How Popular is Bo Jackson in Japan?

As the most overpowered video game character of all time, you might think that Bo Jackson, the purest distillation of the running back, would have a huge following in Japan, the homeland of video games. Sadly, a recent interview with Tecmo Super Bowl's director, Shinichiro Tomie, revealed that this is not the case.

“Unfortunately, he is not well known in Japan. But he is always someone of high popularity to me!” Tomie said. “When I first saw him play on television, it was quite a big impact. This raised the question, ‘How do I represent that big impact through a game?’ Specifically, how could I show his uniqueness in the game? In the end, we struggled with how to calibrate his max speed. We wanted to show how “unstoppable” he was in the game.

Read more about Bo, the inception of Tecmo Bowl and Tecmo Super Bowl, how hard it is to find people in Japan, and more in the full feature—"The Fathers of Tecmo Super Bowl"—over at louraguse.com!