Rating: 4.8/5
Sakigake!! Otokojuku - The Dodgeball is a Japan-only 2D dodgeball game made by Bandai and D3 Publisher in 2002, part of the Simple Character 2000 series of licensed budget games. It plays much like a partially simplified version of Super Dodgeball for the Neo Geo, with exception of being able to pick separate characters for your 4 man team and the ability to use melee attacks as well as throwing the steel ball at your opponents. The game is based off of the martial arts comedy series Sakigake!! Otokojuku which had a manga in 1985, an anime in 1988 as well as both an animated and live-action movie. The entire series and its spinoffs revolve around Otokojuku, a male private school notorious for it's harsh methods of education and violent competitions against rival schools often in the form of deathmatches or extreme variations of sports such as boxing and rugby. There is an arcade/story mode and a VS COM or 2P mode, and there are 18 characters from the series from which you can build your team of four, half of which have to be unlocked.
You also need an emulator to run this game. To grab one quickly, please check out our PSX emulators section.