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.)
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8-4, Ltd.
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From Software
Tango Gameworks
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Basiscape
Access Games
Creatures
Namco Bandai Games
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Capcom
Land Ho!
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Epic Games Japan
Level-5
tri-Ace
Q-Games
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Grasshopper Manufacture
The King of Games
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GREE
Falcom
Meteor
Koei Tecmo
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Square Enix
Nude Maker
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Inti Creates
Valhalla
Inis
Cave
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Sega
Digital Sonic Design
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Dog Ear Records
Climax Entertainment
Yoko Taro (director of Nier)
Gem Impact
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Procyon Studio
Prope
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Sony Computer Entertainment
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Platinum Games
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By 8-4 on 17 January 2012.