The Legacy of Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun
By Ian Wilson
Thursday. Nov 10, 12:45 AM
"BARF!"

I don't know the exact date or time, but I know that it was the early ‘90s when I first played River City Ransom. The game achieved a lot of what games today are still trying to emulate (the latest being the so-so Beatdown: Fist of Vengeance). Back then, I didn't think there was much of a connection between this quirky beat ‘em up and a few other games I played, such as Super Dodgeball. To me, they were just awesome games that I played for hours and hours and still want to play to this day. These games, however, were part of a series, something that I didn't find out until years later, as they all revolve around a central character, Kunio.

Kunio's first game was Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun. When it came Stateside, everything was changed for the American audience. Its story was rather simple, with Kunio fending off hordes of rival school gangs all in the name of his school, Nekketsu High. This is the first time that he meets his rival and eventual friend, Riki. At this point Riki was trying to invade Nekketsu High under orders from the mysterious Sabu.

The next game to get to the American audience was Nekketsu Koko Dodgeball-bu (Super Dodgeball). The story line of Kunio and the others is put aside for a bit as Nekketsu High goes up against the other high schools in the Dodgeball Championships. Of course, like Kunio's first game, everything was changed once it came out over here. The tournament was changed in favor of a World Tournament, and all the characters’ names were changed.

Sometime later, after the home versions of these arcade games hit the NES, Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari (River City Ransom) was released. The game forever cemented Technos’ name in the minds of gamers everywhere. Kunio and Riki teamed up this time in what is considered by most a classic game. The original story had Yamada, big time enemy of Kunio, capture the sickly little sister of Godai, who is then forced to guard the gates of Reihou High where Yamada has taken over. Riki grudgingly tells Kunio he needs his help to rescue Godai's little sister, and together they defeat Yamada.

Other games in the series soon followed, covering baseball, soccer, basketball, hockey, track and field, and even a game that featured Kunio and Riki as Samurai. The majority of these games never made it Stateside of course, and the ones that did never retained the original story or character names.

Over the course of the games, each character became more developed: from the jealous rich kid Godai to the rough and tough girlfriends of Riki and Kunio, Kyoko and Misako. Two characters even got popular enough to star in their own games: Ryuji and Ryuichi, you know them as Billy and Jimmy Lee. Their first appearance in the Kunio-Kun games was Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari as the last line of defense before Yamada.

Now, years after Technos has died, Atlus has seen fit with the help of Millions (made up of people who used to work for Technos) to release remakes of three of these classic games, the two most notable being River City Ransom EX and Double Dragon Advance. Thanks to Atlus' slick update to these games, new gamers can now get a taste of the classics and hopefully will, like myself, want to dust off or buy a Nintendo so that they can play the originals.

For more information on Kunio and the others, I've poked about the net and found these sites:

Nekketsu Typhoon

Double Dragon Dojo

Wikipedia's Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun Page

The Don't Press Start Kunio-kun Series Page

There is of course more info out there, somewhere, but this should give you enough for now. I'd look up more, but I'm busy playing Banuketsu Dodgeball Fighters on my GBA.

Ian Wilson

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