Hello, again, everyone. It's your old friend Nix with some new ideas and concepts, this time for a fictional Japanese Ghostbusting franchise.

I started a thread about this on The TRUE Ghostbusters Fan Forum since it's much harder to get laughed off an FGB forum, but I decided to post it here when I couldn't find a rule against it. (Not that rules have ever stopped me, naturally.)

But let's begin with a logo concept and what kind of car they'll use.

1. THE LOGO



This is a GB logo with a ghost set against the Rising Sun featured on a Japanese flag. Actually creating the illustrated version was a fairly difficult process:

1. First, I found an ordinary GB logo.
   
2. Second, I put the printout on a light-table and traced the outline of the ghost it with blue, red and gray pencils, taking care to mark where the bar of the NO symbol would go.
   
3. Third, I traced a circle onto a piece of paper with a plate. This would serve as the basis of the “flag” image.
   
4. I then traced the tracing of Buster the Ghost onto the circle with my light table. If you look carefully, you'll notice that Buster isn't quite sticking out of the circle as much as he normally does–it's a bit more self-contained.
   
5. I figured out where Buster's lower half should end and drew a line to mark this boundary, so I wouldn't accidentally color that in.
   
6. I colored in everything that wasn't Buster with a red pencil! It sounds simple enough, but it took at least an hour.
   

2. THE CAR



The Japanese Ghostbusters tool around in a Daihatsu Hijet van–no, none of that stupid Ecto-Ichi crap here, thank-you-very-much. Right now, this picture is just a “placeholder” to give you some idea of the car. I'm currently working on the finalized version with the roof-rack and lights.

3. THE EQUIPMENT

Currently, I don't have very much of anything, but I will tell you this: Since this franchise would open up within the next few years, it's a safe bet that the equipment will evolve and depart from the standard DIY look. (The way I see it, the original equipment was only temporary and Drs Venkman, Stantz and Spengler simply forgot to do anything else with it!)

• THE PROTON PACK: Right now, I'm going for a slightly more Dyson-vacuum-cleaner look–all clean lines and fewer parts hanging off the sides. While it takes the Pack into a more streamlined, futuristic design, I'm trying to stick to the overall silhouette–a rectangular backpack with a cake pan stuck on. As a matter of fact, I do intend to use components from a Dyson on my new Proton Pack! For example, I currently have the Dyson “turbine” as a coolant tank.
  
• THE NUTRONA WAND: Again, more streamlined than the original, but this new one features a mini-cyclotron. It's inspired by something from the TimeSplitters game I have at home.
  THE GHOST TRAP: The Ghost Trap is now more of a cylinder, and the handle is stuck dead center in the back end of it. The cable and handle are all one piece. Part of the inspiration came from a kind of “waterproof torpedo” I saw in Live and Let Die–Dr. Kananga would have transported his heroin in these kind of waterproof canisters that became all one piece when the doors closed.
  

ALTERATION TO THE GHOST TRAP:

I just saw something about a character from Lost called Miles Straume, a medium who carries a handheld vacuum-cleaner-like thingummy that enables him to talk to ghosts. It looks a bit like a ghost trap…I may redesign the actual GBJP trap along those lines.

DETECTING GHOSTS:

The team would have four Ghostbusters, each wearing or using ghost-sensing equipment based on four of the five senses:

SIGHT: Ecto Goggles, naturally.
SOUND: A pair of headphones that can pick up and analyze most spectral frequencies.
SMELL: The PKE meter picks up a ghost's trail like a bloodhound follows a scent.
TOUCH: Thermometer, magnetometer, and other sensing equipment.
———————————————
THE PREMISE:

Basically, the idea is that GB Japan has existed for a while as a property, but nobody's really touched it. Sure, people admire the original Ghostbusters, but nobody would actually want to be ‘em. That all changes one day, when four out-of-work university students answer an advertisement promising good pay. They go to the headquarters (possibly a warehouse–TBD) and find it blanketed and shuttered, except for a heavy book, a TV player and a DVD on a desk.

They watch the DVD, and find the original NYC team giving a video seminar on owning a Ghostbusters franchise, complete with a brief history of the company, worldwide locations, how the equipment works, etc.

It transpires that one of them drives the Daihatsu Hijet van that will serve as their Ectomobile. There are crates everywhere that contain the parts for the equipment–it’s company policy that each franchise should at least put its own equipment together so that they can know how to make emergency repairs if something goes wrong. At least two of them have degrees in industrial design, and, dismayed at a diagram of what the end result would look like, they draw up a few sketches of what their own ideas might be, and even add a few ideas of their own. The end result is a far more streamlined and self-contained arsenal of metal and brightly-molded plastic.

