Finally, people are putting their hatreds aside and striving for peace between Japan and the West.

After looking over the entire site I still have no idea how this game is played. Though the Play Manual page indicates that you “Unite Prefectures to win!!” There many Japan themed games with this goal, but most of them have the word “samurai” or “shogun” in the title, and the playing pieces aren’t little peace signs.

I am surprised at the honesty of the customer reviews they posted:

“Too many questions on TV personalities for my liking, (but my Japanese friends and students loved ‘em for some reason) otherwise you did good. I hate that rock paper-scissors stuff so my advice is drop that and answer a question instead – then you can fill that 50 minute slot!”

Japan, the Game: you’ll love it for some reason! (except for rock-paper-scissors, which you will hate.)

Well. I ordered this game and just received it. The game isn’t the highest quality of the games I own, but the components are very nice indeed. The question cards show a lot of thought went into them, and the player tokens are nice as are the beautiful colored photo prefecture cards.

Keep in mind this was invented by someone who runs an English school in Japan. In other words, I think part of his idea was to create a game that Japan nationals could play with non-nationals. ALL of the question cards, board, and rules are completely bilingual, so if a Japanese player can’t read the English question he can read the Japanese one instead!

Caveat: I haven’t played the game yet but I have read the rules.

I REALLY like the idea of a game with Q+A about Japan like this, and I like that it’s bilingual. The components are very nice, the Q+As and prefectural “show and tell” during the first phase of the game look fun! My major problem with this game is that the creator doesn’t seem to care about what most boardgamers feel is essential to a good game: Clear winning and losing conditions. My explanation follows.

There are two phases of the game. 1)Q+A 2)”Betting”.

1) The Q+A section is the major part of the game. After correctly answering a question about Japan, the player rolls a six-sided die and gets to collect 1-6 “prefecture cards” (there are 47 cards total – one for each prefecture). Once all the prefecture cards are in players’ hands this phase ends and the next phase begins. The gameplay during the Q+A section of the game looks fun!

2) “Betting” Each player now tries to get 15 points by collecting sets of prefecture cards that make up one of the eight regions (Kyushu, Shikoku, Kinki, Chubu, etc.). Each complete region is worth a point value equal to the number of prefectures in it. (Hokkaido = 1, Kyushu = 8, etc.) The first player to collect enough complete regions to get 15 points wins.

How do you get complete prefectures? You play rock/paper/scissors with other players. If you win, they trade an equal number of cards with you of different regions (for example -2 Kinki cards for 2 Kyushu cards) You can continue making these “bets” until you lose one, then its the next players turn.

This means that if you play a three person games that the whole game will be won over several hands of rock/paper/scissors. However, anyone who can do simple math can realize that with 47 prefecture cards, it’ll be next to impossible for ANYONE to get 15 points if you have 4 players or more. (6 player tokens in the box).

It really seems like the designer felt this game was a fun learning experience and since “peace education” is his goal, who cares if it yields a satisfactory “game experience”. I’d have no objection to a cooperative end condition where everyone wins or loses, but the designer’s seeming lack of interest in ‘gaming’ is sad. The questions and the prefecture cards were obviously made well and with a lot of care. Sigh. There just doesn’t seem to be a complete game here. None the less, it IS a great educational tool, and it WILL come in handy in the classroom, just can’t imagine anyone wanting to play it outside a classroom I’m afraid.

Chuck Waterman