Game OVA Reversal: Episode 2—Ganbare Goemon

We're back with another episode of Game OVA Reversal, where we take the Game OVA formula (play games based on anime) and give it a lil' twist (watch anime based on games). Last time I covered my favorite game franchise as a matter of course, Falcom's Ys, and this time I wanted to further my studies of Konami's Ganbare Goemon series of jidaigeki (Japanese period drama) action-platformers that often have exploration/adventure aspects and mini-games sprinkled around, usually for the sake of its surreal sense of humor.

Given I've covered several of his games lately the spiky-haired rogue is often in my thoughts, especially now that a modern compilation of his earlier adventures just came out (though sadly only in Japan), and so I'm carrying Goemon Fever into my Game OVA feature too. Fortunately, he's been blessed in this medium also: there's two OVAs and a whole season of TV anime based on the license, and I can't help but (optimistically) imagine the quantity and quality of jokes having his own cartoon could afford him and Ebisumaru.

The Property

Ganbare Goemon is a humorous and anachronistic reimagining of the Japanese folk hero Ishikawa Goemon, a Robin Hood-esque figure that robbed from the rich and gave to the poor during the end of Japan's deeply taxing Sengoku period (late-16th century). In these games, Goemon is a rambunctious but kindhearted thief who works alongside his chief ally, the ninja Ebisumaru, to resolve external threats to his otherwise peaceful country. In later games he'd also go on to work with the kunoichi Yae, the mechanical ninja Sasuke, and the colossal attack mecha Goemon Impact. Konami first created the series as a simple 8-bit arcade game where Goemon would run through a dangerous course collecting money and then distribute it across poor neighborhoods at the end of each level, but with each generation of consoles to follow—the NES, SNES, and N64/PS1—the games would become more mechanically complex, while still sticking to their action platformer roots.

I've been on a Goemon kick for just over a year now, having recently expended the last of his Super Famicom outings beyond a weird puzzle game I'm not sure about yet. The first SNES game, Legend of the Mystical Ninja, was the only one we in the west saw and was a childhood favorite of mine, along with the two N64 games Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon and Goemon's Great Adventure. The rest of his 16-bit games have only seen fan translations more recently and so I've been using my regular features as an excuse to try them all: Ganbare Goemon 2: Kiteretsu Shogun McGuiness ("Let's Go! Goemon 2: Very Strange General McGuiness"), introduces Impact along with his first-person boss fights and was one of the subjects of last year's May series on fan-translated gems; Ganbare Goemon 3: Shishi Jurokube no Karakuri Manjigatame ("Let's Go! Goemon 3: Shishi Jurokube's Mechanical Manji Hold"), which was the first game in the series to incorporate more overtly Zelda-like qualities to its structure (seen also in Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon), and was covered in the SNES-specific "Supertember" series last year; and finally Ganbare Goemon Kirakira Douchuu: Boku ga Dancer ni Natta Wake "Let's Go! Goemon The Glittering Journey: The Reason I Became a Dancer") took the series back to its fundamentals as a set of 2D action stages, albeit with four separate campaigns for its four protagonists, and was covered in a standalone "RetroPiece Theater" review back in March.

Goemon games came out fairly regularly between its 1986 debut all the way up to 2005, with Ganbare Goemon: Tokai Dochu Oedo Tengu ri Kaeshi no Maki for DS proving to be the last of the main series (for now). Konami had started to move away from video games by that point, bringing the license back only a couple of times for some pachislot machines, but with the release of the Ganbare Goemon! Daishuugo compilation just a couple weeks ago to coincide with its 40th anniversary it feels like they're poised to reboot the series if similar recent efforts to revitalize Metal Gear Solid, Castlevania, and Silent Hill are any indication. Or maybe that's wishful thinking. Either way, happy to keep talking about Goemon to anyone who might listen.

The Anime

So, I mentioned there were two OVAs. That's what we're watching here. Ganbare Goemon: Jigen Jo no Akumu ("Let's Go! Goemon: The Nightmare of the Dimensional Castle") and Ganbare Goemon: Chikyu Kyushutsu Sakusen ("Let's Go! Goemon: Global Rescue Operation"). Both are available on YouTube, at least at present, restored and localized by a dedicated team of Goemon preservationists. Konami worked with AIC (Tenchi Muyo!, Bubblegum Crisis) to produce the first OVA and with Public & Basic and an outlet called Sankyo Educational Films for the latter OVA. Not sure what to expect here in terms of quality, exactly, especially given the second appears to be an edutainment product but I'm certainly intrigued enough to push play on both of these.

