THE LIBRARY

Every Japanese tankobon cover of Saint Seiya, volumes 1 to 28, Jump Comics, Shueisha, 1986 to 1991, each with its release date, plus the English first volume…

The Saint Seiya Final Edition is Akita Shoten’s shinsoban reissue of Kurumada’s manga, begun June 2021, and the fifth life of the series in print after the…

No. Viz Media’s Knights of the Zodiac (2004–2010) replaces Masami Kurumada’s Jump Comics cover art with a different illustration program and an American trade…

By the colophon. Japanese tankobon print their impression history on the okudzuke page; a first printing of Saint Seiya reads as the first impression with a date…

The complete Saint Seiya game census: the Famicom RPG pair of 1987–88, the Game Boy and WonderSwan chapters, the PS2 and PS3 Dimps fighters, and the mobile era…

Saint Seiya: Ougon Densetsu (1987) and Ougon Densetsu Kanketsu Hen (1988): Bandai’s two-part Famicom RPG of the Sanctuary arc, the first exported to France on…

Two Dimps fighters: Saint Seiya: The Sanctuary (2005) and Saint Seiya: The Hades (2006 in Europe, 2007 in Japan). Neither reached North America.

Dimps’ PlayStation 3 and 4 arena fighters (2013 and 2015): the first Saint Seiya console games to cover all three manga arcs, and the first to be released in…

Megumu Okada’s Gold Saint prequel: serialised in Champion Red from December 2002 to June 2013, twenty volumes plus a volume 0, followed by Episode.G Assassin and…

Shiori Teshirogi’s telling of the previous Holy War: Weekly Shonen Champion, August 2006 to April 2011, twenty-five volumes plus sixteen Gaiden volumes, with a…

Masami Kurumada’s own sequel to Saint Seiya, drawn in full colour and published irregularly in Weekly Shonen Champion from 2006 until its conclusion on July 4,…

Chimaki Kuori’s Saint Seiya, told through Athena’s female attendants the Saintias: Champion Red, August 2013 to July 2021, sixteen volumes, with a 2018 anime…

Beyond the big four: Dark Wing, Rerise of Poseidon, Saint Mariya, Kurumada’s Episode Zero and Origin shorts, the Gigantomachia novels and France’s own Time…

Because France met it first, whole, and at full volume: TF1’s Club Dorothee from 1988, an uncut wave across Europe and Latin America, while America waited until…

Toei Animation, TV Asahi, October 1986 to April 1989: 114 episodes directed by Kozo Morishita and Kazuhito Kikuchi, designed by Shingo Araki and Michi Himeno,…

All 23 feature covers, 2020 to 2026, plus the anniversary trap to avoid.

2022 No.17, and the cover is Sakamoto, not Luffy. How to identify the issue.

A retired legendary hitman running a convenience store: Yuto Suzuki's action comedy manga, its premise, cast, and run in Weekly Shonen Jump.

The artist behind the store: his route into Jump, the one shot that became the series, and the drawing approach that makes the fights readable.

The TMS Entertainment adaptation: when it aired, how it is structured, and what its split cour release means for viewers and discs.

Shueisha tankobon against the Viz volumes: size, covers, bonus material, and which edition a Jump magazine collector should pair with the issues.

Weekly Shonen Jump 2020 No. 51 and 2022 No. 17: one carries chapter one, the other carries a Sakamoto cover and One Piece's most famous modern chapter. The collector context for both.

