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

By 8-4 on 17 January 2012.