Bomberman Channel

  Once more, the lesser-known spinoff of Bomberman receives new life internationally through a now completed subbing process. Much to the surprise of many, one of the Anglosphere's oldest Bomberman archivists, Steamy Jimmy, actually came through with his promise to sub the entirety of B-Daman Bakugaiden's anime run (Bakugaiden IV and V). For context, the project's prospects were called into question when his uploads of IV's subbed episodes (and subsequently channel) were nuked around the end of 2023. For a second, it was even wondered by many if those uploads were archived or not, and thankfully they were.  For some quick context, the B-Daman series of marble-shooting toys actually started here. Around 1992 or '93, toy producer Takara and Hudson Soft collaborated to create these things, initially as loose tie-ins to games like Super Bomberman , which had just been released at the time. Starting in October 1996, the toyline would become one of the series' first s...

 Bombergirl returns yet again with another new character, further confirming Konami's insane self-awareness of both itself and its many franchises, both new and old, for this addition easily has the strangest origin of them all by far. I'm a month late again, I know. Described as the maiden of the Karasuba Shrine and a demon [yokai] hunter with the blood of the Karasuten Sutei, this otherwise fairly cheerful and incredibly tall (clocking in at 220cm, or 7 feet fall) woman uses her family's techniques and her body to engage in battle and protect her village. If she isn't tending to her shrine, then she's playing with the children who visit it. It also appears, however, that she has a dark side to her, with a few quotes referring to a more gluttonous (though to what extent is left to the imagination, given her usage of the word cute) side referring to eating people, especially her master with their demon blood and their organs up. Being of the blocker class, she uses ...

  Bombergirl continues with yet another new character, though with a somewhat surprising twist. ...and as in 'twist', I really mean Konami doing the thing many English fans were expecting them to do to begin with: add more girls based off of Bomberman characters. Anyway, meet Dark, a character based off of Regulus- specifically his Bomberman 64: The Second Attack counterpart.  (I started writing this back in April, then admittedly forgot about it prior to earlier today) His Bomberman 64 appearance His Bomberman 64: The Second Attack appearance Having come from space to take on Shiron, the fill-in for Jetters' version of Bomberman, she's someone who wants to take on the strongest person in the room and be recognized by everyone. Being a literal kid here, though, her big words and declarations of being the best are immediately shrugged off by literally everyone.  Alongside her is her partner, Rabbidel, which she sees as both a pet of sorts and a weapon. It's design is...

In an unexpected turn of events, Konami pulls a power move and buys back the rights to the B-Daman Bakugaiden anime. Credit: Kaleidoskopical (I just needed a spread for this article, okay?) I'm unsure if this is anything I've ever outwardly acknowledged, so if not-- Konami has been surprising me with their numerous callbacks to legacy Bomberman content. I suppose it makes sense, given the series' better reception in Japan. For whatever reason, I mostly figured they were just going to treat the series as some cash cow they could pump a bunch of half-baked games and glorified live-services out of... which, to be fair, isn't wholly untrue. Anyway, up until now, the first major Bomberman spinoff (because Robowarrior/Bomber King and any tertiary connections to Lode Runner more or less died off after two or three games), B-Daman Bakugaiden, was more or less stuck in some legal limbo with Hudson Soft refusing to do much with it in their latter years. Resultingly, they were mor...

Out of nowhere, Konami and Ship to Shore PhonoCo. have announced a new vinyl, though it's subject is, at least to me, quite unexpected: *** Yeah, the Super Bomberman games: all 5 of them. This now makes 3 releases, alongside the Bomberman NES duology and Hero, which were both released last and earlier this year, respectively. While people like me who have played through all 5 of these games via emulation are delighted, I can't help but wonder about how this comes off to an average Joe who's only played a couple of the games, usually in quick multiplayer spurts. Putting aside any preconceived  notions about what the series is about, there's also the concern that not a whole lot of the series has been available outside of Japan, meaning that there's no legal or easily accessible way to play a lot of it. Only Super Bomberman 1 and 2 were ever released in the U.S., with 3 being available in Europe and Japan before becoming wholly exclusive to the homeland for 4 and 5. W...

  Well, it seems that I was wrong last time in saying that Bombergirl was going to end soon because of the introduction of another new character, as well as a shadow update to the website nobody pointed out. Meet Brass, the first Bombergirl character to immediately make me uncomfortable. While this also applies to all the other literal CHILDREN this game has, just looking at her actually made me cringe. I think the only other time where I had a similar reaction was when I learned of the game for the first time and saw Shiron (this game's take on Jetters' Shirobon).  Let's make this quick. For all intents and purposes, she's described as an angel who likes making people happy with her music. As her name suggests, she mainly plays with air-based instruments like trumpets. The only other notable detail is that she wants to be like Sepia and ["Bubble Girl"; will update this later]. Otherwise, I suppose that she's supposed to be a by-the-books kind of person wh...

  So, I COMPLETELY forgot to write about this as it happened. Also, that write-up on the R2 news is coming soon, don't kill me

  As if out of complete nowhere, more pieces of rare developmental information about the Bomberman series have finally come to light, and I'm all here for it. A channel I haven't been aware of until more recently is one titled C62-Hu.  Run by a former employee of Hudson Soft who I'm guessing was around for a good while, he's uploaded a few videos talking about the company and recalling his days there. I had come by his Hudson Soft HQ exploration videos sometime before, but initially brushed it off as some guy breaking into an old building. Anyway, as of late, he's been looking into scrounging up some old documents about certain games and providing nuggets of info about certain games. One of them in particular was Saturn Bomberman. For some context going into this, I'm unsure if I've ever stated this before, but we actually know next to nothing about the development of too many games. To my knowledge, the most we know about these days are Bomberman Live: Batt...

  On April 10th, 2023 (or 9th in other places), Konami would dump a bunch of info about the game in a new trailer and the opening of a website proper after half a year of nothing! Because there's just so much to talk about, I'm going to break everything down into a bunch of sections before breaking off to editorialize for a bit, visiting one or two other topics, and wrapping everything up. 1.) The trailer itself: Taken from IGN The trailer itself doesn't really show much that's new. The only really noteworthy thing here is that we now get to see the enhanced graphics and improved assets in other modes, including the story mode. Additionally, we learn that Castle Mode has received a major gameplay change. In initial media, we only saw player protecting the fortress while 15 others came after your treasure. Seen both here and on the website, it's now stated that up to 16 players are divided into two teams, meaning that there's now more than one person on the defen...

The latest character in Bombergirl has been introduced! Meet Chigusa, one of many members of the Bomber Police! The previous leader of the Shinsegumi's second division, as well as an admirer for the head, Asagi, she's an attacker who, in addition to wielding a blade, uses cursed voodoo dolls to poison her opponents. It's apparently rumored that she's far more dangerous than Asagi.  All of her attacks are purely based on playing the long game, with slashes/jabs and cursed dolls being thrown at whoever she manages to hit last, all to varying lengths depending on your level. [The following translations are offered by Google Images, which are subject to change] Skill 1: Mystery-Flying Required team level: 2 Quickly mows down whatever's in front of you with your sword. Gives a cursed doll to the last enemy hit and starts draining HP. Skill 2: "Secret Technique: Evil Mind Wave" Required team level: 4 After a charge, this ability allows you to slash opponents up ...

The clock is now ticking on Bombergirl, with around 4 characters left to be revealed before the full cast is complete! Meet Melora! After a bunch of Konami's usual vagueposting shenanigans on the game's Twitter, she was finally unveiled back at the beginning of November.  Based off of Princess Melora from Konami's Twinbee series, it's explained in-universe that she's the daughter of Melora and has been sent to Earth to deal with an oncoming threat. And who else would that threat be, then, than Platina, who's quite literally based off of Bomberman 64's Sirius? With Platina's debut (and us being made aware of the Cosmic Cube's existence here), we were introduced to an idol group called the "Pretty Bombers", who were essentially made aware of this threat. Something interesting worth noting, as pointed out by user @Shizen_Bomber, is that the four girls' main color schemes make up that of Super Bomberman 2's initial design for, well, Pre...