Every object in the Serial Experiments Lain shelf pictured or described: the anime’s covers, the PlayStation game, the artbooks, the soundtracks and the…

Serial Experiments Lain explained: the 13-episode 1998 Triangle Staff anime, its premise, its makers, and why a small late-night series won the Japan Media Arts…

Yasuyuki Ueda’s original-project gamble at Pioneer LDC: Lain designed as a multimedia experiment across anime, game and manga, the game script written first, and…

Yoshitoshi ABe’s character design for Lain Iwakura: the forelock Ueda demanded, the bear pajamas Kishida demanded, the unused transforming hairclip, and the…

An Omnipresence in Wired (1999): Yoshitoshi ABe’s 128-page Lain artbook documented, its transparent slipcover, the AX Layer illustrations with Konaka’s text,…

ab# rebuild an omnipresence in wired: the 2005 Wani Magazine remake of ABe’s Lain artbook and its 2006 Digital Manga Publishing English edition, compared with…

The Nightmare of Fabrication: Yoshitoshi ABe’s 18-page full-color Lain manga, a dōjinshi collected in An Omnipresence in Wired, and the PlayStation game’s…

The 1998 Pioneer LDC PlayStation game documented: a two-disc “network simulator” designed by Konaka and Ueda, built from therapy files and diaries, ignored on…

The Serial Experiments Lain game versus the anime: same protagonist and themes, a different plot, Touko Yonera the psychiatrist, the imaginary friend, the role…

The untranslated Lain game’s fan afterlife: the 2008–2014 script translation, the 2021 lainTSX browser port, and the 100% decompilation completed in September…

Chiaki J. Konaka’s writing of Serial Experiments Lain: his horror-film influences, the Godard typography, the Alice in Cyberland inheritance, the three spellings…

Lain’s sound world documented: Akira Takemoto’s ambient score, Reichi Nakaido’s songs, the three Pioneer soundtrack albums including BOOTLEG’s CD-ROM, and the…

The Wired explained from the sources: Lain’s definition of the network, Protocol Seven, the Knights of the Eastern Calculus, the staff’s cited ancestors from…

Lain on disc, documented: Japan’s five-volume releases, the Яesurrection and TV-BOX sets, the 2009 Blu-ray RESTORE, Pioneer/Geneon’s four American volumes, the…

Lain’s 25th anniversary in 2023, documented: the Layer 3301: De-Cipher alternate-reality game, the AI lain chatbot voiced from Kaori Shimizu’s archives, Ueda’s…

Every region’s box art for Koudelka and the Shadow Hearts trilogy, Japanese, North American and European covers with the disc sets that define a complete copy.

No: all four Sacnoth games, Koudelka and the Shadow Hearts trilogy, received different box art in Japan and the West. The four regional pairs, compared.

From Sacnoth’s founding by Square expatriates in 1997 through Koudelka, the three PS2 Shadow Hearts games, the studio’s dissolution, and the Penny Blood campaign.

Sacnoth’s 1999 PlayStation horror RPG: one haunted Welsh monastery, three leads, grid battles, full English voice acting on four discs, and the foundation of…

Sacnoth and Nautilus: the Square expatriate studio Hiroki Kikuta founded in 1997, Matsuzo Machida’s creative takeover, Aruze’s ownership, and the 2009 dissolution.

Sacnoth’s 2001 PS2 RPG: Yuri Hyuga and Alice Elliot across a Lovecraftian 1913, the Judgement Ring’s debut, and a launch that collided with Final Fantasy X.

The Shadow Hearts battle system explained: the spinning disc behind every attack, spell, item and shop discount, its fighting-game and pachinko origins, and its…

Covenant’s reputation, documented: 240,000 copies, a Metascore of 85, IGN and RPGamer game-of-the-year honours for 2004, the two-disc scale, the free first game…

The third and final Shadow Hearts (2005): Johnny Garland and Shania in Prohibition-era America, the Stock gauge battle refinements, the tight schedule, and the…

The Harmonixer hero of Shadow Hearts: his Devilman-inspired design, the voice in his head revealed as Koudelka, the Fusion gift, the Mistletoe curse, and his…

The full spoiler account: Koudelka’s pendant endings, Shadow Hearts’ Atman condition, why Covenant follows the bad ending, its two doors for Yuri and confirmed…

The structural answer: Aruze’s 2007 exit from game development, Nautilus renamed and merged away by 2009, cult-scale sales, Universal Entertainment’s retained…

Matsuzo Machida’s Shadow Hearts successor: the 2022 Double Kickstarter triumph, the lawsuit over undisbursed funds, the exhausted budget, and the verified status…

The documented shelf: BradyGames’ Covenant guide (2004), Prima’s From the New World guide (2006), the missing English guides for Shadow Hearts and Koudelka, and…

The collector’s map: disc counts and catalogue numbers for all four games, the Promotional Copy variant from the Covenant pre-order, the Japan-only editions, and…

Team Silent's 1999 original: the outsider team, the fog turned into design, the editions, the scores, and the legacy.

