Shobon no Action (しょぼんのアクション, lit. “Shobon's Action Game”), also known as Shobon Action¹⁾ or Cat Mario, is the action-platforming Java game by “Tiku” (ちく, Chiku) that was released on February 2008 as an executable, then the official applet came sometime after.

The game is nostalgic in the sense that it was commonly featured in many playthroughs on Niconico or YouTube. However, please keep in mind that Shobon no Action not a Flash game, the original had four levels, and many inaccurate clones, hacks, or mods now exist.

You play as the AA character, Shobon, and encounter many enemies, also inspired by AA art. There are four stages which resembles a single world in Super Mario Bros., but they're not easy since many unique and unexpected traps are in each stage. The lives counter can go below zero, which means the player has infinite tries, and lines can be uttered by the protagonist or the enemies upon death.

The history of Shobon no Action began when Tiku's friend, willowlet, showed him an early version of Jinsei Owata no Daibouken in 2007. Later that year, four days before his university's cultural festival, he began considering what he could quickly develop in three days and remembered Jinsei Owata no Daibouken. As he didn't want to make a clone, he took the premise and applied it to another well-known game.

On the first day, he finished programming a basic Super Mario Bros. clone. The next day, he thought about what images and sounds to add in, deciding on the Cheetahmen theme from Action 52 since it was a well-known kusoge. For the third day, he added color, traps, and included death messages. In the end, the demo had one playable stage and it did surprisingly well at the festival.

About two or three days later, he uploaded a video of the game to Niconico Douga on November 3, 2007,³⁾ which gathered 1000 views. Since it seemed popular, he proceeded to develop the other three stages, spending about two weeks for each one and uploading previews of them.⁴⁾⁵⁾⁶⁾ The final version of the game was completed and eventually released in February 2008 as an executable in a ZIP file.⁷⁾

• Eryi's Action (2013) - An action-platforming game, developed by “Xtal(Crystal) Sword”, which apparently had Tiku involved with planning and programming. It doesn't cost that much either.
• NekoGame (2015) - An auto-runner platforming game that was advertised on Tiku's website and Niconico Douga account.⁸⁾ There used to be an Android version.⁹⁾

• In the original game, you can select a level by pressing 2/3/4 on the title screen.
• However, if you press 0 on the title screen, you can play a glitch-like but playable version of the game.
  • It is possible to win with the sword, but you need flooring and can die by autoscroll.
  • You can also get softlocked with Defrag-san under a block, causing you to be thrown indefinitely.
• Push “space” to speed up, “0” to die, “F1” to return to title screen, and “Esc” to exit the game.
• The warp zone area that says “Owata Zone” in Level 2 is a shout-out to Jinsei Owata no Daibouken.
• Yes, there was a Something Awful Let's Play by “TaxidermistPasta” who called it, “dongs.exe”.¹⁰⁾¹¹⁾

• Jinsei Owata no Daibouken - Main inspiration.
• Shobon Action/Message Boxes - A translation of the message boxes.

• Rainbow Road [Archive] - The official page for Shobon no Action, on Geocities.
  • @tikuX on Twitter - The developer's Twitter account. It hasn't been touched since 2015.
• Shobon no Action on Niconico Encyclopedia
• Shobon no Action on Pixiv Encyclopedia