Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad

Blood

While there is no option to tone down the game's violence and gore, there is an option available to change the color of blood from red to pink or white.

DLC

The downloadable outfits are for Aya, Saki and Annna. The outfit for Aya is a similar bikini without feathers and with colorful braces on her forearms; the second is a Spanish inspired bolero-outfit with a tight white blouse showing substantial cleavage, a cowboy hat worn on a string around her neck as well as bolero pants with netting stitched up the side of each leg. Saki has two more schoolgirl outfits, one primarily blue and one bright and plaid; she is a blonde in this case. Annna has a camouflage bikini top and camouflage jeans as well as a Matrix-inspired outfit that has skin tight PVC black chemise top and black pants and sunglasses, similar to the character Trinity; also, Annna is wearing a tiara with this uniform.

Dress Up Mode

Oneechanbara vorteX's dress up mode is literally just that: unlike other games where you must work to unlock sexier clothes for your protagonist to wear (e.g. Resident Evil 5: Sheva Alomar's unlockable outfits), this game's dress up mode has your characters start in their underwear to have you unlock shirts and skirts to put on them. Only when all clothes are unlocked do the characters at last look "presentable".

This same approach can be seen in the downloadable content available for this game whereupon each outfit for each hero covers up previously exposed skin from the original costume.

Loading screen

The game's loading screen features an animated depiction of the game's heroine Aya, right down to her cowboy hat and bikini, as an 16-bit 2-D platform. While loading players can control Aya to move left or right and slash zombies as they appear.

Milestone

Oneechanbara vorteX is the first "A" tier game made of the OneeChanBara franchise as well as the first next-gen offering. The previous four games, all released for the PS2, were budget tier games as part of the "Simple 2000" series.

Movie

The popularity of the Oneechanbara proved to be so great in Japan that it spawned a live action motion picture, OneeChanBara: The Movie (2008), starring celebrity actresses and idols Eri Otoguro, Chise Nakamura and Manami Hashimoto. It was released in Japan and screened at the New York Asian Film Festival.

While the movie, also known as Chanbara Beauty, takes some liberties with the game, such as introducing new characters who aren't female nor scantily dressed, it is canonically perfect in its depiction of the three female heroes (Aya, Saki and Reiko) in their respective outfits (a bikini, cowboy hat, boa and boots; a schoolgirl's uniform and a leather motorcycle jumpsuit).

Nudity

For a Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad review with Playboy, publisher D3Publisher released exclusive images of the heroine Aya topless to be published with the review. This is a similar piece of publicity used earlier by Playboy with the titular character from BloodRayne 2.

While Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad features female characters in various states of undress (down to their underwear), there is no nudity of any form (i.e. unlike Afro Samurai, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, God of War).

Promo videos

To promote the release of Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad, publisher D3Publisher had videos made and released for viral consumption on the internet.

One of these shorts, called Wed and Dead, is a take on the sitcom format using zombies. The video begins with a zombie wife coming home to her house adorned with paintings of Onechanbara heroine Aya's bust and hips to find her zombie husband in bed with three scantily dressed young Asian women. When discovered, the zombie husband declares, "It's not what you think!" and immediately begins to pretend gnawing on the arm of one of his bedmates. The zombie wife makes a knowing face and says, "And you left the toilet seat up!" to the accompaniment of a laugh track. The downloadable characters for Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad are previously non-playable characters Reiko, Misery and Himiko. All have the same outfits as in the game.