Bus Gamer
Bus Gamer (stylized as BUS GAMER) is a Japanese manga series created by Kazuya Minekura. It only exists as a single volume 'Pilot Edition' due to difficulties in serialization. The manga has been licensed for North American distribution by Tokyopop. The series follows the story of three young men hired by a mysterious company to participate in a business game, in which companies gamble against each other for corporate secrets. It has also produced a drama CD featuring the voices of Kenichi Suzumura, Junichi Suwabe, and Hiroki Takahashi. An anime adaptation of the manga premiered on the Japanese  television network KBS Kyoto between March 14 and March 28, 2008, airing a total of three episodes. It is directed by Naoyuki Kuzuya, produced by Frontier Works, and animated by Anpro. The characters are voiced by the same voice actors in the drama CD. Plot. An illegal dog-fight conducted in strict secrecy, the "Bus Game" is a battle simulation game where gamers are selected by various corporations to compete three-on-three on a battleground which is usually inside Tokyo. The teams are divided into "HOME" and "AWAY". The "HOME" team is given a CD containing their corporation's  secret files to protect while the "AWAY" team attempts to steal the CD. The "AWAY" team wins if they are able to steal the CD within the given time limit where the "HOME" team wins if they are able to keep their CD safe. The game information and details are distributed to the gamers via mini-disk. The businesses participating in the Bus Game wager large amounts of money on each game, watching the action from a distance. In other words, the Bus Games is a gambling pastime in which the gamers are pawns for their amusement. In exchange for  putting their lives at stake, the gamers stand to gain large amount of money, through their contracts and through winning each match of the Bus Game. When three complete strangers, Toki Mishiba, Nobuto Nakajyo, and Kazuo Saitoh, are hired by a corporation to compete in the Bus Game, they are given the team code of "Team A" (Triple Anonymous or No Name). This group of three who differ entirely from their living environment and values to protect each other's lives—but without mutually wiping out their mistrust of each other or prying into each other's privacy, it would  be the worst sort of teamwork, conflicting in every way. They only have one point in common, simply that each of them need a large amount of money for their individual circumstances. And to get the large monetary award, they must play in the game despite their very own lives being at stake. Media. Manga. The "Bus Gamer" manga series is created by Kazuya Minekura, and only exists as a single volume 'Pilot Edition' due to difficulties in serialization. Only eleven chapters of the series were ever published before "Comic Rex", the magazine in which it was serialized in, went  under. While Minekura claims in the re-released Pilot Edition to still have interest in finishing the series, and characters from it appear in her regularly released art books, no word has been given on when the series will be picked up again. A tribute to "Saiyuki", one of Minekura's other works, was seen on page 185 of "Bus Gamer - the Pilot Edition", where Saitoh is seen challenging Keiko on a "Saiyuki" arcade game; she plays the character Sha Gojyo, while he plays Chin Yisou. Anime. An anime adaptation of the manga premiered on the Japanese network KBS Kyoto  between March 14 and March 28, 2008, airing a total of three episodes. It is directed by Naoyuki Kuzuya, produced by Frontier Works, and animated by Anpro. The anime features artwork by Kazuya Minekura, who also continued the story and supervised the scripts and productions.