TOKYO - For Japanese gamers looking for the latest Smash Brothers information, the Nintendo of Japan site offers a section called Suma Bura Ken. And the section can boast its dominance of Smash Brothers information because it is maintained by the Smash Brothers creator, Masahiro Sakurai of HAL Lab. (Mr. Sakurai is also the creator of the Kirby series.) Recently, the site conducted two polls for web visitors: One was a favorite-character poll, and the other asked gamers which characters they would want to see in a Smash Brothers sequel.

　　Favorite characters in Smash Brothers:

　　1 - Kirby from the Kirby series2 - Ness from the Mother/Earthbound series3 - Link from the Legend of Zelda series4 - Falcon from the F-Zero series5 - Pikachu from the Pokemon series6 - Samus from the Metroid series7 - Luigi from the Mario series8 - Mario from the Mario series9 - Fox from the Star Fox series10 - Yoshi from Yoshi's Story

　　Characters you'd want to see in a sequel:

　　1 - Coopa (Bowser) from the Mario series2 - Princess Peach from the Mario series3 - Wario from the Wario series4 - Dedede Daiou (a boss) from the Kirby series5 - Gannon from the Legend of Zelda series6 - James Bond from GoldenEye7 - Mewtwo from Pokemon8 - Banjo-Kazooie from Banjo-Kazooie9 - Kinopio (Toadshtool) from the Mario series10 - Mew from Pokemon

　　Despite these polls, there are currently no plans to make a Smash Brothers sequel, according to Mr. Sakurai, who said that Mr. Sakurai, Coopa, Dedede, and Mewtwo were all planned for inclusion in Smash Brothers but didn't make the cut for various reasons.

　　Smash Brothers (called Super Smash Brothers here in the US), an action-fighting game from Nintendo, is one of the best-selling Japanese games of the year - second only to Final Fantasy VIII. Nintendo has already shipped more than one million copies since the game's January release, and remains firm on the Japanese top-ten charts.