Given how ghostbusting can really be boiled down to science-based exorcisms, and the variety of powers we've seen humans harness in stories set in this 'verse, it occurs to me that any franchise setting itself up in Japan will find getting work difficult, particularly if the first instinct of any local businesses are to call the local priest or miko rather than a group of nuts running around with nuclear backpacks (extra points if the priest or miko in question has a lot of spiritual power).

I suppose the best place for a Japan franchise to set up with be some place where the local Shinto shrine has had a run of bad luck in having priests and mikos with any noticeable power. Business calls a miko, her efforts do nothing, so they call the Ghostbusters as their second choice. Why they went with the Ghostbusters? They are local, while calling a shrine from farther away means travel time for the miko to arrive, which means more time for the troublesome spirit to cause trouble, which means further delays in resuming normal operations. At least the Ghostbusters will (probably) leave them with a single room in need of repair, with the ghostie gone by the end of the day...

It's not something I've given any thought to in quite some time. I had some ideas kicking around about fifteen years ago, maybe reusing some of the character ideas I had for a Digimon project, but didn't do any serious development of it.

I kept expecting some other fan fic writer to tackle a Japan franchise, but noone ever did, at least as I recall.

RGB had the episode "Attack of the B-Movie Monsters" set in Japan, but it was very late in the game and not very good as I recall (I couldn't bring myself to watch too many post-JMS episodes on the DVD set). The kid who helped the Ghostbusters, Kenji, could easily be turned into a connection; kind of the Japanese Ray Stantz who founds the group or something.

I'll have to ruminate on this further.

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I'd pass on the Ecto-Ichi being their vehicle, however. Have them mention that it existed, sure, but it was packed with so many gee-whiz untested prototype hardware the Ghostbusters never used again (and in some cases never used while they had it!) that important parts started breaking and rotting away long before Kenji gets into contact with GBI's franchising office, which causes them to use something more sane for their Ectomobile (as Ghostbusting technology will be far more mature at that point, so they'll know what actually works and what's practical). Edit: I just read that the Ecto-Ichi got squished by a Gojira projection, so that's a moot point anyway.

Though I can't help but imagine the Japanese team's flight suits being in multiple colors, like they're some super sentai group (Their primary color with white trim, perhaps? You did a pretty good pic of yourself wearing what the second in command would wear if you go that route).

And now I'm imagining the team spending some of their off-time just goofing around in their flight suits, doing super sentai team poses.

"Buster Red!"

"Buster Blue!"

"Buster Yellow!"