Golf game covers with anime girls on them

When you start a new blog, you're naturally confronted with the difficult issue of what your first entry should be about. You want something that will attract eyes, and considering the places I've been announcing the existence of this blog, there could only one possible topic: golf games. Not just any golf games, though: anime golf games! With anime ladies! Golf is quite popular in Japan, and ladies are of course popular everywhere, which means there's a fair few to look at, so let's get cracking!

Golf: Kiyapi Kiyapi Run (PC-88, 1990)

 

We start out with this pink-haired specimen, who I would describe as looking vaguely like a Rumiko Takahashi character if not for the fact that her left eye appears to be making a Picasso-inspired break for her ear. Also of note (and also pink) is the salmon-y skirt she has on, hiked all the way up to her sternum as she lines up her putt. Speaking of Rumiko Takahashi, you know what they never made a martial arts version of in Ranma 1/2? Golf! Seems like a missed opportunity to me, we could have seen Ranma smack Happosai into low Earth orbit with a 3 iron.

Battle Golfer Yui (Genesis/MegaDrive, 1991)

 

Next up is Battle Golfer Yui, a 1991 Genesis/MegaDrive offering that apparently combines golf with adventure game elements, which is presumably why the box features the shadowy visage of Sherlock Holmes at the bottom there. The Osamu Tezuka-esque girl in a miniskirt holding a golf club is fairly run-of-the-mill anime imagery and needs no further explanation (although her impressive shoulderpads and aerodynamic hairstyle do merit mention), but I admit to being puzzled by the sinister old man with an unusually-shaped head lurking in the background. Old men of more or less sinister aspect are probably not uncommon on golf courses, but who exactly is he? Further investigation revealed him to be one Professor G, who hopes to lead his organization "Dark Hazard" to world domination using the power of golf, and it's your job to take control of a high school golf prodigy, the titular Yui Mizuhara (or "Black Fire", to use her "cord name"), and stop him by defeating his cybernetically-enhanced golf minions.

Now, far be it from me to question the plans of a man with that caliber of mustache, but if you asked me to come up with a list of world domination methods, golf would not figure in any of the top fifty (#1, for the record, would be "trained attack pigeons", which is why my installation as dictator-for-life-of-Earth is on indefinite hold). Considering we don't live under a global hegemony of fiefdoms ruled by PGA Tour pros under the overarching reign of Tiger Woods, I'm going to assess the world-conquering capacity of golf as "limited". Maybe Professor G himself realizes this, as instead of holding golf equipment like Yui he's shown playing the flute, which as far as I'm aware is not part of a typical round of golf. Unfortunately for him, as tools for imposing your will on your fellow man woodwind instruments are even less effective than golf clubs.

Watashi o Golf ni Tsuretette (PC-98, 1991)

 

It's a good thing this one has "golf" right there in the title (which translates to something along the lines of "take me out to golf"), because aside from a few golf balls this cover art does precious little to communicate that this is nominally a game about, you know, golf. Much more prominently featured are the girls, which makes sense considering this is a visual novel, and more than that it's an eroge (that's Japanese for "erotic game"). Now, I'm not a person who thinks there's any shame in getting your sexual gratification from a video game if that's what you like, so you'll get no judgment from me on that front, but it does explain why golf itself is largely absent from this cover. In addition to being ill-suited to conquering the world, golf has remarkably little erotic charge.

Of course, the game itself might disagree with me on that front, since it features no less than 15 ladies to impress with your golfing skills. I don't really play many visual novels, so I can't speak from experience here, but I think that's significantly more than in your typical dating sim. On that evidence I retract my earlier statement about golf's lack of eroticism and in fact recommend putting as many pictures of you golfing on your dating profile as possible. They can replace the off-putting pictures of you posing with fish you've caught, nobody likes those.

The Golf: Bishoujo Classic (Famicom Disk System, 1990)

 

Another eroge, this time for the Japan-only Disk System add-on to the Famicom (that's the Nintendo Entertainment System to you and me). Porn on 8-bit consoles has always seemed rather pointless to me, but I suppose back then you had to make do with what you could get, and it's thanks to pioneers like this game that today we enjoy a bounty of 3D jiggle physics and HD panty shots. As you might guess, this game is not licensed by Nintendo, who didn't take kindly to that sort of thing back then, although decades later the Nintendo Switch would certainly host more than its fair share of hentai games. Anyway, play golf well enough and girls will take their clothes off, as one does. Personally, I don't appreciate their mad, staring eyes, which suggests a severe chemical imbalance in their brains that might explain why they're willing to take their clothes off for anyone who bests them at golf.

Go! Go! Birdie Chance (PC Engine CD, 1996)

 

Finally for today, we have another visual novel, but this one doesn't appear to be a dating sim or eroge outside of a few obligatory fanservice scenes. Instead of trying to impress these ladies with your golf skills, you're your chosen girl's high school golf coach guiding her on her journey to become the best golfer she can be and defeat the "Professional Golf Queen of Japan". That's right, it's a so-called "raising sim", like the Princess Maker and The Idolmaster series, or more topically, the Uma Musume Pretty Derby game that everyone's been obsessed with lately. 

As for the cover, you can tell just by looking at them that the girl on the left is a power-centered tomboy, the girl on the right is a refined putting master, and the girl in the center is a cheerful all-rounder, and so it proves to be. These differences affect how fast each girl levels up her various stats when you make her train. During a round, you select the clubs and shots, but execution is all up to her based on her stats. I have to say, I don't think much of this rather authoritarian approach, which doesn't give her the experience in golf strategy she'll need for independent success on the LPGA of Japan Tour. But if even that gives her too much autonomy for your liking, you can always play another mode where it's just ordinary video game golf and you make the shots yourself while pondering the psychological origins of your control freak tendencies.

 

That's all for today! If you have any thoughts on these games or their covers, feel free to sound off in the comments. If this is the bait I'm hoping it is, I know a certain someone is probably already typing up his detailed opinions on all of these games, and God bless him for it.

(All images were taken from the LaunchBox Games Database.)