THE LIBRARY

Five games, one engine room: Revenge, WrestleMania 2000, Virtual Pro Wrestling 2, No Mercy, and Here Comes the Pain, covers first.

An 89 on Metacritic, a million copies, and a fan vote it wins at 80.5 percent, twenty-five years on.

The first cartridges could wipe your whole game. THQ's exchange fixed so few that the fixed ones are the rare ones.

Ninety-eight wrestlers, one license, and the engine No Mercy inherited. The best wrestling game America never got.

The SmackDown series' best reviews, its first Elimination Chamber, and a season mode with a memory.

Momentum instead of health, and big moves you have to earn. The system every wrestling game is still measured against.

All eighteen volumes of CLAMP’s X documented: the complete English cover run pictured, every Japanese Asuka Comics release date and ISBN, and the 2023 Premium…

X began in Monthly Asuka in May 1992, ran through earthquakes, a film, a TV series, and a hiatus that never ended. The documented history of CLAMP’s apocalypse.

The Dragons of Heaven and the Dragons of Earth, member by member: the seven who protect humanity, the seven who would end it, and the two dreamgazers who watch them.

One name, two boys: Kamui Shiro, who must choose the world’s fate, and Fuma Monou, the best friend fated to become whatever Kamui refuses to be.

Not a cancellation and not a feud: the documented record, from CLAMP’s own 2004 PUFF interview, of earthquakes, a murder case, and an ending a magazine could not…

Rintaro’s 1996 film: 97 minutes, Nobuteru Yuki designs, X Japan on the theme, real Tokyo photographed street by street, and an ending the manga never gave.

Kawajiri’s 24-episode series follows the manga faithfully, then has to finish it. How the 2001 ending works, and how it differs from the film and the page.

In Tsubasa’s ruined Tokyo, the Dragons of Earth hold the government building’s water and Kamui and Subaru are vampire twins on the run from Seishiro. The…

Viz’s X/1999 singles, the retitling, the Animerica Extra serialization, and the 3-in-1 omnibuses that restored the right-to-left page. A complete English map.

Each original volume of X hid a major arcana illustration on its jacket flap. How CLAMP built a tarot into a manga, and how Kadokawa turned it into nineteen…

X ZERO and X INFINITY, the two Illustrated Collections: what is in them, when they appeared, and why ZERO holds the tarot card the manga volumes never printed.

The colophon test for the Asuka Comics volumes, the connecting spines, the flap tarot, and how the 2023 Premium Collection differs at a glance.

A field guide to the shelf: the Asuka set and its spines, the English singles and omnibuses, the art books, the tarot cards, and the film and series on disc.

From a rejected 2005 pitch and a 2.4 billion yen budget to the fastest-selling week in series history: the full history of Sega's Yakuza, now Like a Dragon.

Every main Yakuza and Like a Dragon game in release order with Japanese titles and dates, the spin-offs, and how the story order differs from the release order.

The 2005 PlayStation 2 original: Nagoshi's rejected pitch, a 2.4 billion yen budget, novelist Hase Seishu on the script, and a million Japanese sales.

Toshihiro Nagoshi: Sega lifer from Yu Suzuki's AM2 to chief creative officer, creator of Super Monkey Ball and Yakuza, and the man who bet on Japanese adults.

Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio: the Sega team named after its own game, from Amusement Vision through the Nagoshi era to Masayoshi Yokoyama's leadership since 2021.

Kamurocho is fictional, but its streets are Kabukicho's: the gate, the Don Quijote, the theater, and two more districts mapped from Osaka and Yokohama.

Mark Hamill as Majima, Michael Madsen, a script rewritten to chase Grand Theft Auto, and no room on the disc for the Japanese voices: the 2006 Yakuza dub.

Hostess clubs, 21 substories, mahjong and shogi: what Sega removed from Yakuza 3's 2010 Western release, and how the 2019 remaster put it back.

Yakuza 5's three-year gap, a fan campaign, and Sony funding the localization itself: how the series nearly ended in the West, and who saved it.

A 1988 prequel, bubble-era money, two young protagonists, and memes that traveled: how Yakuza 0 turned a dying Western niche into Sega's flagship.

The series was always called Ryū ga Gotoku,

An April Fools video, a creator's tall tale, and his successor's correction: the real story of how Yakuza traded real-time brawling for Dragon Quest battles.

The 2024 entry: simultaneous worldwide launch, a million copies in a week, Ichiban and Kiryu sharing the lead, Hawaii, and a whole island resort to build.

Ichiban Kasuga: the Dragon Quest-loving ex-yakuza who took over the series in 2020, voiced by the man who once played its first villain.

Kazuma Kiryu, the Dragon of Dojima: twenty years, nine main games, one grey suit, and the most reluctant legend in the medium.

Goro Majima, the Mad Dog of Shimano: Mark Hamill's most forgotten role, Zero's tragic co-lead, and in 2025 the star of his own pirate game.

Judgment and Lost Judgment: RGG Studio's detective spin-offs starring Takuya Kimura, a recasting scandal, and a PC standoff that nearly ended the branch.

The studio's period pieces: the modern cast recast as samurai two centuries apart, Miyamoto Musashi and Sakamoto Ryōma, and the nine-year wait for Ishin's remake.

Of the End in Japan: the 2011 zombie spin-off that quarantined Kamurocho, armed its heroes, and became the series' Western low-water mark.

Four verified Japanese and Western box-art pairs: Kiwami, Kiwami 2, Like a Dragon and Infinite Wealth, and what each market was being sold.

Kiwami,

RGG Studio's in-house engine since Yakuza 6: seamless cities, physics combat, measured streetlight, and the one game that left it for Unreal.

Takashi Miike's 2007 film, two Kurohyo TV dramas, the 2015 stage play, Amazon's 2024 Like a Dragon series, and Sega's own Kamutai Magazine.

Karaoke, cabaret management, arcades full of real Sega classics, and a chicken on the payroll: the minigame density is the series' theory of a city.

27.7 million copies by 2024, per entry: the 2005 million, Zero's two million, Like a Dragon's record 3.5 million, and Infinite Wealth's fastest week.

The Dragon Engine's debut and Kiryu's billed farewell: Onomichi, a baby, a faked death, and the grey suit hung up, for a while.

The 2023 side story that un-retired Kiryu: agent Joryu, Daidoji faction missions, and the bridge between Yakuza 6 and Infinite Wealth.

Majima's solo game: amnesia, a pirate ship, naval battles in the Pacific, and twenty years of scene-stealing paid off in 2025.

Hokuto ga Gotoku: RGG Studio's 2018 crossover, Kenshiro rebuilt on Yakuza's systems in the city of Eden, and the West actually got this one.

Kurohyō: Ryū ga Gotoku Shinshō: two PSP games, a younger and angrier Kamurocho, TV dramas, a manga, and no localization, ever.

Yes, complete since 2024, after 28 years. Three editions of covers, compared.