THE LIBRARY
Collector guides, cover censuses, and edition answers, documented issue by issue. Every page answers one specific question, completely.
TERRANIGMA
16 shelves
The Box Art of Terranigma
The box art of Terranigma and Tenchi Sozo: the European cover Nintendo published in 1996, Tatsuo Hashimoto and the painted Japanese box, and Kamui Fujiwara, the…
Who Is Kamui Fujiwara?
Who is Kamui Fujiwara? The manga artist of Dragon Quest: Emblem of Roto who designed Terranigma's characters, backed the 2021 fan petition to revive the game,…
Are Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia, and Terranigma a Trilogy?
Are Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia, and Terranigma really a trilogy? The fan names, Gaia Trilogy and Heaven and Earth Trilogy, against Enix USA's own producer,…
How Does Terranigma Resurrect the World?
How does Terranigma resurrect the world? Stage by stage: five towers for five continents, then plants, birds, wind, animals, and mankind, then the growth of…
What Happens at the End of Terranigma?
What happens at the end of Terranigma? The Dark Gaia twist, Ark's rebirth, Elle's sacrifice, the fall of Crysta, and the knock on the door in the epilogue. Full…
What Happened to Quintet?
What happened to Quintet? The ActRaiser studio founded in 1989 by Ys veterans Tomoyoshi Miyazaki and Masaya Hashimoto: the silent years after 2002, the closed…
What Is ActRaiser Renaissance?
What is ActRaiser Renaissance? Square Enix's 2021 remake of Quintet's 1990 god game: what it keeps, the tower defense siege quests it adds, the new land of…
Is ActRaiser a City Builder or an Action Game?
Is ActRaiser a city builder or an action game? Both, in alternation, and the join is the point: a god who fights as a statue, builds as an angel, and whose power…
How Does Soul Blazer Rebuild the World?
How does Soul Blazer rebuild the world? One monster lair at a time: every lair sealed returns a soul, a mayor, a dog, a dolphin, a talking tulip, and the towns…
Why Does Illusion of Gaia Visit Real Places?
Why does Illusion of Gaia visit real places? Will's journey runs through the Incan ruins, the Nazca Lines, Angkor Wat, the Great Wall of China, and the Egyptian…
The Music of Terranigma
The music of Terranigma: Miyoko Kobayashi and Masanori Hikichi's score, the Tenchi Sozo Creative Soundtracks album of 1995, Yuzo Koshiro's uncredited laboratory…
What Strategy Guides Does Terranigma Have?
What strategy guides does Terranigma have? Enix's official Japanese guide book and world atlas, the Club Nintendo guide packed into the German and French big…
Terranigma Redux and the Fan Patches
Terranigma Redux and the fan patches: how fans fixed the PAL game's wide spaced font with the 8x16 patch, converted it to NTSC, restored Ark's blue hair, added…
The Terranigma Books: Manga, Novels, and Atlas
The Terranigma books: Enix's official guide and world atlas, the Saori Kumi novel, the Logout Bunko novelization by Norio Nakai, the Fujiwara gamebook, the…
Collecting Terranigma: Boxes, Big Boxes, and Prices
Collecting Terranigma: the PAL standard box and the German and French big boxes, Tenchi Sozo from Japan, reproduction cartridges to avoid, and the price record…
Terranigma Returns: The 2027 Re-Release
Terranigma returns on January 14, 2027: Clear River Games and Square Enix bring the 1995 Quintet RPG to Switch, Switch 2, PS4, PS5, Xbox, and PC, with Arranged…
THE BOX ART
4 shelves
Why is Kirby angry on American box art?
Determination, per Nintendo's own localizers, plus the year America got a white Kirby.
Why is the original Mega Man box art so bad?
Ordered by morning, drawn in six hours by an artist who had never seen the game.
Why does the American Ico box art look nothing like the game?
America shipped first, before Ueda's painting existed. The packagers had a few screenshots and a deadline.
Why did Dragon Quest lose its Akira Toriyama art in America?
The 1989 box sold a Western fantasy novel instead. The art came home in 2005.
THE HEROIC LEGEND OF ARSLAN
15 shelves
The history of The Heroic Legend of Arslan
The full Arslan chronology: Yoshiki Tanaka’s novels (1986–2017, sixteen volumes), two manga, the 1991–95 films and OVAs, the 2015 anime, and the games.
The Arslan Novel Gallery
All sixteen Heroic Legend of Arslan novels documented volume by volume: the ten Kadokawa volumes with Yoshitaka Amano covers (1986–1999) and the six Kobunsha…
Who is Yoshiki Tanaka?
Yoshiki Tanaka, the novelist behind The Heroic Legend of Arslan and Legend of the Galactic Heroes: the thirty-one-year Arslan run, his detached style, and how…
Who is Yoshitaka Amano?
Yoshitaka Amano and Arslan: the Final Fantasy artist painted the first ten Kadokawa novel covers (1986–1999) and the 1991 art book Tenma no Yume. What his covers…
Why do Arslan’s covers change halfway?
Arslan’s cover artist changes because its publisher did: Amano painted Kadokawa’s ten volumes (1986–1999); Shinobu Tanno illustrated Kobunsha’s reissues and new…
How was the 1991 Arslan anime made?
The 1991–95 Arslan films and OVAs: two theatrical films (1991–92) and four OVA episodes (1993–95), Sachiko Kamimura’s designs, five novels adapted, and a story…
Who is Sachiko Kamimura?
Sachiko Kamimura, character designer of the 1991–95 Arslan films and OVAs, also the designer behind City Hunter’s and Black Jack’s TV faces, and how she…
What was the first Arslan manga?
