Doraemon

     Doraemon (Japanese: ドラえもん Hepburn: Doraemon) is a Japanese manga series created by Fujiko F. Fujio which later became an anime series and an Asian franchise. The series is about an intelligent robotic cat named Doraemon, who travels back in time from the 22nd century to aid a pre-teen boy, Nobita Nobi (野比 のび太 Nobi Nobita).

            The series first appeared in December 1969, when it was published simultaneously in six different magazines. In total, 1,344 stories were created in the original series, which are published by Shogakukan under the Tentōmushi (てんとう虫^?) manga brand, extending to forty-five volumes. The volumes are collected in the Takaoka Central Library in Toyama, Japan, where Fujiko Fujio were born. American media mogul Ted Turner bought the rights to the Doraemon anime series in the mid-1980s for an English-language release, but canceled it without explanation before any episodes were aired. However, Doraemon: Nobita's Dinosaur 2006 (the 26th film in the franchise) got a private screening in Washington, D.C. in November 2008.

        A majority of Doraemon episodes are comedies with lessons regarding     values such as honesty, perseverance, courage, family and respect for elders. Various environmental issues are often visited, including homeless animals, global warming, endangered species, deforestation, andpollution. Miscellaneous educational topics such as dinosaurs, the flat Earth theory, wormhole traveling, Gulliver's Travels, and the history of Japanare often covered.

           Doraemon was awarded the Japan Cartoonists Association Award for excellence in 1973. Doraemon was awarded the first Shogakukan Manga Award for children's manga in 1982, and the first Osamu Tezuka Culture Award in 1997. In March 2008, Japan's Foreign Ministry appointed Doraemon as the nation's first "anime ambassador." Ministry spokesman explained the novel decision as an attempt to help people in other countries to understand Japanese anime better and to deepen their interest in Japanese culture." The Foreign Ministry action confirms that Doraemon has come to be considered a Japanese cultural icon. In 2002, the anime character was acclaimed as an Asian Hero in a special feature survey conducted by Time Asia magazine.

Megaman

          Mega Man, known as Rockman (ロックマン Rokkuman) in Japan, is a video game franchise from Capcom, starring the robot character Mega Man, or one of his many counterparts. Mega Man, released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1987, began a series of over 50 games on multiple systems. As of December 31, 2010, the series has sold approximately twenty-nine million copies worldwide, making it Capcom's most prolific franchise.

Overview

             The classic Mega Man series consists of ten main titles including the original game, as well as all Game Boy and PC titles featuring the original design of Mega Man. The classic series is considered to be the origin of the story, with Mega Man being the first installment, and continuing with ten direct sequels. Chronologically after Mega Man 8 comes Mega Man & Bass, followed by Mega Man 9 and Mega Man 10.

Although the classic series has yet to reach an ending, the storyline shifts to the Mega Man X series, followed by the Mega Man Zero series, Mega Man ZX and Mega Man Legends. Although it is confirmed that the Legends series takes place sometime in the distant future after the ZX series, there is an uncertain amount of time as to when it actually takes place. All series follow one continuous timeline except for Mega Man Battle Network and Mega Man Star Force which exist in an alternate universe (one in which network-technology flourished instead of robotics technology), with Star Forceoccurring two centuries after the Battle Network series.^[2]

The official source book Rockman Perfect Memories outlines the Classic, X, and Legends series and makes mention of the Battle Network and Zeroseries (which were fairly new at the time of the book's publication). While the ZX and Star Force series were not yet conceived when the source book was published, Capcom is explicit within the games themselves regarding their placement in the timeline(s).

Pokemon

            The history of the Pokémon media franchise spans over two decades from when work began officially on the first game to now, and has roots even older. It started simply enough as a hobby of Satoshi Tajiri, who as a child had a fondness for catching insects andtadpoles near his home in suburban Tokyo. Over time, Tajiri decided to put his idea of catching creatures into practice, to give children the same thrills he had as a child.

             With the help of Ken Sugimori and other friends, Tajiri formed Game Freak and much later the design studio known asCreatures. When Tajiri discovered the Game Boy and the Game Boy Link Cable, it gave him the image of insects traveling along the wire, which led to the concept for a new game called Capsule Monsters. After several failed attempts at pitching this idea toNintendo, Tajiri's new friend Shigeru Miyamoto pitched it to the company, and Nintendo began to fund the project, spending six years developing the games that would become a worldwide sensation. Due to trademarking issues, the name "Capsule Monsters" was changed to "Pocket Monsters".

