen. Yeah, I guess it's not that subtle after all.

Publisher: Sega
Year: 1985

I'm Sorry is an arcade clone of Pac-Man that manged to co-opt 80s American pop-culture icons, and poke fun at the  Japanese Prime Minister at the time, Kakuei Tanaka. This game is damn near unbeatable.

Tanaka was involved in multiple bribery scandals in the 80s and what better way to satirize him than by having him collect gold bricks while being chased by Madonna, Michael Jackson, and Carl Lewis. Take that Japanese Upper House of Parliment! Madonna has a ranged attack where she jumps and launches a kiss at you, lucky for you she can be taken out with one punch. If only that were true today we would never had to listen to MDNA.

Publisher: Asmik Ace Entertainment
Year: 1998

LSD was a Japan only PlayStation One release that was supposed to simulate a deep REM cycle dream state. Its main accomplishment was the impressive amount of urine soaked sheets that needed throwing out because of night terrors.

The game is based on the dream journal of one of the developers over the course of 10 years. Fantastic, can we check and see if there were any unsolved serial murders in Japan between 1988-1998? Here's got a pretty solid lead.

LSD had no dialogue and consisted of walking, looking, and clawing the spiders out of the sockets where your eyes used to be. Each time the game is played, you begin in a new location. No explanation. Just go explore the terrorscape of some guy's fraying consciousness.

Publisher: Namco Bandai Games
Year: 2009

There's no dipping your baby toe into the kaleidoscopic mind screw that is the world of Japanese gaming. You just have to jump right in and assume that a game where you're a body builder that has to get back his stolen vat of protein powder is just par for the course.

As a G stringed Olympian that vaguely resembles Tom Sellek, players use the Wii mote to follow an oiled up conga line of muscle men through broken down walls while holding a number of poses. Like we said, just roll with it, because this is as tame as it gets. There's also a playable polar bear thrown in for good measure. Muscle March had the result of you sheepishly asking your Wii if it still respected you in the morning.