Cho Aniki

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Cho Aniki" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (February 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Cho Aniki (超兄貴, Chō Aniki, lit. "Super Big Brother") is a Japanese video game series originally developed by Masaya and published by NCS Corp. The first game was released in 1992 for the PC Engine system. The game's sequels and spin-offs later appeared on the Super Famicom, PlayStation, Sega Saturn, WonderSwan, PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable. Mainly consisting of side-scrolling shoot 'em ups in the vein of Gradius, the Cho Aniki series is best known for its homoerotic overtones, wacky humor and vivid, surreal imagery. Most of the games have never seen release outside Japan.

For various reasons, the popularity of the Cho Aniki games has endured since the series' debut. Highlights of the various games include in-game music, innovative control schemes, or sheer kitsch value. In Japan, these games are examples of baka-ge, which literally means "idiot game" whose appeal lies in its campiness.

The rights to the series are currently owned by Extreme Co., Ltd., which had obtained the rights of NCS Corp. and Masaya products and trademarks.^[1]