The original artwork for the games was drawn by Tajiri's friend, artist Ken Sugimori, while the music and sound effects were composed by Junichi Masuda.

          After debugging was completed, Shigeki Morimoto programmed Mew into the game. However, Game Freak planned to keep the 151st Pokémon hidden from the public unless it was needed for a post-launch event.

The project nearly drove Game Freak to bankruptcy. Five employees quit due to the financial conditions, and Tajiri worked many unpaid hours. 

Sonic

           The Sonic the Hedgehog series is a franchise of video games released by Sega starring their mascot character,Sonic the Hedgehog. The series began in 1991 with the release of Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis. An 8-bit version of the game was also released for the Master System and Game Gear formats. Sonic was responsible for turning Sega into a leading video game company early in the 16-bit era, and his first game soon replaced Altered Beast as the default pack-in game for the Genesis in North America and Europe.^[1]

As of 2012, the franchise had sold more than 116 million units, making the series the 5th best-selling video game franchise of all time.

Games in the series are developed by Sonic Team, with the exception of some spin-offs that were independently developed by Sega of America. The main programmer for the first game was Yuji Naka, who would later become head of the Sonic Team division, and the game planner wasHirokazu Yasuhara but stopped producing games for the franchise. The music of the first two Sonic the Hedgehoggames on the Mega Drive/Genesis were composed by Masato Nakamura of the Japanese band Dreams Come True.

Yuji Naka, Hirokazu Yasuhara and Naoto Oshima stopped producing games for Sonic. Yuji Naka became the head of his own franchise, Prope and Yasuhara moved to Namco a gaming company. As of current, Takashi Iizuka is the head of Sonic Team and has been involved in several current Sonic games. Most of his involvement was/is in Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations, he took very little involvement in the Storybook series. Currently, most of the music is done by SEGA Sound Team or Crush 40.

Mario Bros

          Mario Bros is an arcade game published and developed by Nintendo in 1983. It was developed byShigeru Miyamoto. It has been commonly featured as a minigame in the Super Mario Advance series and other games. Mario Bros. has been re-released for the Wii's Virtual Console service in Japan, North America, Europe and Australia.

          In this game, Mario is portrayed as an Italian-American plumber who, along with his brother Luigi, has to defeat creatures that have been coming from the sewers below New York. The gameplay focuses on Mario's extermination of pests in the sewers by flipping them on their backs and kicking them away. The original versions of Mario Bros., the arcade version and the Nintendo Famicom/Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) version, were received positively.

Gameplay

             Mario Bros. features two plumbers, Mario and Luigi, having to investigate the sewers of New York after strange creatures have been appearing down there. The objective of the game is to defeat all of the enemies in each phase. The mechanics of Mario Bros. involve only running and jumping. Unlike future Mario games, players cannot jump on enemies and squash them, unless they were already turned on their back. Each phase is a series of platforms with four pipes at each corner of the screen (in the old version along with an object called a "POW" block in the center). Both sides of every phase feature a mechanism that allows the player to go off-screen to the left and appear on the right and vice versa.

            The player gains points by defeating multiple enemies consecutively and can participate in a bonus round to gain more points. Enemies are defeated by kicking them over once they have been flipped on their back. This is accomplished by hitting the platform the enemy is on directly beneath them. If the player allows too much time to pass after doing this, the enemy will flip itself back over, changing in color and increasing speed. Each phase has a certain number of enemies, with the final enemy immediately changing color and increasing its speed to maximum. There are three enemies in all: the Shellcreeper, which simply walks around; the Sidestepper, which requires two hits to flip over; and the Fighter Fly, which moves by jumping and can only be flipped when it is touching a platform. Players may also make use of the above-mentioned "POW" block, which flips any enemy touching a platform or the floor when a player hits it from below. This item can be used three times before it disappears. Coins appear whenever enemies are defeated and may be collected for bonus points.

As the game progresses, elements are added to increase the difficulty. Fireballs either bounce around the screen or travel directly from one side to the other, and Slipices can freeze platforms, causing Mario and Luigi to skid. In addition, icicles start to form under the platforms and fall loose. Bonus rounds give the players a chance to score extra points by collecting coins without having to deal with enemies; the "POW" block regenerates itself on each of these screens.