Heather Mason's story: the direct sequel to the first game, the scrapped rail shooter, the editions, the scores, and the legacy.

Walter Sullivan and Room 302: Team Silent's last game, the room as trap, the editions, the divided scores, and the legacy.

The Japanese and American boxes side by side, red panes against a face in green fog, with the history and the questions behind them.

Team Silent's 2001 sequel: how it was made, Pyramid Head's design, the editions, the scores, and the legacy.

A hardware limit, per the developers' own postmortem, that Toyama turned into design.

The expanded Japanese edition, and what its name actually promises buyers.

Jacob's Ladder, Lynch, Bacon and Wyeth, from the creators' own lists.

Centralia inspired the film, not the 1999 game. The record, separated.

Portraits in fog in America, graphic design in Japan, checked cover by cover.

Akira Yamaoka, who volunteered for the job, then took over every sound in the game, music and noise alike.

The 2007 PSP prequel explained: trucker Travis Grady, the burning house, and the game that tried to explain how Silent Hill began.

The 2008 American entry explained: soldier Alex Shepherd, the neighboring town of Shepherd's Glen, and the most divisive combat in the series.

The 2009 reimagining explained: Harry Mason retold in ice instead of rust, a therapy frame that profiles the player, and no combat at all.

The last two games of the 2012 wave explained: the open, rainy Downpour and the Vita dungeon crawler that took the series somewhere entirely new.

Wright said it himself: building islands for a bombing game was more fun than bombing them, and urban dynamics theory brought the city alive.

Maxis recorded a live score and put a jazz composer in charge. Why jazz, exactly, nobody documented, and the page says so.

Sue Kasper wrote 2000, Soyo Oka the SNES score, and Jerry Martin directed 3000 and 4. The credits, corrected.

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.

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.

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.

Reader letters from new players, the Slam Dunk Scholarship, and the Japan Basketball Association commendation that made the phenomenon official.

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.

Takehiko Inoue's basketball manga ran in Weekly Shonen Jump from 1990 to 1996 and follows Shohoku High's impossible run at the national tournament.

Slam Dunk debuted in Jump issue 42 of 1990 and ended in issue 27 of 1996, one of the defining series of the magazine's best-selling era.

The count depends on the edition: 276 chapters collected as 31 tankobon, 24 kanzenban or 20 shinsoban volumes, all complete.

The 2018 shinsoban reorganized 31 volumes into 20, split at match endings and titled by matchup, with every cover newly drawn by Inoue.

Viz's English edition uses the original tankobon cover art. Inoue's 2018 redrawn covers were never used on an English print edition.

The kanzenban is the 24-volume Jump Comics Deluxe edition of 2001-2002, printed larger with the magazine color pages restored.

10 Days After is the 2004 epilogue Inoue drew in chalk on 23 blackboards at a closed Kanagawa school to mark 100 million copies.

Slam Dunk's first digital edition arrived June 2, 2025, all 20 shinsoban volumes, announced by Inoue himself with reading advice.

The film grossed 15.73 billion yen in Japan on its first run and about $279 million worldwide, the most any basketball film has earned.

The film retells the Sannoh game through point guard Ryota Miyagi, adding the family backstory the manga only implied.

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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 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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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 beyond the fighters: the Neo Geo at home and in the arcade, Metal Slug, Magician Lord, and Baseball Stars, cover by cover.

One cartridge system for the arcade and the home: the MVS, the AES, the $649.99 launch, and fourteen years of software.

A $649.99 console and games at $200 and up, because the home machine was the arcade machine, cartridges and all.

