THE LIBRARY
Collector guides, cover censuses, and edition answers, documented issue by issue. Every page answers one specific question, completely.
SILENT HILL
11 shelfs
The History of Silent Hill
Team Silent's 1999 original: the outsider team, the fog turned into design, the editions, the scores, and the legacy.
The History of Silent Hill 3
Heather Mason's story: the direct sequel to the first game, the scrapped rail shooter, the editions, the scores, and the legacy.
The History of Silent Hill 4: The Room
Walter Sullivan and Room 302: Team Silent's last game, the room as trap, the editions, the divided scores, and the legacy.
The Silent Hill 2 Gallery
The Japanese and American boxes side by side, red panes against a face in green fog, with the history and the questions behind them.
The History of Silent Hill 2
Team Silent's 2001 sequel: how it was made, Pyramid Head's design, the editions, the scores, and the legacy.
Why is Silent Hill covered in fog?
A hardware limit, per the developers' own postmortem, that Toyama turned into design.
What is Silent Hill 2: Saigo no Uta?
The expanded Japanese edition, and what its name actually promises buyers.
What inspired Silent Hill?
Jacob's Ladder, Lynch, Bacon and Wyeth, from the creators' own lists.
Is Silent Hill based on a real town?
Centralia inspired the film, not the 1999 game. The record, separated.
Why do the Japanese Silent Hill covers look different?
Portraits in fog in America, graphic design in Japan, checked cover by cover.
Who composed Silent Hill's music?
Akira Yamaoka, who volunteered for the job, then took over every sound in the game, music and noise alike.
SIMCITY
3 shelves
What inspired SimCity?
Wright said it himself: building islands for a bombing game was more fun than bombing them, and urban dynamics theory brought the city alive.
Why is SimCity 3000's music jazz?
Maxis recorded a live score and put a jazz composer in charge. Why jazz, exactly, nobody documented, and the page says so.
Who wrote SimCity's music?
Sue Kasper wrote 2000, Soyo Oka the SNES score, and Jerry Martin directed 3000 and 4. The credits, corrected.
SLAM DUNK
5 shelves
Why did Slam Dunk end after 31 volumes?
Inoue on the record: the Sannoh game ending was planned, the final page said End of Part One, and 10 Days After was his answer to readers.
Why did the Slam Dunk anime never adapt the National Tournament?
101 episodes stopped at the train to the Inter High in 1996. No official reason is on record, and this page labels the fan theories as theories.
What is The First Slam Dunk, and why did Inoue direct it himself?
The 2022 film of the final game through Ryota Miyagi: five years of prototypes, Matsui's suggestion that Inoue direct, and a $279 million answer.
Why did Slam Dunk become a basketball phenomenon in Japan?
Reader letters from new players, the Slam Dunk Scholarship, and the Japan Basketball Association commendation that made the phenomenon official.
What inspired Slam Dunk?
On Inoue's own say so: his high school basketball club, the empty basketball shelf, Dokaben, and his own start in the sport, mirrored in Sakuragi.
SLAYERS
15 shelves
The history of Slayers
From a 1989 Dragon Magazine debut to a 22-million-copy franchise: the history of Hajime Kanzaka and Rui Araizumi's Slayers, the novels that ended in 2000 and…
The Slayers novels, volume by volume
All seventeen main Slayers novels documented volume by volume: titles, Japanese release dates, and what each book does, from Slayers! (1990) to The Long Road…
What are the Slayers Special novels?
Slayers Special: the 30-volume prequel line of Lina and Naga one-shot stories (1991–2008), plus Smash, Delicious, Select, and the rest of the novel family,…
Who is Hajime Kanzaka?
Hajime Kanzaka: the contest winner who wrote Slayers at his puzzle-piece method, ended it in 2000, revived it in 2018, and quietly built Lost Universe in the…
Who is Rui Araizumi?
Rui Araizumi: the artist who designed Lina Inverse, illustrated every Slayers novel line for three decades, redrew the covers for the 2008 revised edition, and…
How was the Slayers anime made?
How the Slayers anime was made: E&G Films and Takashi Watanabe adapting the novels in a scrambled order, Software Sculptors' VHS success in America, and the…
Who is Megumi Hayashibara?
Megumi Hayashibara, the voice of Lina Inverse in every Slayers anime and the singer of nearly every theme: Get Along, Give a Reason, Breeze, and the 2020…
What Slayers movies and OVAs are there?
The five Slayers films and two OVA series documented: Perfect, Return, Great, Gorgeous, Premium, and the Special and Excellent OVAs, the Lina and Naga prequel…
What is Slayers Revolution?
Slayers Revolution (2008) and Evolution-R (2009): the J.C.Staff revival that told one story across two short seasons, with the original director and voice cast,…
The Slayers manga, series by series
Every Slayers manga line documented: Araizumi's Medieval Mayhem, Yoshinaka's 8-volume Super-Explosive Demon Story, Knight of the Aqualord, and the rest, with…
What Slayers video games are there?
The five Slayers RPGs of 1994–1998 documented: two different games both named Slayers in one year, the Royal tactical pair, Wonderful, plus the card game and…
How can you collect Slayers in English?
