Turning Japanese Part 3 - Box shots! Plus Dreamcast Travel Cases

In continuation of The Nomad Junkyard's Dreamcast celebration I bring the 3 part "Turning Japanese" article to a close. We've compared a US console to a Japanese console and have had an in depth look at all of the paper inserts found in a Japanese Dreamcast launch box. Now, lets have a look at the lovely box.

The front of the box is emblazoned with images of Sega's then senior managing director Yukawa Hidekazu. At the time of the Dreamcast's launch in Japan, a series of television ads ran featuring Yukawa. The complete campaign can be seen in this video:


The commercials follow Yukawa as his life goes into a downward spiral when he wrestles with the fact that kids don't care about Sega anymore, they just want to play the Playstation 2. Just as things are at their worse, Yukawa overhears two schoolchildren talking of how excited they are for the upcoming Dreamcast console. This glimmer of hope causes Yukawa to let out a little victory "Yosh!", which can be seen below the Dreamcast logo on the box. As the campaign was such a hit, Yukawa appeared on the launch box itself and became the Segata Sanshiro of the Dreamcast era. He even had his own game, Yukawa Moto Senmu no Okatara Ikushi, and appeared as himself in the Shenmue preview disc What's shenmue?.



For any readers who have an understanding of Japanese, or know what the penciled in numbers are referring to in the above photo, let me know in the comments section.

Now we're going to bring in the portable aspect of this blog by presenting the Dreamcast travel case and CD wallet. The Travel case seen below has served me well over the past 9 years. The case had allowed me to comfortably take my Dreamcast to my family cabin where I played Power Stone for hours with my cousins. The travel case had also served me in a total of nine moves, including moving me through three states. It is possibly the most compact and durable console travel case I've ever owned. The CD wallet is much newer, I purchased it last month from GameExpress.com for the low price of $7.99! It came to me within 3 days of ordering (at a low shipping fee) and was still in its original cardboard sleeve. I highly recommend any US readers to pick one up for themselves, as its not every day that you find new Dreamcast accessories at such low prices. There is even a classy raised foam SEGA logo on the back. Enjoy the photos below!



The travel case has a large number of hidden pockets, so there is no fear of not having room for that extra VMU. In fact, you could easily pack this thing with eight VMUs, if not more.


The case holds (from my memory) 15 GD-Roms and about 5 manuals, or another VMU is you're so inclined!

That wraps up our offensively titled "Turning Japanese" series, but there are more Dreamcast articles to come!