Ganbare Goemon: Jigen Jo no Akumu (OVA, 1993)

The OVA starts with a villager witnessing what appears to be a star falling to Earth; talking about it with his pals at the local bar they surmise it might be either thunder, lightning, or a UFO (they've been seeing a lot of those in England recently, one patron claims). It is in fact aliens, as a small white figure then appears at the town gate and wanders down the main street with a crystal ball that his boss, a large Jabba-like toad alien, is able to watch everything through. They're looking for women to kidnap: the boss immediately dismisses the first two ladies that catches the visitor's eye, both of whom are dressed like Final Fight characters in the first of many anachronistic jokes that are Ganbare Goemon's trademark, as the boss is looking for more of a "pure maiden" type. They find one upon entering the bar and seeing Goemon's on/off waitress girlfriend Omitsu, whom they immediately abduct in a flash of light. What are Goemon and Ebisumaru doing while all this is happening? Playing Antarctic Adventure on the Famicom, of course. What else are you supposed to play in 16th century Japan? The Mega Drive wasn't out yet.

Fun fact about Antarctic Adventure, the sequel (Penguin Adventure) was the first game Hideo Kojima ever worked on with Konami. His presence might explain some jokes later in the OVA too.

Ebisumaru really only needs the flimsiest of reasons to dress up in women's clothing and dance, and that's why he's an icon.

Upon reaching the brand new castle just outside of town, having put two and two together that it might have something to do with the abduction, Goemon and Ebisumaru is told by the alien boss that they'll need to pass through several "jigen" before they can reach him at the top of the castle. Goemon ruminates on what might be meant by "jigen" before landing on a certain bearded individual from a different anime all together (whom I believe is associated with a very different Goemon). But no, jigen means dimension, and that's what Goemon and Ebisumaru are thrown into each time they travel up another floor. Why, this is almost like some sort of super dimensional fortress (now I'm the one making the deep cuts...). What does the show actually mean by dimension, then? Well, as soon as Goemon passes through the first door he emerges onto the bridge of a starship and is told to board the Vic Viper so he can combat the evil forces of Gofer. We then get a protracted sequence of Goemon, hypnotized into thinking he's James Burton (who everyone knows is the canonical pilot of the Vic Viper), going around shooting alien ships (and, at one point, a giant Moai head) before he tries to use his ultimate attack (actually Goemon's attack) and finds the Vic Viper isn't equipped for it. That's enough to wake him out of his reverie, along with his trusty wingman "Bisumaru", and the two fly through a wall and out of this Gradius simulation like it was The Truman Show.

Goemon-heads might remember that you can play the first Gradius as a mini-game in the Legend of the Mystical Ninja, so theoretically Goemon should recognize all this.

Next floor contains a familiar spooky castle; for whatever reason, instead of playing any Castlevania track it's instead a synthesizer rendition of the Wedding March. Eh, close enough. After Goemon is once again hoodwinked into thinking he's Simon Belmont (it's unclear who Ebisumaru is meant to be, except that he's dressed like a modern scientist) the soundtrack switches to some classic Vampire Killer as we get a montage of them fighting various monsters. Goemon-Simon tempts fate by talking about how well they're doing, only to then get knocked off the stairs they were on by a passing bat and getting wombo-combo'd by other enemies until they fall off the bottom of the screen. Very relatable. Eventually crawling into Dracula's lair at the top of the castle where the villain is keeping the fair maiden Caroline (whom as far as I know doesn't appear in the games), Goemon remembers he's supposed to be rescuing Omitsu instead and recalls his true identity again, and the pair defeat Dracula with their extending pipe/staff combo. Caroline falls for her rescuer but Goemon cannot abandon Omitsu, so he politely rebuffs her (though Ebisumaru is down to clown if she is).

SiGoemon Belmont and... Ebisucard? Dr. Frankenmaru? I'm definitely missing something.