Currently, I've got an idea that they're all otaku in some way. One of them is a science/physics whiz (a girl, possibly), one of them's an anime and J-Horror fanatic, one of them is something of an artist, and the last one really knows his way around cars. But they're not necessarily stereotypes in the same way that Extreme Ghostbusters was…no, they're quite three-dimensional.

Another idea I had for the overall tagline is that GBJP kind of parodies the Super Sentai/Power Rangers concept by having its team be more than slightly unsuited for the job, so they start by mucking things up in the field but somehow manage to catch their ghosts. But they get better over time, naturally.

Some equipment translations. If anyone takes the time to translate any of these from Japanese back into English, they'll find that some of the translations don't match the original English terms. I had to take liberties with a few of the terms so as to minimize the amount of “loanwords.”

GHOST TRAP:
幻影のトラップ

FOOT PEDAL:
フィートのペダル

ECTO-GOGGLES:
幻影視野のゴーグル

PSYCHOKINETIC ENERGY (PKE) METER:
幻影のレーダー

SONAR HEADPHONES:
ソナーのヘッドホーン

MICROPHONE:
マイクロフォン

GHOST SNIFFER:
幻影スニッファー

ECTOPLASMIC TRACKER:
Ectoplasm の追跡者

COOLANT TANK:

冷却剤タンク
——————————————–

TEMPERATURE GAUGE:

温度のゲージ
—————————————-
POWER GAUGE:

力のゲージ
—————————————-
KEY AND STARTER:

キーおよび始動機
——————————————
FUEL CELL:

燃料電池
———————————————-
WAND HOOK:

細い棒のためのホック
——————————————–
CYCLOTRON:

サイクロトロン
————————————–
TO WAND:

細い棒に
—————————
TO PACK:

バックパックに
——————————
TRIGGER:

制動機
——————————
MINI-CYCLOTRON;

ミニチュアサイクロトロン
———————————-
GRIP:

グリップ
——————————–
ADJUSTMENT DIAL:

ダイヤル
——————————–
BEAM EMITTER:

ビームエミッター

ECTOPLASMIC CONTAINMENT UNIT:
幻影の原子格納容器の単位

I have a few updates and things I completed last night.

First, here's an alternate version of the logo. This time, one can see the kanji for “GHOSTBUSTERS JAPAN” in the crossbar.



Next, here's a completed version of the Ectomobile. Further revisions, including one with a Blaster Chair concept, will be posted here later.



Finally, here's a not-quite-finished Proton Pack concept. I'm refining the Nutrona Wand, but here's basically what I have in mind for the pack.

THE UNIFORMS:

I'm envisioning something like white jumpsuits with red trim around the shoulders and on the sides of the legs. Similar to the standard GB uniform, but a touch–just a touch!–more futuristic and more along the lines of a NASCAR pit crew. I think they're made of some newfangled, nonstick material that doesn't stain too badly.

EDIT: By the way, did I mention that the girls' variant includes a “skirt” section a la the former Pink Ranger?

I just realized something…where I've written the GHOSTBUSTERS JAPAN characters on the second logo, I didn't know that the No-Ghost logo takes the place of a “dash,” the meaning of which I'm unsure of. :-O

I'll be sure to fix it in subsequent variations.

I went searching for an actual Japanese Ghostbusters fan forum site online, but I could not find one. And I used this katakana spelling for Ghostbusters in my search. ゴースト・バスターズ I would still like to find one if it exists.

Good luck with that, Willie. I'm afraid you might not find as many GB fans in Japan as over here and in the UK…GB, I suspect, never made quite as big a splash over there.

Uhhh…meantime, here's a better description of the Ghost Trap.

THE GHOST TRAP

–The idea behind the Trap is that it, like the Proton Pack, is a much more streamlined, less clunky design. To that end, the foot-pedal is on a retractable cord not unlike a USB extension cord–small enough to deliver the “charge,” but thick enough to be substantial.

There's also a trigger button that releases/retracts the cord, and this mechanism can be “switched” to release the Cassette from the outer housing. Since GBJP is a bit more green-conscious than GBNY (Venkman et al), their version of the Cassette is reusable. It just has to be cleaned out, recharged, etc.

THE GHOST TRAP



THE UNIFORM




A revised (ie full-color) Proton Pack:



THE NUTRONA WAND: