The Nippon Budokan is a sports hall in Chiyoda, Tokyo, built in 1964 to host the martial arts events of the Summer Olympics. Since then, it has been used not only for competitions but also for concerts – The Beatles, ABBA, Depeche Mode, Bon Jovi, Prince and The Rolling Stones have all performed there.
Development of the game of the same name began in the early summer of 1988 and was driven by three people in particular: Michael Kosaka, Ray Tobey and Rick Tiberi – three gaming veterans who not only had hits like Skyfox (1984) and Skate or Die! (1987) to their credit, but also had personal martial arts experience. “Michael Kosaka was very experienced in aikido. I think he taught in his spare time. I had learned some karate as a young kid,” Ray tells us. “One day, we all went to a martial arts supply store. We had a fun time checking everything out, and I bought some shuriken and a pair of sai.”
According to Ray’s recollection, took about a year and a half to develop, and was anything but a
