THE LIBRARY

Water Margin (Shui Hu Zhuan), the 14th-century Chinese novel of 108 outlaw heroes, documented: its authorship debate, the 36 Heavenly Spirits and 72 Earthly…

Yoshitaka Murayama (1969 to 2024) documented: the Konami decade, the creation of Suikoden, his departure a month before Suikoden III shipped and the removal of…

The history of Suikoden III (2002): the series' first 3D entry, the Trinity Sight System's three viewpoints, the Flame Champion, the missing European release,…

The history of Suikoden IV (2004): the prequel set 150 years before the series, the Rune of Punishment that eats its bearers, the ship that replaced the castle,…

Every Suikoden game mapped by era and by story: the PlayStation years, the PlayStation 2 run, the handheld departures, the thirteen-year silence, and the 2025…

The 108 Stars of Destiny as a game design, documented: where the roster comes from, why most of the army never fights, how the castle grows, and what completing…

The 27 True Runes documented: the creation myth of Sword and Shield, the rules every bearer lives under, the eighteen runes the games have actually identified,…

The Suikoden I&II HD Remaster delay documented: the September 2022 announcement, the August 2023 postponement and Konami's statement, the year of silence, and…

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes documented with care: Rabbit & Bear Studios, the 2020 Kickstarter, Murayama's death on February 6, 2024, the studio's…

Collecting Suikoden in English, documented: which games were released in English and which never were, why Suikoden II became one of the most valuable…

The visual record of Sweet Home: the 1989 Famicom box art beside the film poster it was adapted from, the cartridge, and the manual, documented.

Tokuro Fujiwara: the Capcom director of Ghosts 'n Goblins and Sweet Home, main producer of Mega Man, and the man who conceived Resident Evil as a Sweet Home remake.

Sweet Home's five-character party system explained: two parties of up to three, one essential tool per character, permanent death, and the substitute items that…

Sweet Home has five endings, decided by how many of the five filmmakers survive the final battle, not by which ones. The film's outcome is one of them.

The Sweet Home film came first, in January 1989, and the Famicom game followed in December, but the two were developed together as one production, film crew and…

Juzo Itami produced both the Sweet Home film and the Capcom game, put his name on the box, then re-edited the film after release and was sued by its director,…

Sweet Home was never localized: critics blame its gruesome imagery under Nintendo's Western content rules, the weak North American market for RPGs in 1989, and a…

The 2000 fan translation of Sweet Home by Gaijin Productions and Suicidal Translations: a year of work, the Taguchi-to-Taro compromise, and the patch every…

Sweet Home (1989) assembled survival horror's design grammar years before the term existed: the mansion, the limited inventory, the notes, the permadeath. The…

The Japanese print around Sweet Home: Futabasha's official strategy guide of January 1990 (ISBN 4-575-15154-8), the Masho no Sumu Yakata gamebook by Katsuyuki…

Collecting Sweet Home on Famicom: what a complete copy includes, the CAP-EH cartridge and its battery, PriceCharting's late-October 2026 record for loose,…

Takeshi Obata drew Death Note, working from writer Tsugumi Ohba's thumbnails. The pairing began when editors handed him the 2003 pilot chapter.

Ohba writes thumbnails with the dialogue and panel layout already in place. Obata turns them into finished art, choosing expressions and camera angles.

Tsugumi Ohba is a pen name, and the writer's real identity has never been officially confirmed. The official profile offers teacups and a thinking pose, not a name.

Ryuk began as a handsome, winged young man in the rock star mold. The final monster exists because an editor told Obata the shinigami did not have to look human.

Because the realism is researched. Light's clothes come out of fashion magazines, Misa's out of Gothic Lolita magazines, and L was engineered against Light.

Thirty years of series as Jump's go-to illustrator: a cyborg grandfather, a go phenomenon, Death Note, Bakuman, an Edge of Tomorrow manga and an angel epic.

A manga about the board game go that became a national phenomenon: 23 volumes, a hit anime, two major awards, and a generation of new go players.

Yes. Bakuman reunited Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata two years after Death Note ended, and its heroes are a writer and artist pair modeled on the same split.

Two teenagers try to become manga artists inside the real Weekly Shonen Jump machine: reader surveys, editor meetings, serialization and cancellation.

After Death Note's shinigami and Bakuman's editors, Ohba and Obata spent five years on angels: 13 candidates, one vacant throne of God, 999 days.

Cyborg Jii-chan G, a 1989 gag series about a 70-year-old scientist who rebuilds himself into a farming cyborg, published under the pen name Shigeru Hijikata.

Yes. For Castlevania Judgment on the Wii in 2008, Konami hired Takeshi Obata to redesign the whole cast, and Simon Belmont got a Death Note wardrobe.

Hiroshi Sakurazaka's 2004 time-loop novel, drawn as a manga by Obata in 2014, the same season Hollywood released its version as Edge of Tomorrow.

Obata's first full art book: the color work of 2001 to 2006, the Hikaru no Go and Death Note years, issued in Japan in 2006 and as a 10,000-copy Viz folio in 2016.

The creators of Rurouni Kenshin, Black Cat and Eyeshield 21 all came through Obata's studio, which makes him a quiet root of three separate Jump eras.