Collecting Slayers in English: Tokyopop's abandoned 8 volumes, J-Novel Club's complete retranslation and Collector's Edition hardcovers, the CPM manga, and what…
What is Lost Universe?
Lost Universe: Hajime Kanzaka's science-fiction sibling to Slayers, five novels (1992–1999), the 1998 anime in Slayers Try's old timeslot, and the Black World…
How is Slayers related to Record of Lodoss War?
Slayers and Record of Lodoss War: the twin pillars of Japanese fantasy, one solemn and one satirical, compared by critics since the 1990s and shelved side by…
What is the Dragon Slave?
The Dragon Slave and the magic system of Slayers: the four schools of magic, Shabranigdu's borrowed power, and the two spells above them all, the Ragna Blade and…
SNK
10 shelves
The SNK Gallery
SNK beyond the fighters: the Neo Geo at home and in the arcade, Metal Slug, Magician Lord, and Baseball Stars, cover by cover.
The History of Neo Geo
One cartridge system for the arcade and the home: the MVS, the AES, the $649.99 launch, and fourteen years of software.
Why Was the Neo Geo So Expensive?
A $649.99 console and games at $200 and up, because the home machine was the arcade machine, cartridges and all.
Why Won't an MVS Cartridge Fit in an AES?
The code is identical and the ROMs even swap. The pinout is the lock, built to stop operators buying cheaper home carts.
What Happened to SNK After It Went Bankrupt?
Bankruptcy in 2001 at 38 billion yen of debt, then founder Kawasaki's Playmore won the catalog at auction and became SNK again.
The History of Metal Slug
Nazca's 1996 run and gun: Irem veterans, a failed tank prototype, Marco and Tarma, and the series SNK bought with its makers.
Was Metal Slug Originally a Tank Only Game?
Yes. The slower tank only prototype failed its location tests, so the soldiers got out and the game got longer.
The History of Magician Lord
Alpha Denshi's launch wizard: six transformations, a difficulty spike chosen on purpose, and an arcade flop that topped the AES chart.
The History of Baseball Stars
SNK's 1989 NES classic and its Neo Geo sequels: the saved season, created teams, and the depth the bigger machines gave back.
What Did Baseball Stars Do First?
Battery saves in a baseball game, create a player on the NES, and a prestige economy with free agents, all in one 1989 cartridge.
SOLO LEVELING
15 shelvesIs Solo Leveling a novel, a comic, or an anime?
All three, in that order: a Korean web novel in 2016, a webtoon in 2018, and an anime in 2024. Each version is a different physical object.
Who wrote Solo Leveling?
Chugong, a pen name, serialized the web novel on KakaoPage from July 2016 to March 2018: 270 chapters about the weakest hunter alive.
How many volumes of the Solo Leveling novel are there?
Fourteen in the first Korean print edition, eight in the revised edition, and eight in English. The story is the same; the packaging is not.
Who drew the Solo Leveling webtoon?
Jang Sung-rak, known as Dubu, CEO of REDICE STUDIO. His art carried the series from 2018 to 2021, and he died the year after it ended.
What are the Solo Leveling side stories?
Twenty-one extra webtoon episodes from 2023, drawn by REDICE STUDIO's DISCIPLES team after Dubu's death, bridging into the Ragnarok sequel.
How is the Korean print edition of Solo Leveling different?
D&C Webtoon Biz rebuilt the scroll comic for paper: re-edited pages, a large trim, roughly 300 pages a volume, 15 volumes from 2019 to 2025.
What comes in the Korean Solo Leveling limited editions?
Cards, posters, acrylic goods and guild badges, different in every volume. Korea's two-tier system is the collector tier of the print run.
How many Solo Leveling volumes are there in English?
Fifteen, complete in March 2026: thirteen story volumes plus two side-story volumes, full color at $20 each from Yen Press and Ize Press.
Is the Solo Leveling Novel Omnibus the manhwa?
No. It is a $125 deluxe hardcover of the eight prose novels, illustrated with Dubu's webtoon art. No English comic omnibus exists.
Why does Solo Leveling have a different name in Japan?
Japan localized it as Ore Dake Level-Up na Ken, moved the story to Tokyo, and renamed Jinwoo as Shun Mizushino. The print run reached 25 volumes.
How many episodes of the Solo Leveling anime are there?
Twenty-five: twelve episodes in 2024 and thirteen in 2025 from A-1 Pictures, plus the ReAwakening compilation film and two Blu-ray waves.
What is Solo Leveling: Ragnarok?
The sequel: Daul's web novel about Jinwoo's son Suho, finished in 2025, and a REDICE webtoon that has already changed artists once.
What is Solo Leveling: ARISE?
Netmarble's action RPG, launched May 8, 2024. Fifteen million pre-registrations, $100 million in three months, 50 million downloads by October.
What Solo Leveling figures and art books are there?
SEGA's Xross Link prize figures lead the official figure shelf. The best Dubu art book in English comes inside a Blu-ray box.
Why did Solo Leveling get so big?
It turned a progress bar into a plot: the only man who can level up, drawn like a poster every week, then crowned Anime of the Year.