The code is identical and the ROMs even swap. The pinout is the lock, built to stop operators buying cheaper home carts.

Bankruptcy in 2001 at 38 billion yen of debt, then founder Kawasaki's Playmore won the catalog at auction and became SNK again.

Nazca's 1996 run and gun: Irem veterans, a failed tank prototype, Marco and Tarma, and the series SNK bought with its makers.

Yes. The slower tank only prototype failed its location tests, so the soldiers got out and the game got longer.

Alpha Denshi's launch wizard: six transformations, a difficulty spike chosen on purpose, and an arcade flop that topped the AES chart.

SNK's 1989 NES classic and its Neo Geo sequels: the saved season, created teams, and the depth the bigger machines gave back.

Battery saves in a baseball game, create a player on the NES, and a prestige economy with free agents, all in one 1989 cartridge.

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.

Chugong, a pen name, serialized the web novel on KakaoPage from July 2016 to March 2018: 270 chapters about the weakest hunter alive.

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.

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.

Twenty-one extra webtoon episodes from 2023, drawn by REDICE STUDIO's DISCIPLES team after Dubu's death, bridging into the Ragnarok sequel.

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.

Cards, posters, acrylic goods and guild badges, different in every volume. Korea's two-tier system is the collector tier of the print run.

Fifteen, complete in March 2026: thirteen story volumes plus two side-story volumes, full color at $20 each from Yen Press and Ize Press.

No. It is a $125 deluxe hardcover of the eight prose novels, illustrated with Dubu's webtoon art. No English comic omnibus exists.

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.

Twenty-five: twelve episodes in 2024 and thirteen in 2025 from A-1 Pictures, plus the ReAwakening compilation film and two Blu-ray waves.

The sequel: Daul's web novel about Jinwoo's son Suho, finished in 2025, and a REDICE webtoon that has already changed artists once.

Netmarble's action RPG, launched May 8, 2024. Fifteen million pre-registrations, $100 million in three months, 50 million downloads by October.

SEGA's Xross Link prize figures lead the official figure shelf. The best Dubu art book in English comes inside a Blu-ray box.

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.

Two art directions for the same hedgehog: Ohshima's rounded original against Sega of America's local redraws.

America replaced the soundtrack in two months: Hataya and Ogata's score out, Spencer Nilsen's in. The Past tracks stayed Japanese.

Always Eggman in Japan. Renamed Robotnik in America in 1991 without asking the developers, then merged back together by Sonic Adventure.

Japan's manuals needed no origin story. America's internal Sonic Bible invented one, and Britain's Sonic the Comic adopted it.

Japanese and American covers side by side for the six documented games: pop typography against airbrushed paintings, and the Dreamcast convergence that ended the split.

The 1991 original: the mascot mandate, Naka's rolling ball engine, Nakamura's film score approach, and 15 million bundled copies.

Nakayama's 1990 order, the internal contest, Ohshima's Central Park survey, and the composer who took the job for the beat Mario feeling.

Ohshima on the record: the Bad album cover and Santa Claus behind the red shoes, Sega blue, and a wartime pilot's nose art.

California built sequel: Tails and the name compromise, the Spin Dash, and the Sonic 2sday launch that sold out 3.2 million cartridges.

Ohshima's Japan made sequel: time travel after Back to the Future, Amy and Metal Sonic's debuts, and the best selling Sega CD game.

One game split by cartridge costs and a promotional deadline, rejoined by lock on technology. Four million copies, and the Michael Jackson music question behind it.

His collaborator says yes, and uncredited at his own request. The studio director says the work was removed. The producer confirmed it in 2022. Weighed by tier.

The ten month Dreamcast build: Peru and Guatemala fieldwork, Uekawa's winning redesign, and the best selling game on the console.

Sonic Team USA's anniversary game: Hero and Dark campaigns, Shadow built as an American antihero, and the last Sonic on a Sega console.

Soul Eater is Atsushi Ohkubo's manga about students who hunt evil souls in Death City. This page covers its premise, run and place in shonen manga.