Goemon quickly puts the kibosh on Ebisumaru and Caroline hooking up but I gotta wonder. After all, Ebisumaru canonically has a descendant who is a French nun.

The third floor sees Goemon and Ebisumaru tricked by Winbee into becoming Twinbee and Gwinbee respectively, boarding their odd aircraft which are controlled by giant SFC controllers. Though Goemon-Twinbee's getting into the swing of things, both he and Ebisumaru-Gwinbee get distracted by an advertisement for a bathhouse and decide to take it easy for a while. Ebisumaru finds himself in the women's bath, for reasons I'm sure were not accidental, and the pair get kicked out for general acts of perversion (though getting hit on the head with a basket did recover Goemon's memory once again). Riding the aircraft out of the simulation and into the top floor of the alien castle, Goemon and Ebisumaru finally confront the alien boss as Omitsu screams for them to rescue her from this ugly monster. Affronted, the boss calls in his underling to use his magic to transform him into a handsome samurai and Omitsu immediately falls head over heels for him, tossing Goemon aside. We then switch to a church (where the announcement sign literally refers to the alien boss as "Jabba") and the wedding reception, to which Goemon and Ebisumaru were somehow invited to the former's despair, and the happy couple cut the cake (which has the old Konami logo as the topper) just as the underling's spell wears off and transforms Jabba back into a big toad. Omitsu is horrified but then immediately changes her tune again when the underling transforms him back. We go back and forth a few times with this and the OVA just kinda ends with the narrator, Pedro, mocking Goemon for getting cucked by such a capricious woman. Maybe he'd have been better off with Caroline.

"Pedro" up there on the top left pauses the action to inform Goemon and Ebisumaru that the Konami Code will allow them to see Winbee naked and, well, I have many questions about this scene. Largely, who the heck is Pedro? Feels like I'm missing some vital Konami lore. (Don't worry, this is all the nude Goemon I plan on subjecting you to.)

This OVA was some sort of special prize for a lottery contest in which you mailed in a bunch of vouchers included inside contemporary Konami games, so it makes sense that it's a big Konami love-in with all these references. I also didn't mention it earlier but outside of the "dimension traveling" parts (which uses music germane to the games they're referencing) the soundtrack is essentially identical to that of the first SNES game, albeit with some professional arrangements. I kept recognizing tracks and remembering where they played in the game, which either speaks well to my memory or speaks badly to my ability to retain only the least important information from my childhood. Overall, not bad, but definitely has the vibe of something like a bonus extra on a DVD.

Nice work by the localization team here. You can pinpoint the second when his heart, etc., etc.

Ganbare Goemon: Chikyu Kyushutsu Sakusen (OVA, 1998)

The opening credits reveal the cast: along with Goemon and Ebisumaru you have Yae, Sasuke, and Impact all joining in this time, as are the villains from the fourth SNES game (Kirakira Douchuu). To recap the plot of that game, it involved Planet Impact (Impact was revealed to be a sapient alien being this whole time) getting invaded by a sports-obsessed space warlord named Seppukumaru who wants to master the art of seppuku (ritual suicide) as he perceives it to be the ultimate extreme sport, and everyone works to stop him because he has a bomb in his stomach that will destroy the solar system if it goes off. Pretty standard villain stuff (he's also the antagonist in the TV anime, I've discovered).

The best joke in this whole comparatively humorless OVA is when the crew are spying on Seppukumaru, and hiding behind a nearby cliff is about as inconspicuous as Impact can manage. They do this goof twice, in fact.

It starts with Seppukumaru and his four anthropomorphized egg minions (whom I'll call the Yolkfolk for now) dressed as clowns enticing children a la the Pied Piper of Hamelin to their spaceship, where they hit them with some classic Scientology brainwashing. Goemon and his pals crash the ritual and handily defeat the Yolkfolk, but the hypnosis on the children proves too strong to overcome and they're forced to leave rather than hurt anyone. Observing Seppukumaru's ship as it (poorly) attempts to hide behind an artificial cloud, they eventually figure out what the warlord's insidious plan entails: to have the children use flying bikes to collect garbage all across their neighborhoods and then randomly dump it everywhere. But wait! The other half is even worse: they're collecting enough garbage on the ship to eventually drown Japan in its own refuse, and that even includes reusable products! Gasp! Does Seppukumaru's villainy know no bounds?

