Nintendo Osomatsu-kun Game (おそ松くんゲーム, 1966)

I recently found the fifth of the Nintendo board games from 1966, based on popular television shows. It is called Osomatsu-kun Game (おそ松くんゲーム).

Osomatsu-kun is a famous manga series created in 1962 by Fujio Akatsuka (赤塚 不二夫). It is drawn in a very comical cartoon style.

In 1966, this manga was turned into an anime for television.

Nintendo board games - part 1 (任天堂のボードゲーム, 1966)

When Nintendo started expanding their product catalogue from cards to other games in the first half of the 1960s, they initially focussed primarily on traditional parlor games (like go, shogi, chess and checkers) and other board games.

Although Nintendo soon also started releasing all sorts of toys (including the Coaster Games, the Ultra Hand and the Ultra Machine), board games remained an important part of Nintendo's product offering until around the mid 1970s.

Nintendo UltraQ game (ca 1966)

In this period of about ten years, spanning from 1965 to 1975, Nintendo produced at least fifty different board games. Many of these featured licensed characters, in particular from the Disney Studios and the Japanese figures popular at the time.

Today we will start an exploration of all Nintendo's board games with five games based on Japanese manga/anime/tv series that were popular around 1966.