Atsushi Ohkubo created Soul Eater and Fire Force. This page follows his path from assistant work and B. Ichi to two of his generation's defining series.

Soul Eater began as three one shot prologues before it became a series. This page traces its Gangan serialization and the road to 25 volumes.

Lord Death's academy sits under a laughing sun. This page explains Death City, the DWMA, soul wavelengths and the order the school defends.

Maka and Soul, Black Star and Tsubaki, Kid and the Thompsons. This page profiles the three lead teams and what each pairing says about the series.

Studio Bones made Soul Eater a 2008 phenomenon. This guide covers director Takuya Igarashi, the 51 episode run and its famous openings.

The Bones anime invented its own finale in 2009; Ohkubo's manga ended in 2013 on the Moon. This page compares the two endings without spoiling their best beats.

NOT! shows the academy's ordinary students. This guide covers Ohkubo's spin off manga, its halloween of everyday school life and its 2014 anime.

Before Soul Eater there was B. Ichi, a four volume series full of its ideas in embryo. This page reads B. Ichi as the blueprint for everything after.

Fire Force ends by rebuilding the world, and Soul Eater fans recognized the address. This page explains the connection Ohkubo hid for six years.

Ohkubo's art made Soul Eater unmistakable. This page studies the Halloween iconography, street fashion design and the architecture of Death City.

Each Soul Eater tankobon cover is a poster for its arc. This gallery page reads the cover program from the prologue volume to the Moon war finale.

Yen Press built Soul Eater's English life. This guide compares the 25 single volumes, the NOT! and B. Ichi releases and Square Enix's Perfect Edition.

Ohkubo's art carries its own books. This guide covers the two Soul Art collections, the Japanese guidebooks and what each volume actually contains.

Soul Eater's games stayed in Japan. This guide covers the Wii, DS and PlayStation titles released alongside the anime in 2008.

He said a narrower thing. The record, the quote, and the headlines that widened it.

Two cancelled series, three one-shots, and an editor's ban on drawing anything dark.

Every chair identified, in Endo's stated reasoning, plus the volume that breaks the pattern.

A Jump+ original, built for the platform by an editor and author who moved there together.

Tatsuya Endo drew dark manga for nineteen years before Spy x Family. The Ibaraki artist, his editor of a decade, and the assistants' years, documented.

Endo's 2007 debut serialization: a New York sniper assassin raised by a religious order. Two volumes, and the dark template Spy x Family inverted.

Gekka Bijin: the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter rebuilt as a moon-empire coup, serialized 2010 to 2012 in five volumes. Endo's second dark series.

Jump Comics+ paperbacks since July 4, 2019: obi bands, colophon printing records, million-copy first runs, and the volume that broke the chair rule.

Same Endo covers, different object: Viz's June 2, 2020 paperback runs 220 pages to Japan's 212, at a larger trim, with Casey Loe's translation inside.

Extra Missions, Short Missions and the Top Secret dossiers: the volumes print stories and files the Jump+ chapters never carried.

Because two art teams drew it. Endo pens the manga; Kazuaki Shimada redesigned the cast for animation at Wit Studio and CloverWorks, under Endo's eye.

The 2023 film: an original story Endo supervised but did not write, a ¥6.32 billion (about $40 million) Japanese run, and a 4-million-copy booklet.

Yes: Toho's Musical Spy x Family premiered at Tokyo's Imperial Theatre on March 8, 2023, with four Anyas in rotation, and returned for a 2025 tour.

A light novel, an official fanbook, an animation art book and shelves of guidebooks: the documented shelf beside the seventeen volumes.

Over 42 million copies in circulation by April 2026, on seventeen volumes: the fastest rise ever recorded by a Shonen Jump+ original.

The Insomniac trilogy on one shelf: the Japanese and American boxes for the first game, the Year of the Dragon cover, and the histories of all three.

Insomniac's 1998 original: the panoramic engine, Stewart Copeland's score, nearly five million copies, and the slower Japanese rebuild.

