Happy New Year aaaaaand welcome to the latest installment of our annual “nengajou” round-up from around the Japanese gaming industry! (See also: 2012 and 2011)

What you say?! No idea what a nengajou is? Click here and all will be illuminated. (Short answer: Japanese version of a Christmas card, themed around the new year’s Chinese zodiac animal. This year: The Snake. …Snake?! SNAAAAAAKE!!!)

Super-special thanks to super-talented artisté Kelly Smith and her super-cool co-workers at Capy Games for the super-awesome custom-built Super TIME Force-flavored image. (Look closely and you might even spot a member or five of your favorite podcast ever lurking someplace in the background…)

The only question is, who has the second-best card this year? Let us know your faves in the comments, and/or click on the name beneath each card to tweet them directly!

8-4, Ltd.

Vanpool (A)	Vanpool (B)	Score Studios	Tango Gameworks

Climax Entertainment	cutecool	Kyos	Land Ho!

Access Games	Basiscape	BrainStorm	Capcom

Level-5	Namco Bandai Games	Namco Bandai Games	Prope

CyberConnect2	Cygames	Dog Ear Records	Flarewave

Ubisoft	Unity	Valhalla Game Studios	Creatures

Yumiko Miyabe	Gabe Glick	Taito

Epic Games	Vanillaware

Falcom	Famitsu

Grasshopper Manufacture	Inti Creates

NanaOn-Sha	Procyon Studio

Q? Entertainment	Q-Games

Sega	Square Enix

Edit Mode	Game Freak

Crispy’s

Platinum Games	Sony Computer Entertainment

ILCA

 

You may remember our big New Years card post from last year (*ahem*) where we posted a bunch of “nengajou,” or New Years cards (see explanation below), from various Japanese gaming companies. Well now it’s 2012, which means we’ve got a whole new batch of cards for you to peruse!

If you’re absolutely clueless as to what this whole nengajou business is all about, here’s the background spiel we gave last year:

Each year on the first day of January, these post cards (or nengajō” 年賀状 in Japanese) are sent to friends, acquaintances, and business partners as a way of expressing gratitude and keeping in touch going into the new year, much like Christmas and holiday cards are in the West. One side of a nengajō has a picture or artwork, usually containing the Chinese Zodiac animal of the upcoming year (the dragon, in the case of 2012), and a short message celebrating the previous year and commemorating the coming of the next. The other side is just for the address and name of the recipient. Below we have
our 8-4 nengajō for this year, as well as some of the cards we received from various companies and friends in the Japanese gaming industry for 2012 (or Heisei 24 平成24年 in the traditional Japanese year counting system). You dig?

Special thanks go out to Phil Fish of Polytron Corporation for designing our card this year. Also, be sure to let us know which card is your favorite down in the comments below. (We know, it’s ours.)

8-4, Ltd.

From Software	Tango Gameworks

Basiscape	Access Games	Creatures	Namco Bandai Games

Capcom	Land Ho!

Epic Games Japan	Level-5	tri-Ace	Q-Games

Grasshopper Manufacture	The King of Games

GREE	Falcom	Meteor	Koei Tecmo

Square Enix	Nude Maker

Inti Creates	Valhalla	Inis	Cave

Sega	Digital Sonic Design

Dog Ear Records	Climax Entertainment	Yoko Taro (director of Nier)	Gem Impact

Procyon Studio	Prope

Sony Computer Entertainment

Platinum Games

8-4, Ltd. is looking for a new Associate Project Manager to join our small team here at our Tokyo office. This would be a newly created position and start on a contract basis, most likely lasting anywhere from 3 to 6 months (the length of at least one major project), with the possibility of continuing after that based on how everything works out. Perks include free tissues and all the free water you can drink.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Communicating with clients, freelancers, and co-workers, keeping everyone informed of developments, as they become important
• Creating and adjusting schedules for individuals and projects as a whole
• Proofreading and editing text as necessary
• Doing whatever it takes to get the project done on time and at the highest possible level of quality

REQUIRED:

• A strong passion for and deep knowledge of video games
• Some Japanese language skills
• Extremely organized, but laid back and flexible enough to handle inevatable changes and problems
• Great verbal and written communication skills

PREFERRED:

• Experience working in localization, writing, or production of some kind within the gaming industry
• Microsoft Excel abilities such that this world has never witnessed
• You noticed the typo and unnecessary comma somewhere above in this job description
• Living in the Tokyo area with a valid working visa
• Fluent in Japanese

If you’re interested, send a short email saying something about yourself and/or why you’d be great for the job to info@8-4.jp, and attach your resume. We’ll contact qualified candidates via email, usually within 2 weeks of receiving their resume.

So! You might have heard us mention Japanese New Year’s cards on our award-winning 8-4 Play podcast. …OK, more specifically, you might have heard us promise to scan some and put them up on our website–and so we (finally) have!

First, a little background: each year on the first day of January, these post cards (or “nengajō” 年賀状 in Japanese) are sent to friends, acquaintances, and business partners as a way of expressing gratitude and keeping in touch going into the new year, much like Christmas and holiday cards are in the West. One side of a nengajō has a picture or artwork, usually containing the Chinese Zodiac animal of the upcoming year (the rabbit, in the case of 2011), and a short message celebrating the previous year and commemorating the coming of the next. The other side is just for the address and name of the recipient. Below we have our 8-4 nengajō for this year, as well as some of the cards we received from various companies and friends in the Japanese gaming industry for 2011 (or Heisei 23 平成23年 in the traditional Japanese year counting system). You dig?

Special thanks to the amazing SuperBrothers for designing our card this year–why not leave a comment to let him, and us, know what you think (i.e. how awesome, on a scale of 1 to 10)?

8-4, Ltd.

Microsoft	Prope	XSEED Games

Nudemaker	Platinum Games	Procyon Studio

SNK Playmore	Square Enix	Tango Gameworks

Vanpool	NanaOn-Sha	Sega (Sonic)

Sony Computer Entertainment	Vanillaware

Yumiko Miyabe	Sega (Yakuza)	SuperDeluxe	Supuroke (bar 16SHOTS)

Access Games	Bandai Namco Games	Basiscape	Climax Entertainment

Dog Ear Records	Grasshopper Manufacture	Inti Creates	Kyos

AQ Interactive	GEM Impact	Level-5	Creatures

Sarugakucho	Q-Games