Slightly haunting image of the hypnotized kids flying down in these box-tricycles to steal everyone's garbage. Like The Midwich Cuckoos mixed with E.T..

An even more haunting image of all the kids lying around the big heap of trash they collected. Some little tykes are going to have to have their tetanus jabs when they get back home.

Goemon realizes the key is to unhypnotize the kids, and asks if Impact has any disco balls on him that they can use for a similar hypnotic light show. Impact thinks for a moment, says he might have some in his "supply closet", reaches down out of frame, and then pulls out two balls in a manner that makes me wonder if this was meant for children after all. Goemon and Omitsu sneak inside with the balls while the rest create a diversion outside with a song about how much Seppukumaru sucks (so far I'd have to agree; he was a lot cooler in the game tossing the Death Star at Planet Impact), forcing the villains to leave and deal with them. This allows Goemon and Omitsu to undo the brainwashing, and the kids bum rush the villains who turn tail and flee. Goemon decides it's fine to let them go, presumably because there wouldn't be a TV show without them, and then helps the children return home to their rather indifferent parents (whom we've yet to see make any sort of effort to recover their offspring).

Two of the eggs unwisely decide to take on Impact. Honestly, how did they expect this would turn out without mecha of their own?

The OVA then ends with the Old Man, who heretofore had only been interested in robot construction and sexual harassment, lecturing Goemon and his crew (and, indirectly, the viewers) about how big a problem proper garbage disposal is across the world, the toxicity of landfills, the "invisible garbage" that is air pollutants, and how it's everyone's responsible to reuse, reduce, and recycle as much as possible. Like he himself isn't wholly responsible for the rapid industrialization of Oedo Japan. The OVA then ends on a cute note, as the children the team rescued have all decided to become ninja just like them. I'm sure there's some fossil fuel CEOs the Old Man could point them towards for their first assassination mission.

Sasuke, who knows the Old Man best being one of his creations and all, definitely looks like he's thinking "this is rich coming from a guy with his own robot manufacturing facility, gozaru".

Does it do right by the games? The first one's a reference-heavy goof-fest that I would normally say feels too tangential to the source material to be a worthy companion piece, but that sort of meta humor is entirely within Goemon's wheelhouse so in this particular case I'd say it was a pretty accurate recreation of its humor and sensibility. The second one was not only less funny and more like a cookie-cutter Saturday morning cartoon retool of the license, but I felt like I was getting preached to at the end there. Like it was a moment away from Ebisumaru sitting on a chair backwards so he can get real with you for a moment about putting your plastics and cans in the correct recycling bins. Definitely always a need for these kinds of environmental PSA if the current temperature is enough of a hint as to our immediate dire future but I'm not sure this was the right group of characters to deliver it.

The Game(s)

I've exhausted all the core Goemon games available on SNES/SFC and the N64, so the bonus game this time will be one of the PlayStation Goemon games: an era of Goemon of which I know precious little about. The series output on PS1 is fairly substantial—there's at least five of them, which is more than the N64 saw—and it appears to be a mix of 2D and 3D games, as well as a few less successful reboot attempts. The one I've chosen to play here is Ganbare Goemon: Uchuu Kaizoku Akogingu ("Let's Go! Goemon: Space Pirate Akogingu") though I'll probably only check out a few hours of it here since it doesn't have RA support yet and I'm too much of a sap for that shit to play any retro game as yet unsupported.

Ganbare Goemon: Uchuu Kaizoku Akogingu is the first of these PS1 Goemon games and was released in March 1996, about a year after the last SNES game (Kirakira Douchuu) and a year before Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon. It appears to follow the then-traditional Goemon model: quasi-3D with depth of field for its "adventure mode", and pure 2D side-scrolling for its "action mode", but specifically takes after Ganbare Goemon 3 (my favorite of the SNES games) due to its supposed use of a Zelda-style overworld map connecting the dungeon-like action levels. (Incidentally, I'll be using the mostly-complete Adventurous Translations fan translation here.)

