Welcome to the Doodle Champion Island Games! Over the coming weeks, join calico (c)athlete Lucky as she explores Doodle Champion Island: a world filled with seven sport mini-games, legendary opponents, dozens of daring side quests, and a few new (and old ;)) friends. Her ultimate goal? Defeat each sport Champion to collect all seven sacred scrolls—and complete extra hidden challenges across Champion Island in the purrr-ocess.    

Are you feline Lucky 😼 ? Click on today’s Doodle, join one of the four color teams to contribute to the real-time global leaderboard, and let the games begin!

Go behind-the-scenes of today’s interactive Doodle, made in partnership with Tokyo-based animation studio, STUDIO 4°C!  

Come back tomorrow to keep up with Lucky, check the real-time team leaderboard standings, and watch the action unfold in the Doodle Champion Island Games!

Doodle Champion Island Purrr-sonalities

Your Calico (C)athlete: Lucky Compete in the Champion Island Games as Lucky—your new favorite feline.

Your Fur-midable Opponents: The Legendary Champions  

Sport | Table Tennis Legendary Champion | Tengu Take a shot at table tennis against this mischievous bird of prey

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Sport | Skateboarding Legendary Champion | Tanuki   Show your gnarliest aerial moves to beat this shapeshifting trickster

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Sport | Archery Legendary Champion | Yoichi Aim quickly and accurately to outscore this Samurai general and expert marksman

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Sport | Rugby Legendary Champions | The Oni Dart, dip, and dodge these fearsome foes to reach your goal

Sur-purrr-ise Supporting Lineup | Momotaro & friends

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Sport | Artistic Swimming Legendary Champions | Princess Otohime Sea if your rhythm is unWAVEring when you visit this champion’s underwater kingdom

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Sport | Climbing Legendary Champion | Fukuro Scale to the mountain top, but avoid the obstacles from this ladle-yielding owl champion

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Sport | Marathon Legendary Champions | The Kijimuna Outsprint these spry tree spirits, and don’t let the crazy crustaceans slow you down

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Your Team Mascots  

Team Blue | Ushi

Team Red | Karasu

Team Yellow | Inari

Team Green | Kappa

Guest Artist Q&A with STUDIO4°C

The cutscene animations and characters for Doodle Champion Island Games were created by Tokyo, Japan-based animation studio, STUDIO4°C. Below they share their thoughts behind the making of this Doodle:

Q. Can you tell us about your creative process for adapting each of the characters in the Doodle?

まず、認知度が高く、スター性のある登場人物が出て来る物語や民話を、全国各地から探しました。

次に、ゲームに使用される種目内容と結びつく昔話やキャラクターをキャスティングしました。

そして、デザイン化において、各種目チャンピオンは固有の物語から採り、

河童や八咫烏、獅子舞など日本のあちらこちらにあるものを、チームリーダーや街の人々にしました。

それぞれ、元々のお話やイメージをベースにしたうえで、ゲームに合った要素を膨らましていきました。

First, we identified stories and folktales from all over the country with characters that are highly recognized. Next, we connected those folktales and characters with each of the sport events included in the game. In the design process, each event champion was selected from those unique stories. The team mascots and the characters in the city such as Kappa, Yatagarasu, lion dance, were also chosen as they are very well known across Japan. Each character’s design was based on their original story image, but then adapted for the game.

Q. What’s your team’s favorite aspect of the Doodle? 

なんと言っても、忍者猫ラッキーが、かっこいい中にも可愛らしさがあって‘推し’です！

また、北は北海道から南は沖縄まで色々な物語を題材にできたことで、

海中や南国の砂浜、森や雪山など様々な舞台を描くことができ、

日本の多彩な自然観を少しでも伝えられたら嬉しいです。

Lucky the Ninja Cat, who is both cool and cute, is definitely a favorite aspect!

We're pleased that we were able to allude to various stories from Hokkaido in the north to Okinawa in the south in the Doodle. Besides drawing inspiration from stories known across Japan, we also hoped to convey the rich and diverse natural beauty of the country, including underwater, sandy tropical beaches, forests, and snowy mountains.

Q: Does your team have any favorite characters or sports that appear in the Doodle?

