curiousities - Tsubame the Ninja

apologies for the delay on this. been a busy bloke this while, but at least i've been meaning to get something substantial on here.

okay, bit of background history first, since the company behind this is kind of a niche thing.

Nippon Ichi Software is a Japan-based game company known for developing and publishing strategy RPGs, most notably the Disgaea series. while they didn't revolutionize the strategy RPG scene and were rather unknown during the early and middle periods of the PS2 (arguably their most well-known era), NIS did put some interesting spins in their SRPG titles, both in gameplay and worldbuilding. i can't think of another game where i can be a lv9999 13-year-old demon overlord with an army of exploding penguins and spend more of my time in the randomized dungeon in my sword than progressing through the story.

erm, it makes more sense if i explain the context, but that's not the point right now.

despite being a Japan-based company, NIS does have a branch in the US, known as NIS America. as you'd guess, NIS America handles the localization and overseas publishing of NIS's titles, as well as non-NIS games like Dangan Ronpa and Hyperdimension Neptunia. the less i say about the latter series, the better.

some years ago, NIS America also handled the publishing of various anime in US like Toradora and Anohana, as well as... children's books?

soooo... seems i've got a bit of explaining to do.

back in the days when NIS's online Rosenqueen store was still a thing, sometime in 2009 NIS America announced plans to translate and publish japanese children's books under a new publisher label called Prinny Books, named after the well-known demonic exploding penguins from the Disgaea series. their first project was Tsubame the Ninja (Ninja Tsubamemaru in Japan); other books like My Flying House and Mayu and the Dragon would've soon followed, but as far as i know, Tsubame the Ninja was the only book that got released before the Prinny Books name faded away with the Rosenqueen store.

so how did i come across this curiousity of the past?

well, by chance, mostly. a while back i stopped by the downtown library just to poke through and see if there was anything there i could check out. for the longest time i thought the Disgaea 2 manga were the only NIS-related things at this library.

well, i don't know if this would count as necessarily a NIS thing, but it's published by NIS America, so i guess it sorta counts.

publishing info. just in case you thought i was joking.

considering it's kind of a rare thing, i decided to take some snapshots with my PSVita camera just to show you all. now, let's dive into the magical world of ninjas and the evils of camera glare.

our tale takes place in Japan. home of ninjas. and cozy suburban places that are apparently home to ninjas.

second page (or first if you don't count the title), and we have our titular character Tsubame and his pet sparrow Hayate. he whispers a code at his house door. why is that?

because his family (gasp) are ninjas! gee, i wouldn't have expected any less from a book titled Tsubame the Ninja.

no, seriously, the book even says it outright.

don't worry, your secret's safe with me, Tsubame.

i'm gonna assume ninja families are pretty much the same as normal families during the day; at nighttime, "Ninja Time" begins, which is ninja training time. first up, target practice with ninja stars (or "shuriken" if you want to be correct/pretentious).

with a dad that casual-clothed, i'm curious to know how he and Tsubame's mom got hitched.

next up in training is the "fox sprint", "where you run in a straight line on your tippy toes [and follow] the foot steps of the person in front of you to leave only one set of prints]." considering you're supposed to follow the foot steps i guess it'd help if you didn't touch the prints. with your hands, i mean.

then again i'm not even sure if this was one of the things actual ninjas did, considering quite a bit of the more fantastical stuff ninjas in popular culture is more based on legend than historical record.

i'm probably being a pedant. i don't know.

next up is hide and seek, which i guess ninjas are incredibly good at because aside from Tsubame, i can't find a single ninja in this picture.

i wasn't aware there were tv shows for ninjas.

or magazines for them, for that matter.

the last training session for the day is "Jiori", which is the art of using your ninja jacket to glide down from a building. which i'm fairly sure is complete bollocks considering jackets aren't the same as parachutes. than again, i'm not a ninja, so what do i know?

considering how nervous Tsubame is about it, i'm sure he shares the same opinion. okay, it's actually because he's afraid of heights, but eh.

i think i should also mention that i think at around this point, my PSVita camera just spit in my face, because it was really hard to get glareless shots of the darker-colored pages.

while Tsubame's jiori sessions don't go out so well the following nights (and i'm wondering why he didn't get hurt during any of those nights), that doesn't stop him and his family from going out during a full moon to have some ninja fun.

ninjas from all over Japan gather at an arena built into the crater of Mt. Fuji, where they must band together to defeat the EVIL CAMERA GLARE

okay, it's actually for an event called the Ninja Olympics, which is probably a lot more exciting than the Olympics in other countries.

the page also makes mention of ninjaesque things such as "suiton" (bamboo snorkel), "bunshin" (mirror images), and "mekuramashi" (blinding flash). honestly not sure if any of these things were things real ninjas did.

the main event of the olympics is a ninja obstacle course. Tsubame, his rival Gama (the kid in the frog suit), and other ninja kids are all lined up at the starting line.

and we've got some pretty funkily-dressed ninjas watching in the crowd as well. liking those cat mask ninjas in particular.

"On your marks, ready, set... Nin nin!"

the first event is the "upside down sprint". i'm just going to sit here wondering if this is even physically possible.

actual cat ninja in the crowd

ah yes, the mizugumo sandals. not so much "harder to use than they look" as much as they are "unfit for even walking on water", according to the blokes at Mythbusters. great show if you haven't seen it.

okay gama that is bullshit and you well know it.

robot ninja what

is makibishi just another word for caltrops or something? because those are definitely caltrops. ninjas are masters of dodging lawsuits, it seems.

the final course is, of course, jiori gliding, the protagonist's ironic least favorite thing.

though, (un)luckily for Tsubame, a flight of swallows gives him the boost he needs to make the jump off the mountain. well, i'm pleasantly surprised. i doubt this could go wrong.

well, now i'm disappointed.

well, while Tsubame didn't win the olympics, his sparrow-driven flight became well known among the ninjas. even Gama admits it was pretty impressive.

as the sun rises, everyone changes into their daytime clothes and heads off to their homes. all's well that ends well in these tales.

so that marks the end of the tale of Tsubame the Ninja.

honestly, maybe it's because i'm a sucker for children's literature (picture books, especially), but it's pretty decent for what it is. hard to rag on something intended for young kids, especially considering i'm way well past the age group for these kinds of books.

Tsubame is definitely a fun little tale with some adorable illustrations throughout the book. the narration is tailored like a children's book should be, though some of the words for some techniques ("suiton" and "jiori" for example) are kept as-is with rough translations in parentheses, so it might be a bit confusing for young readers. the translation job is pretty good, otherwise.

for parents, it's a fun little read from overseas to share with their kids. for NIS fans, it's a curious piece of their localization history. it's a bit of a shame we didn't seem to get any other of their planned localizations overseas, but ah well. anyone interested in the book can pick it up for pretty cheap on Amazon.

on the subject of NIS stuff, expect quite a bit of their stuff to pop up on here at some point in the future. i'm planning on touching upon the Disgaea and Disgaea 3 mangas sometime. and possibly the Disgaea 2 manga as well, though Hekaton's art style is incredibly hard to look at.

until next time, i'm just going to sit here whining about how angry i am about Disgaea 4 Return and why NISA still hasn't bothered localizing Makai Kingdom Portable.