Белабоман: Комический герой с телескопическими конечностями

1988 video game

Chōzetsurin Jin Bravoman (超絶倫人ベラボーマン, Chōzetsurin Jin: Berabōman) is a 1988 beat'em up arcade video game developed and published in Japan by Namco. Described as a "comical action game", the player controls the titular character, a bionic superhero with telescopic limbs, as he must defeat the villainous Dr. Bomb ("Dr. Bakuda" in Japan) before he takes over the world. Bravoman can use his arms, legs and head to defeat enemies, and can also crouch and jump over them. The game ran on the Namco System 1 arcade board. Conceived by Namco composer Norio Nakagata, Bravoman is a homage to 1930s tokusatsu films, parodying common tropes found in the genre, and Nakagata's love for synthesizer music. Many former staff members from Toei Animation were hired for the project, leading to the game's distinct art style influenced by anime. Bravoman's real identity, known as Hitoshi Nakamura, is a caricature of Namco's then president Masaya Nakamura, who the game was dedicated to. It is Namco's only video game to use pressure sensitive buttons, which were reportedly easy to break. It was ported to a handful of systems, including the TurboGrafx 16, Japanese mobile phones, and the Wii Virtual Console. In Japan, Bravoman was widely successful, receiving high praise for its gameplay and humor. It received much more negative coverage from western publications, who disliked its mechanics, difficulty, and inferiority to other games in the genre. The game spawned a shooter spin off, Pistol Daimyo no Boken, in 1990. Bravoman has since gained notoriety from its revival through the now defunct ShiftyLook division of Namco Bandai Games, who produced a webcomic and animated series based on the game. ShiftyLook also produced an endless runner based on the comic, Bravoman: Binja Bash!, for cellular devices. A true sequel was in production towards the end of the 1980s, but was cancelled when the developers grew concerned that its concept would not work as a game.

In Bravoman, the player controls the titular character, a bionic superhero who possesses telescopic limbs, in his mission to stop the evil scientist Dr. Bomb from taking over the world. Bravoman can punch, kick, and headbutt enemies to defeat them; the game uses pressure sensitive buttons, where the harder the button is pressed, the stronger the player's attack is.

The storyline in Bravoman is told through the game's attract mode sequence, alongside various pieces of promotional material. He had previously directed the arcade game Genpei Tōma Den (1986), a hack and slash platform title that is claimed to be an early precursor to Bravoman. His goal for the project was to create an arcade game based on things he personally enjoyed, such as synthesizer music and films from the 1930s. running on the Namco System 1 arcade hardware. It was ported to the TurboGrafx 16 in October 1990, Bravoman was ported to Japanese mobile phones on October 28, 2010 for the EZweb, i Mode and S! Appli network services, featuring new stages and remastered visuals and audio. Bravoman later joined the Hamster Corporation's Arcade Archives series on the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch on June 8, 2023.

As part of Bandai Namco's ShiftyLook initiative to revive older properties, a new Bravoman webcomic was created in collaboration with Udon Entertainment, titled Bravoman: Super Unequaled Hero of Excellence. Written by Matt Moylan and illustrated by Dax Gordine, the strip premiered on March 9, 2012, and focused on comedic elements such as Bravoman's poor control of his powers, Alpha Man's lackluster attempts to teach Bravoman, Dr. Bomb's misuse of Engrish, and various examples of metahumor. The comic also introduced two new characters that never appeared in the original Bravoman game: Bravowoman, a no nonsense female superhero, and Braveman, a self obsessed television actor based on the North American box art for the TurboGrafx 16 version of Bravoman. The series concluded with its 300th strip on March 16, 2014, shortly after the announcement of ShiftyLook's closure. The comic is no longer available for viewing, though its first 130 strips received a published book by Udon. An animated adaptation of the comic by Copernicus Studios premiered via ShiftyLook's YouTube channel on May 20, 2013, and ran for twelve episodes, concluding on February 12, 2014. The series was written by Moylan and Jim Zub, and featured the voices of Rob Paulsen as Bravoman and Alpha Man; Dee Bradley Baker as Dr. Bomb and Black Bravo, renamed Anti Bravoman as in the comic; Romi Dames as Waya Hime; and Jennifer Hale as Bravowoman. The web series was later removed from YouTube along with ShiftyLook's channel, and is currently legally unavailable for viewing. Bravoman: Binja Bash!, an endless runner based on the comic, was released for iOS and Android devices on August 30, 2013. The game has since been delisted and is no longer available.