Smash Bros. DOJO!! (SSBB)

Smash Bros. DOJO!!'s logo.

Smash Bros. DOJO!! (スマブラ拳!!, Smash Bros. Fist!!) is the official site for Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Masahiro Sakurai used the site to post information on Brawl every weekday. The site was regularly updated in the days before and shortly beyond the release of the title, and was the primary method of revealing its new characters, features, and modes. Succeeding the like-minded websites he ran in Japanese for Super Smash Bros. and Melee, the content of Brawl's website was shared globally for the first time thanks to Nintendo's localization teams.

Overview

Smash Bros. DOJO!! was launched around May 11, 2006, upon Brawl's reveal at E3 that year. It was written in the form of a blog with information provided by Masahiro Sakurai himself.

Its 2006 incarnation was primarily a recap of information that had been revealed at E3, including profiles for the game's first five newcomers, download links for its trailer and main theme, and the story of how Sakurai began work on the project (reproduced from the writeup in his weekly Famitsu column). The site featured small pieces of exclusive information that clarified ambiguous aspects of the trailer (including that Power Suit Samus would indeed still be playable), but had not yet become the game's primary news vehicle. The site was updated in November 2006 to feature and briefly discuss the game's Nintendo World trailer, but was otherwise dormant for nearly a year, in order to focus Sakurai's efforts on developing the game.

Following the break, the DOJO!! was formally relaunched in May 2007 with a series of regular weekday updates, providing information on characters, how to play Brawl, game modes, stages, items, music, and other information relating to Brawl. The updates ended on April 14, 2008, following the Japanese and North American releases of the game. However, Sakurai noted "Also, there’s always a chance that I will need to update sometime in the future with some kind of announcement." To commemorate the release of the European version of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Sakurai made another post on June 27, 2008. Another post was made on August 22, 2008 about Target Smash!! and Home-Run Contest world records.

A May update to the DOJO!! says that on June 30th, 2009, the service that accepted user snapshots, stage designs, and replay data would no longer be available, though such data would still be distributed after that date.

The DOJO!!'s URL changed on June 11, 2013 in favour of an equivalent site for the fourth Super Smash Bros. game.

Around the middle of May 2023, most of the pages outside of the language selection page on the DOJO!! website returned a blank page. Certain pages in some languages became accessible around late-May to early-June 2023. In mid- to late-June 2023, the site returned to normal.

Warning! Challenger Approaching!

Before the January 31st release of Brawl in Japan, all characters that were newcomers to the Smash Bros. series that were not already shown in the E3 2006 trailer, had a banner above them saying "Warning! Challenger Approaching" when they were revealed.

Languages

Beyond the original Japanese, Smash Bros. DOJO!! was translated into American English, British English, German, French, Spanish, and Italian. They possessed the same daily updates for game content, with the translations adapted from Masahiro Sakurai's original text. Edits primarily occurred to account for real-world differences and standard localization liberties, such as different release dates, and distinctions between American and British English.

Nintendo Treehouse's Nate Bihldorff was the Dojo's head translator. He would receive Sakurai's Dojo drafts between 3-5 weeks prior to their scheduled posting date, translate them into English, and send his writeups to Nintendo of Europe for their own localizations.

Rare language-exclusive updates occurred under the "notices" section, which posted real-world info related to the game. For instance, New Launch and E for All was exclusive to the American English site, while Nintendo Channel Special Edition (covering a limited-edition series of Nintendo Channel videos for the game) was exclusive to the Japanese site, as the relevant events were specific to those regions.

One update that was distinctly altered between the Japanese and international dojo sites was the post for Cook Kirby, where the Japanese website featured a preview of the "Shaberu! DS Cooking Navi" remix. Despite the song being present in all versions of the game, it was removed from international versions of the update.

2006 character and music survey

Upon the game's reveal at E3 2006, the Japanese version of the Dojo opened up a survey, asking fans which characters and music they would like to see in the game.

This functioned effectively like the questionnaire on the websites for Smash 64 and Melee, although Sakurai was far more selective in which messages he answered, and mostly republished a select number of fan responses verbatim. Fanmade translations of Sakurai's answers were widely circulated among the English fandom, becoming the source of many beliefs and rumours that heavily influenced character speculation for Brawl and future games. Submissions were closed in June 2006, with Sakurai publishing his final set of responses on June 9th.

With over 40,000 responses from fans worldwide, the survey played a role in the game's My Music selection and finalized roster. Sonic was the most-requested fighter, particularly receiving a significant number of votes from the United States. The immense demand for him resulted in negotiations for his late addition to the game to take place. Wolf also enjoyed notable results in the survey, which was cited as a factor behind his final inclusion, as he was otherwise at risk of being cut from the game. The survey remained influential even after Brawl - upon his inclusion in Super Smash Bros. 4, Sakurai confirmed that Mega Man was the runner-up guest character after Sonic.

This survey followed in the footsteps of the Super Smash Bros. Poll that collected requests for the development of Super Smash Bros. Melee, and was succeeded under a decade later by the Smash Bros. Fighter Ballot.

Updates

• For updates posted from May 22 to July 31, see Smash Bros. DOJO!! updates (archive).
• For updates posted from August 1 to October 31, see Smash Bros. DOJO!! updates (archive 2).
• For updates posted from November 1 to January 31, see Smash Bros. DOJO!! updates (archive 3).
• For the updates since the Japanese release, see Smash Bros. DOJO!! updates

Trivia

The error on the Green Hill Zone page on Smash Bros. Dojo.

• In the Spanish and British English version of Smash Bros. DOJO!!, there is an error on the Green Hill Zone page; a Mushroom logo (the Mario universe's logo) is seen, rather than the Sonic logo.
• For a short while, the Donkey Kong universe logo was shown to have a sharper design. Afterwards, however, it returned to its original rounder design.
• The dojo says in the trivia page "If you don’t bother to save any characters along the way, you’ll have only five characters (King Dedede, Ness, Luigi, Kirby, and Sonic) at your disposal for the final showdown." However, this is actually false, as Bowser is playable after Subspace (Part I) and can be used in The Great Maze.
• The dojo erroneously refers to multiple Primids as "the Primid^[sic]" and not the "the Primids."

See also

• Super Smash Bros. Official Site
• Smabura-Ken
• Super Smash Bros. 4 Official Site
• Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Official Site

External links

• Smash Bros. DOJO!! language selection
• 2006 incarnation of the DOJO!!