One game, three names: Ripto's Rage in America, Gateway to Glimmer in PAL regions, and Tondemo Tours in Japan, with Moneybags and Avalar.

Insomniac's 2000 farewell: the playable critters, a 91 on Metacritic, over three million copies, and the Japanese release that never happened.

The American game made Japanese players sick, so Sony rebuilt it slower. The backstory, told in full.

Stewart Copeland of the Police, who played every level first, then wrote a quadruple album of backing tracks every summer for four years.

Star Ocean exists because Tales of Phantasia went wrong at the management level: Gotanda, Norimoto and Asanuma walked out of Wolf Team and founded tri-Ace in 1995.

Star Ocean (1996) tied for the largest Super Famicom cartridge ever sold at 48 megabits, then used an S-DD1 decompression chip to hold still more, plus a voiced…

The first Star Ocean (Super Famicom, July 19, 1996): Roddick’s time-travel story on Roak, the debut of real-time battles, Private Actions and item creation.

The Second Story tells one journey through two witnesses: Claude the Federation outsider and Rena the Expel native, with exclusive scenes, recruits and endings.

The Eternal Sphere twist, documented carefully: what Till the End of Time (2003) reveals about its universe, how it foreshadows it, and how later games stepped…

Star Ocean: The Last Hope (2009): the series prequel, Edge Maverick’s first voyage in S.D. 10, its Xbox 360 launch and the PS3 International edition that followed.

Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness (2016): the series’ return after seven years, seamless battles with seven fighters, Akiman’s designs, and its mixed…

Star Ocean: The Divine Force (2022): dual protagonists return, Raymond and Laeticia, the flying D.U.M.A. system, and the widest launch the series has ever had.

Motoi Sakuraba: the progressive-rock keyboardist who has scored every main Star Ocean, most Tales games, Valkyrie Profile, Golden Sun and the Dark Souls series.

Star Ocean: The Second Story R (2023): Gemdrops’ remake, its 2.5D pixel-and-3D art style, new Kajimoto illustrations, full voice, and Sakuraba’s rearranged score.

Star Ocean on paper and on TV: Mayumi Azuma’s Second Story manga (1999-2001), the Star Ocean EX anime, the drama CDs that finished the story, and the later manga.

The English map of Star Ocean: the game Enix America never lived to ship, Sony’s rescue of The Second Story, Ubisoft’s Europe, and the road to simultaneous launches.

Japanese and American guide covers side by side: several official books for one game in Japan, one licensed book per game in America, and the hardcover survivors.

Four licensed Twilight Princess guides in Japan against one licensed guide in America: two licensing models, documented in counts and in a guide writer's words.

Nintendo Power, the Player's Guides of 1991 to 2007, and a hint telephone line: at the start, the platform holder was the guide industry.

BradyGames, 1997, 224 pages: 150,000 copies in weeks against a 70,000 industry ceiling, and the three reasons Brady's own staff gave.

GameSpot's 1997 comparison of three guides: the official BradyGames book spoiled the story, and the cheaper Versus Books book protected it.

SquareSoft's PlayOnline portal, BradyGames' pushback, and the Final Fantasy X license at stake, in veteran guide writer Doug Walsh's account.

A 2015 merger retired one name, free guide websites retired the other's print business in 2019, and the surviving name became a website.

Piggyback's four games a year in five languages and Future Press's 512 page hardcovers that sell out: print survived by becoming a collector's object.

Art the game maker handed over exclusively, concept art printed first in a guide, and art the guide makers invented themselves, from clay figures to fake newspapers.

One boss was a Mike Tyson parody named Mike Bison. Capcom rotated three names rather than risk the lawsuit.

Five arcade editions, each answering a problem: unplayable bosses, bootlegs, new hardware, lost speed, a hidden demon.

Nobody. A mistranslated taunt plus an April Fools' prank built the most famous fighter who never existed.

Yoko Shimomura, nearly all of it, written country first and then written again at danger tempo.

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,…