The most dangerous game.

Japan, as a nation, has kind of an obsession with the beetle. It’s true – from real-life beetle sumo wrestling to all sorts of media appearance, beetles play an small but significant role in Japanese culture. The Japanese equivalent of man’s best friend? Not quite, but they’re definitely pretty important.

One of the coolest hobbies for Japanese youngins has to be beetle sumo wrestling. Here’s the deal: kids (normally little boys), buy beetles from pet shops or catch ‘em in the wild, and after some Rocky-style intense training, they compete head to head with other beetles in the insect equivalent of sumo wrestling. Two beetles enter the ring (usually a small tree stump), and the first one pushed out of the circle loses. Beetles can also enter into mortal combat on poles or beams of wood (as seen above), or even battle it out in some beetle tug of war! Here’s a quick video giving you a better idea of what I’m talking about:

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98NzGDSJTzo']

But beetle sumo wrestling is only the beginning. You can find beetles pretty much anywhere in Japanese media, whether it’s video games, anime, or movies! The creator of Pokémon, Satoshi Tajiri, loved bugs as a kid. His passion for collecting and fighting these bugs is pretty clear when you watch, read, or play Pokémon.

Beetle sumo match, or screenshot from Pokémon?

Most beetle-related things seem to appeal primarily to young boys. Probably the biggest beetle-related phenomenon in Japan has been the Sega video game: Mushiking: King of Beetles. Mushiking (mushi meaning bug or insect) was a wildly popular video card game where players bought collectible cards and scanned them into arcade games in order to  have beetles fight against one another. Ultimately, the game basically boiled down to a glorified and expensive game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, but that didn’t stop tons of Japanese kids from buying up cards and duking it out in their local arcades.

Can you feel the intensity?

And you can’t forget the original Japanese beetle, badass Godzilla villain Megalon, the giant beetle god of the undersea civilization of Seatopia. Unfortunately Megalon’s debut movie, Godzilla vs. Megalon, was a huge flop and to this day is almost universally hated by Godzilla fans. A lot of people took issue with Megalon himself, who they thought was specifically designed for little kids.

Nobody loves poor Megalon.

Japan’s beetle mania even spilled over into the United States! The American children’s show, Big Bad Beetleborgs, recycled tons of footage from Japanese beetle-themed action shows Juukou B-Fighter and B-Fighter Kabuto. Think Ultraman, but with costumes modeled after stag and Japanese rhinoceros beetles. These shows followed the classic formula of Tokusatsu action shows, with fantastic characters, weird villains, and a huge showdown between good and evil at the end of each episode.

Superheroes or beetles? You decide.

That pretty much wraps it up for beetles in Japan! If you can think of any more cool beetle-related TV shows, books, manga, or movies, let me know in the comments or give me a shout out on our Twitter.