キャラクターでは狛犬が気に入っています。獅子ですから猛獣のはずなんですが、愛嬌のあるキャラになったので思い入れが強いです。

狛犬は神社のゲートキーパーの役割をしているのですが、ゲーム的にも案内役にしてもらえて面白く仕上がったと思います。

また、天狗と卓球を組み合わせたのは、本当の昔話の中ではありえないことですが、

団扇を持っていて軽やかに移動する天狗の性質とマッチして、良い組み合わせだと思います。

Character: The stone guardians. They can be a bit scary given that they’re lions, but we love how charming they are in the game’s final design. We think the fact that they serve as gatekeepers in Japanese culture made it interesting to have them serve as guides in the game.

Sport: Table tennis! The combination of Tengu and table tennis is not something you'd find in the traditional folktale, but we think it was a fitting combination given the nature of the Tengu, who holds a fan and moves swiftly.

Q. What does your team hope people take away from this Doodle game?

ゲーム自体の勝負をまずは楽しんで欲しい、是非最後までクリアして欲しいのですが、

主人公が挑んできたことは、皆にお花と団子という形の幸せをもたらして、そのことはチャンピオンだけが知っている。

つまり、誰も知らない一人一人の頑張りが、皆の幸福につながっている、という精神性を伝えたいです。

そして、三色だんごブームが来て欲しいです！

First, we hope people enjoy the game and make it to the end! But also convey that by completing the mini games, Lucky brings happiness in the form of flowers and dangos…which will be a treat to everyone in the world! Also, only Champions know how hard Lucky worked. In other words, we want to convey that joy can result from the focus and hard work of every one of us, which is not always recognized by others. We’re also hoping for a sanshoku dango (three colored dumplings) trend :)

THE DOODLE CHAMPION ISLAND GAMES TEAM  

Nate Swinehart, Sophie Diao, Ben Tobias, Hélène Leroux

Mark Ivey, Eric Arnold, Daniel Dovali, David Lu, Audrey LoVan, Conner Lane, Jacob Katzeff, Jacob Howcroft, Kathy Lee, Stephanie Gu, Leah Sandacz, Jonathan Shneier

Diana Tran, Anthony Irwin

Colin Duffy

Qumu Music

Perla Campos, Sierra Menzies

Midori Okamura, Sayuri Tawara, Ken Miura, Mai Fukue

Madeline Belliveau

Peter Saathoff-Harshfield, Kiran Kaja, Dominic Mazzoni

Mark Sherbin

Dave Sharek

Jessica Yu, Brian Kaas, Tom Tabanao

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CHARACTER DESIGN & ANIMATION SERVICES | STUDIO4°C

Director, Storyboard, Character Designer, & Key Animation | Takahiro Tanaka 監督・コンテ・キャラクターデザイン・原画 | 田中孝弘 

CGI Director, Compositor, & Editor | Masaya Inaba CGI監督・撮影・編集 | 稲葉昌也

Art Director & Background | Hisako Akagi (Orange Co., Ltd.) 美術監督・背景 | 赤木寿子 (有限会社オレンジ)

Color Stylist & Color Coordinator | Wakako Takahashi 色彩設計・色指定 | 高橋和歌子

In-between Supervisor | Hidemi Okusaka 動画検査 | 奥坂英珠

In-between | Miyu Nakazawa, Chiharu Haraguchi, REVOROOT, qIXIE STUDIO, studio Hibari Osaka studio, STUDIO GIMLET, STUDIO MASSKET, STUDIO・MOO, M.S.C, StudioL, OLM Asia 動画 | 中沢海友, 原口ちはる, レヴォルト, qIXIE STUDIO, スタジオ雲雀　大阪スタジオ, スタジオギムレット, STUDIO MASSKET, スタジオ・ムー, M.S.C, スタジオエル, OLM Asia

Desital Ink & Paint | D-COLORS, studio step, Defa, M.S.C, STUDIO MASSKET, Jumondou 仕上げ | D-COLORS, スタジオ ステップ, （株）デファー, M.S.C, STUDIO MASSKET, 寿門堂

Legal & Coordinator | Ayumi Inoguchi 法務・翻訳 | 井ノ口歩

Animation Assistant Producer | Sayuri Yoshiyama, Moruto Yamashita 制作進行 | 吉山小百合, 山下諸人

Animation Producer | Tomoko Ogiwara アニメーションプロデューサー | 荻原知子