# Tōkaidō Gojūsan-tsugi (video game)

Kanshaku tamanage Kantarō no Tōkaidō Gojūsan-tsugi (かんしゃく玉投げカン太郎の東海道五十三次, Firework Thrower Kantaro's 53 Stations of the Tōkaidō) is an action-adventure game developed and published by Sunsoft for the Famicom. The game was released in Japan on July 3, 1986 and has been re-released for several other platforms in video game compilations.
The first re-release was made on June 29, 2001 for the Microsoft Windows operating system as part of the Ultra 2000 Sunsoft Classic Games 2 compilation. The game was also coupled with Ikki, and its value version release, YuYu Sunsoft Kessaku-shu 2 (released on July 2, 2004), and Memorial Series Sunsoft Vol. 3 for the PlayStation (released on December 27, 2001) which also included The Wing of Madoola, another Sunsoft game. It was released for the Virtual Console only in Japan on October 14, 2008 for the Wii and on September 18, 2013 for the Nintendo 3DS. The game was released outside of Japan for the first time through SUNSOFT is Back! Retro Game Selection, under its translated name and including a new English localization.

## Synopsis

Kantaro (カン太郎), who has completed his training in the city of Kyoto and seeks to return to his fiancée, Momoko-chan (ももこちゃん), who lives in Edo, but the evil merchant Gonzaemon (剛左衛門) seeks to steal the secrets of fireworks manufacturing from Kantaro, and summons his cronies to harass him as he makes his way through the Tōkaidō route.

## Gameplay

The player controls Kantaro, who must pass through various side-scrolling levels while fending off enemies throwing firework grenades. Some enemies are unaffected by grenades, and can only be killed off by explosions from grenades planted on the ground; some are impervious to all of Kantaro's weapons and must be avoided. Various non-player characters attempt to hinder Kantaro's progress, including a prostitute and a ghost who decrease Kantaro's speed, a thief who steals all items held by Kantaro and a border patrol officer, but various items, including a kanzashi, an ofuda and a katana can allow the player to avoid conflict with these characters. Koban are collected throughout the levels and is generally used for creating bridges over rivers. A set amount must be paid to the border patrol officer if the passport item is not present, with secret passages to other levels costing more. An onigiri grants the player temporary invincibility and transforms Kantaro into a ball, allowing him to roll over enemies. A geta allows Kantaro to traverse on clouds.

## Levels

Each level of the game is named and modeled after the 53 Stations of the Tōkaidō; one of the Five Routes of Edo during the Tokugawa era. The following is a list of the levels and their corresponding location on the map (all names are written in hiragana in the game itself).
* Level 1: Sanjō Ōhashi (the location name does not appear game itself, but is the last station on the Tōkaidō road)
* Level 2: Kyoto―Kusatsu
* Level 3: Ishibe―Tsuchiyama
* Level 4: Sakashita―Seki
* Level 5: Kameyama―Shōno
* Level 6: Ishiyakushi―Kuwana
* Level 7: Miya―Chiryū
* Level 8: Okazaki―Akasaka
* Level 9: Goyu―Futagawa
* Level 10: Shirasuka―Maisaka
* Level 11: Hamamatsu―Fukuroi
* Level 12: Kakegawa―Shimada
* Level 13: Fujieda―Mariko
* Level 14: Fuchū―Yui
* Level 15: Kanbara―Hara
* Level 16: Numazu―Hakone
* Level 17: Odawara―Hiratsuka
* Level 18: Fujisawa―Hodogaya
* Level 19: Kanagawa―Kawasaki
* Level 20: Shinagawa―Nihonbashi
* Level 21: Asakusa (unrelated to the Tōkaidō route itself, but is the final destination of the game)
Each level is designed in accordance with the actual characteristics of the locations. For instance, checkpoints are placed relative to their actual historical locations, and the prostitute character only appears in areas where such business was actually available, such as Akasaka, Goyu, Fujisawa, and Shinagawa. Kuwana Castle and Yoshida Castle also appear in the game, while Atsuta Shrine and Mishima Taisha are each represented by a Torii shrine. Locations of rivers, hills, rest stops and types of trees are also set according to each area's geographical characteristics.