Chisato Nakamura’s Arslan manga (Asuka Fantasy DX, 1991–1996, thirteen volumes): the shōjo adaptation that caught up with the novels and had to invent its own…
How did Hiromu Arakawa remake Arslan?
Hiromu Arakawa’s Arslan manga: launched July 9, 2013 in Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine, twenty-five volumes by October 2026, faithful to Tanaka’s novels and drawn in…
How was the 2015 Arslan anime made?
The 2015 Arslan TV anime: Liden Films and Sanzigen, director Noriyuki Abe, twenty-five episodes plus Dust Storm Dance (2016), adapting Arakawa’s manga and the…
What Arslan video games are there?
The Arslan games, verified: Sega’s Japan-only Mega-CD tactical RPG (1993), Koei Tecmo’s Arslan: The Warriors of Legend (2015–16), and the 2017–18 smartphone game.
How can you collect Arslan in English?
Collecting Arslan in English: Arakawa’s manga from Kodansha USA (2014– ), the out-of-print Central Park Media anime discs, the Warriors game, and the novels,…
Is The Heroic Legend of Arslan finished?
Which Arslan is finished: the novels (yes, volume 16, December 2017), the manga (still running toward its final arc), and both anime (no, five and six novels…
Arslan and Legend of the Galactic Heroes
Tanaka’s two epics compared: Legend of the Galactic Heroes among the stars and Arslan in a Persian mirror-world, the same detached voice, the same politics,…
What is Pars, the kingdom in Arslan?
Pars explained: Tanaka’s amalgam of a thousand years of Persia, drawn from the Amir Arsalan epic and the Shahnama, Ecbatana, Lusitania, the Sixteen Generals,…
THE MACHINES
4 shelves
Why did the Super Famicom and the American SNES look completely different?
Lance Barr's verdict on the Japanese shell: too soft, no edge, a bag of bread.
Why are the confirm and cancel buttons swapped on Japanese PlayStations?
They are not swapped in Japan. Circle means yes there. The West flipped them, and the PS5 settled it.
Why was the PC Engine called the TurboGrafx-16 in America?
NEC's own testing: Americans heard 'PC Engine' and pictured a personal computer.
Why was the Mega Drive called the Genesis in America?
A trademark stood in the way, so Sega's American arm named it for a new beginning.
THE NAMES
2 shelves
Why is Resident Evil called Biohazard in Japan?
Japan named the threat. America could not trademark it, held a contest, and named the house.
Why is Mega Man called Rockman in Japan?
Half of a rock and roll pun, changed by an executive who called the title horrible.
THE TWELVE KINGDOMS
15 shelves
The Twelve Kingdoms Novel Gallery: Akihiro Yamada’s Covers
Every Twelve Kingdoms cover Akihiro Yamada painted for the Shinchosha complete edition, verified from the publisher’s own book pages, with the 1992 White Heart…
The History of The Twelve Kingdoms
From a 1991 horror novel at Shinchosha to a fantasy epic on a girls’ label at Kodansha, an eighteen-year silence, a complete-edition homecoming, a stage musical,…
What is Kodansha X Bunko White Heart?
The Kodansha label launched in 1991 for girls who had outgrown the teen line, and how a governing epic with no romance at all became its representative work.
In what order should you read The Twelve Kingdoms?
The novels were published out of chronological order on purpose: the full publication sequence, the world’s own timeline, and the author-consulted order behind…
Who wrote The Twelve Kingdoms?
Fuyumi Ono: Buddhist studies at Ōtani University, the Kyoto University mystery-story research club, a 1988 debut in a teen horror line, and the double career of…
What else did Fuyumi Ono write?
Ghost Hunt began as the Evil Spirits series when its author was twenty-eight; Shiki turned a mountain village into horror’s slow masterpiece. The horror shelf…
Who is Akihiro Yamada?
The Record of Lodoss War novels’ painter became the Twelve Kingdoms’ only illustrator: suiboku delicacy, a Seiun Award, and thirty-five years of covers for one…
How was The Twelve Kingdoms anime made?
Studio Pierrot, NHK’s satellite prestige slot, a score built on strings, and Akihiro Yamada’s designs carried from the page: the making of the 2002 anime.
How is The Twelve Kingdoms anime different from the novels?
Two classmates who barely exist in the books, one heroine made into a frame for everyone else’s stories, and an ending that had to stop mid-search: the…
What Twelve Kingdoms video games are there?
Exactly two, both from Konami, both for the PlayStation 2, both Japan-only: an adventure-leaning retelling of Yoko’s journey and its save-carrying sequel.
Can you read The Twelve Kingdoms in English?
Twice over, now: Tokyopop’s four hardcovers of 2007 to 2010, the license’s long lapse, and Seven Seas’ author-consulted new translation that began in July 2025.
Why did The Twelve Kingdoms stop for eighteen years?
The 2001 novel ended with its king and kirin still missing. The answer took until 2019, by way of short stories, a change of publisher, and one very patient…
What is the Shinchosha edition of The Twelve Kingdoms?
In 2012 the series left the girls’ bunko world for Shinchō Bunko, Japan’s flagship paperback line, with every cover repainted and five new illustrations in every…
How can you tell a first printing of The Twelve Kingdoms?
Japanese paperbacks carry their printing history in the colophon, not the ISBN: what to check on White Heart originals, Shinchosha complete editions, and the…
How does the world of The Twelve Kingdoms work?
Thirteen lands around a sacred sea, twelve kingdoms ruled by the chosen of unicorn-like kirin, and a Mandate of Heaven that withdraws from kings who fail: the…
