J-Stars Victory VS

Today, Namco Bandai have announced that two more characters will be added to the roster for their upcoming Weekly Shounen Jump Fighting game, J-Stars Victory VS. Sakata Gintoki from Gintama and Kankichi Ryotsu from Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Kouen Mae Hashutsujo — or Kochikame for short — will be playable characters in the game.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with these characters or their respective series, they are both comedy manga series that have been in Jump’s magazine for a while now. Kochikame is actually the longest running manga series starting in 1976 and is still going strong today. Gintama takes place in an alternate universe where aliens have taken over Edo. Throughout the series, characters make references to many aspects of Japanese culture such as anime or movies, going as far as having characters cosplay, or attempting to perform moves from other series such as Dragon Ball Z or Bleach. Gintama actually had an episode dedicated to celebrating the 30th anniversary of Kochikame, where a virus was being spread throughout Edo that was making everyone grow uni-brows similar to Ryo-san(see below).

Here is what both characters look like in the game (Ryotsu on the left and Gintoki on the Right):

J-Stars Victory VS

Aside from the announcement of these two characters, it was also announced that J-Stars Victory VS will be a two-on-two fighting game. If one of your characters gets knocked out, you will have to fight two-on-one until your other character eventually comes back. You need to knockout your opponents three times to win the match.

J-Stars Victory VS is in development for both the PlayStation 3 and the PlayStation Vita. So far, no release date has been announced. Now that we have two more awesome characters to add to the roster, who do you think they will add next? Perhaps someone from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, Saint Seiya, Reborn!, or YuYu Hakusho?

SOURCES: 1, 2

Justin Guillou
Justin joined Operation Rainfall to share his passion and knowledge for some of the more obscure video games out there.