From what I played, it's more or less what I outlined above but there were a few odd discrepancies. For one, there's an experience gauge now: I've no idea what happens if you fill it, since your maximum health is increased by finding sets of four fortune dolls (the silver beckoning cats) so I guess it probably boosts attack damage? Except everything I was fighting was dying in one hit except the boss, so... I'm clueless. Enemies drop XP scrolls in addition to cash and (very rarely, it felt like) healing dangos so the level system probably has some importance.

OK, maybe I lied earlier. The pansexual Ebisumaru gets so hot and bothered by naked Goemon that he immediately forgets what he's supposed to be doing and goes to sleep. Understandable.

Familiar townscape here, though there's 32-bit scaling tech at work here that makes it evident it's not just an up-rezzed SNES game. The scaling does make it seem a bit indistinct and blurry at times too, though.

Despite being technically an RPG there was a distinct lack of the action-adventure elements I was promised: you cannot summon a world map, and there's no menus at all. If you hit start it just pauses the game and the select is used for switching characters (you start as Goemon and Ebisumaru and can find others; as with some of the SNES games, each character has their own indispensable traversal abilities so you'll be switching often). Every trigger button simply switches your active weapon, which for Goemon is his pipe for melee and tossing ryo for ranged (though this hurts your wallet, since you're literally throwing money away), and the face buttons are just for jumps and attacks. You can still talk to NPCs around town in the "adventure mode" as well as buy food, though I didn't see any mini-games in that starting area.

Ebisumaru still uses his extendo-hand to grapple onto hooks, making him vital for some platforming sequences.

Gameplay progressed from the starting town to a relatively small top-down action area and then that led way to the first 2D side-scrolling area of the game. This involved going through several areas through a mountain path and eventually a temple in a poor state before we faced the first boss: a xenomorph ninja who struggles with Japanese (classic gaikokujin) and invoked Goemon's wrath when he announced his plan to steal all of Earth's greatest treasures. As is usual for Goemon bosses, the fight is trivialized with ranged weaponry (if you don't mind the expense) and I was able to recruit a new character, Goroku, after we chased off the bulbous-headed space ninja who was presumably not from the Nth dimension. Goroku is a brutish type who throws hands and acquires "rock jutsu" to attack, but I never got the chance to use it as I was thrown into an action sequence right afterwards where I was required to ride a log down the river. Vaguely similar to the surfing mini-games/levels from Konami's TMNT brawlers, the idea is to dodge obstacles and take out enemies rolling in on their own logs: the trick is that your vertical movement is reversed since by pressing up you roll the log downward and vice versa. I've played enough Super Mario 64 to know the score here. After that I was spat out into another top-down action area and eventually died, so I figured that was as fine a time as any to put a pin in it in case I come back later for achievements (though god help me if one of them is "complete the log sequence without damage").

This is "Sir Hattori", so I'm guessing he's just a minion of the titular Space Pirate. Surprising number of Goemon games seem to feature aliens. Well, the Edo period was largely defined by xenophobia I suppose.

Goroku is a brawler type and I'd imagine his special allows him to break through rocks and other barriers that might inhibit progress. Going by the game's box art, there's another new character to recruit later too.

Nothing particularly stood out mechanics-wise about this Goemon entry beyond the mysterious experience system and the new protagonist but I did like the visuals and music. The former uses a depth of field scaling trick to make it seem objects in the foreground and background were getting bigger as you got near them, similar to some tech I recall seeing in Grandia. The latter comes to us courtesy of a murderers' row of '90s Konami musical talent, including Akira Yamaoka (Snatcher, Silent Hill) and Michiru Yamane (Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Rocket Knight Adventures), and features a mix of what I'd call "Goemoncore" (traditional folk music with Japanese instruments that uses a slapstick twist, also often heard in the Parodius series) and some rock jams for the more serious action stages. The OST can be found here for those curious.

This sort of feels like a "safe" Goemon used to test the waters for this generation of consoles while another of their teams went all out on the first fully 3D game still in development for N64, though PlayStation would eventually prove to be the preferred home for Goemon and pals if the series's continued presence there is any proof. Definitely intrigued by the other PS1 games now but I don't think a single one of them has RA support yet, and very few have fan translations like this one, so given all my recent "shenanigoemons" I think I'm sated enough on this dude's adventures that I can give it a few years for more fan translation projects to trickle in (provided they aren't all scalped by low-effort AI jobs at least; man, is anything that shit can't ruin?).