In Collateral Damage, you play a Gang Boss trying to take over cities in Neo Japan in order to win the game. Your gang is made up of typical characters from romantic comedy anime, with a unique set of statistics and a Special Power to distinguish each one. You move your characters around the board from city to city, and you ultimately win the game by taking over cities. You as a gang boss get Notoriety Points by having your characters fight and hurt other players' characters. If you miss in a fight, you do Collateral Damage to the city (thus the name of the game). However, as is typical in romantic comedy anime, your characters might fall in love, usually unreciprocated, and will then ignore your orders to instead follow their love around the board.

Each turn in the game has 9 phases, most of which are brief.
1) Initiative - Figure out turn order, based on player strength.
2) Libido - All characters gain Libido, which they can use to move and fight.
3) Voluntary Movement - players move their characters, then 4) Automatic Movement - characters may be dragged towards a Love Interest or Rival.
5) Love - Characters may fall in love based on the Looks and Gender of other characters in that city.
6) Combat - Characters in cities fight, gaining Notoriety for the player.
7) Domination - Players can try to use any characters still conscious to Dominate cities, spending Notoriety Points to better their chances.
8) Firing & Recruitment - Players can fire characters and recruit new characters, spending Notoriety Points to do so.
9) Mutual Love - Characters in love with each other and alone together in a city lose all of their libido. We're not saying why...

The game contains:
20 city tiles which are used to make up the game board
6 sets of sliders, token stands, dice, and Gang Boss cards in 6 colors
Over 55 different characters, each with his or her own stats and unique Special Power
45 Training cards
1 Grease pencil
A 4 page custom manga
Complete instructions
and more