WHY THE LONG FACE?! 🐴 HAHAHA!?!
Aren't the old jokes just really... really.... great?
No? Ok. Well, I couldn't think of anything better so you'll just have to accept it.
It's issue 3 of「NIPPON NEWS DAIJOUBU」, so let's get on with it and see what's up shall we?
"YOU ARE SO KAWAII"
Yesterday I stealth-ed my way into the Onion Soup HQ, hid in a cabinet until all 600 employees went to sleep at their desks and then started playing the latest development build of Nippon Marathon 2. I gazed lovingly into Nishibori's eyes and whispered "you're so kawaii" as I always do, but something weird happened. She looked right at me, blinked and smiled! I nearly fainted, twice!
After further investigation it turns out all the contestants now have facial animations that react to the gameplay. Here's a few screenshots I managed to snag before anyone woke up and spotted me:
Cool right? So I guess that's a new feature to look forward to in the next update! Now that's a SCOOP!
OST RELEASE DATE FOUND ON INTERNAL FAX
While I rummaged through the desks of one of the nearly 1000 employees at Onion Soup HQ I saw a fax (that's like a physical email for all you Gen Z people).
It said the release date for the Nippon Marathon 2 OST is... drumroll..... 11 May 2026! That's Monday, yay!
You can wishlist this now and be first in line to hear your new fave's on your commute to the office!
Also on the fax was a QR code that sent me to this YouTube video, check it out, it's one of the tracks from the OST and the main theme from LET'S GO RAMEN MUSEUM by the uber-talented Fox Hills! Yay!
If you needed any more convincing, Fox Hills was the musical genius behind the opening titles, menu music, and KAWSEMI CITY SIGHTS from the OG Nippon Marathon, so you know it's going to be a regular in rotation.
SENSATIONAL SCREENSHOTS
This week we have an aqua coloured horse on a bridge, a weird victory pose on a rock, a questionable sign and a flying man with a banana. We love them! Keep 'em coming!
Aqua Horse ftw - Screenshot by EldritchBard
This isn't a photo from the recent London Marathon - Screenshot by shadow
LIBERATION FOR THE FISH PEOPLE - does anyone know what that means? - Screenshot by boko
Flying egg-banana secret technique! - Screenshot by ゼロナイン
CRASHES, DIRECT X12 AND DROOLING ON RAICHU
As I was about to leave, I noticed that one of Onion Soup's 23,172 employees was drooling on his Raichu plushie, so I thought I'd do poor old Raichu a favour and placed a coaster on his head. Then just as I was about to leave, I stumbled across something actually useful... a bug‑fix written in an email on his screen:
"! As suggested, I used the command to force DX11, and now the game is running properly! Because of that, I assume the game was launching with DX12... And for some reason, my computer has issues with pretty much every game that has DX12 enabled, even though my GPU is compatible with it." - REDACTED
So, it seems that anyone experiencing crashing, especially when using OBS whilst playing NM2 should try launching the game with DX11 forced on by adding the following line to the steam/nippon2 launch options:
-force-d3d11
Here is a useful informatic demonstrating where you can find this in Steam.
I hope that helps, and thank you [REDACTED] for your email.
CREATOR CORNER
Now that Nippon Marathon is out in the wild, I thought it would be fun to highlight my fave of the week.
This week goes to Tech-Nickal Difficulties Nick Mal, who decided that floating majestically into space like a pineapple‑powered astronaut was more fun than victory!
See how it all goes down (or… up) here:
DISCORD DISCO
If you read the first [NIPPON NEWS DAIJOUBU], you will know that the Onion Soup Discord are very enthusiastic about Sumo.
So they were heartbroken to find that both Onosato and Aonishiki will be absent from the May tournament 😭
I heard that developer H_Hazuki will be cheering for Kotozakura, so I'm just going to copy him and do the same. The sumo action starts on Monday, so if you like Sumo, you can join in and cheer on your rikishi-bae.
Member Oniondog posted a link to a preview video if you want to join in and feel lost, but you need to join the Discord to find it!
In other news, Slichixard and H_Hazuki had an in-depth discussion about pineapples and how they might be overpowered in the game. And after seeing Tech-Nickal Difficulties Nick Mal use a pineapple as a makeshift spaceship, maybe they’re onto something???
Does that mean they'll get nerfed again? I don't know!
But remember that your input helps shape the game, so don't be shy and post in the Discord or the Steam Discussion Forums as much as you want to.
I don't think anyone bites? Probably.
Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/SpsyEHs
Thanks for reading 「NIPPON NEWS DAIJOUBU」and check back for issue 4 where I'll have more exciting news about upcoming content for NM2!
Until next time, stay DAIJOUBU! - Reiwa Man
