Research: Japanese Role-Playing Games and Otaku Culture Blog: https://ogrerun.com/ Support: https://www.patreon.com/OgreRun Contact: OgreRun@protonmail.com
In 1984, Tsukuda Hobby released Roads to Lord. As one of the first original Japanese TTRPGs, Roads to Lord paved the way for the expansion of role-playing culture in Japan. I discuss the context surrounding the game’s release, its systems, and history: ogrerun.com/2026/07/26/r...
Roads to Lord and the Japanese Fantasy TTRPGTsukuda Hobby may have been the most reliant on adapting franchises, but they would also be the company to perhaps produce the most successful domestic TTRPG out of the crowd of early titles, Roads…ogrerun.comI’ve poked at this prevailing trend in a few articles and posts here now, so here’s a thread on some reading I can recommend on the subject! One of my first ever articles in which I take aim at E33’s growing reputation: ogrerun.com/2025/12/14/a...
“Anime RPG Trash” or Clair Obscur and Genre TroubleThere is a specter haunting Japanese Role-Playing Games.ogrerun.comLuckiest MageI think both titles came around a time of opposed forces - the PS2 was known as an era for large scale experimentation with Japanese RPGs but it was also during the height of critics being EXTREMELY biased against JRPGs (outside of popular IPs).
Here it is. In the February 1995 issue, the magazine announces its "Only in Japan" series which looks at games and technology exclusive to the country. The first two games to be covered are coincidentally two titles being ported from arcades to home consoles. Ridge Racer and Virtua Fighter.
Ogre RunGame Informer's preview of SaGa Frontier comes appended with this icon of a torii gate, alerting readers that the game is Japanese. I am now in the process of searching for when this first began. This is from September 1997, Issue 53.
Meanwhile.... Source: web.archive.org/web/20091231...
Ogre RunObsessing over the first issue of Dengeki Games. Published in 2009, it perfectly captures the JRPG at a moment of transition, caught between the past and the future. Final Fantasy XIII, Nier, SMT: Strange Journey, Resonance of Fate, Last Ranker, and 4 Heroes of Light.
By the way, Tomomi Kobayashi of SaGa fame has drawn several Cloud x Sephiroth doujinshi. They are beautiful, funny, tragic, and exceptionally cool! Yes, that's Cloud waking up next to Sephiroth and wearing his hair as a mustache.
Ogre RunThe irony here being that the xenophobic rhetoric against Japanese games was also often homophobic, such as EGM's response to a reader letter expressing frustration at the magazine slandering Dir en Grey.
Just learned that the September 2008 issue of EGM focuses on the perceived “death” of the Japanese video game industry. I think reading it pairs well with the Dengeki Games issue I quote below. I wonder if this is the earliest discussion of the topic in print.
Ogre RunObsessing over the first issue of Dengeki Games. Published in 2009, it perfectly captures the JRPG at a moment of transition, caught between the past and the future. Final Fantasy XIII, Nier, SMT: Strange Journey, Resonance of Fate, Last Ranker, and 4 Heroes of Light.
In 1984, Tsukuda Hobby released Roads to Lord. As one of the first original Japanese TTRPGs, Roads to Lord paved the way for the expansion of role-playing culture in Japan. I discuss the context surrounding the game’s release, its systems, and history: ogrerun.com/2026/07/26/r...
Roads to Lord and the Japanese Fantasy TTRPGTsukuda Hobby may have been the most reliant on adapting franchises, but they would also be the company to perhaps produce the most successful domestic TTRPG out of the crowd of early titles, Roads…ogrerun.comI reviewed Veritas Tales: Witch of the Dark Castle, going over the history of gamebooks in Japan and the affordances of the genre for an independent developer: ogrerun.com/2026/07/11/v...
Veritas Tales: Witch of the Dark Castle and the Good New JRPGThere are a number of origin points for the RPG including performance, wargames, cybernetics, and literature. It’s this last element that I briefly want to focus on. Following the release of TSR’s …ogrerun.comHere is the Cat's Pro reader. Perhaps a relatively minor developer of the eroge scene, but from what I've encountered, their sci-fi title Nova was a standout of 1993, consistently appearing as one of the top 10 most popular games of the month: ogrerun.com/the-cats-pro...
The Cat’s Pro ReaderThe following is a reading list centered on the video game developer Cat’s Pro. For now, it specifically focuses on print coverage, gathering advertisements, reviews, interviews, and walkthro…ogrerun.comOgre RunBrowsing old issues of Japanese PC gaming magazines is particularly great because every so often I’ll stumble on an interesting looking game I’ve never heard of. This is the PC-98 cyberpunk ADV, HHG, also known Heart Heat Girls (ハートヒートガールズ).
I have created a page gathering every single piece of print media on ELF that I've collected so far which stands at a little over 80 links. A thank you must be given to the various archivists who have made projects like this possible in the first place. The ELF Reader: ogrerun.com/the-elf-read...
The ELF ReaderThe following is a reading list centered on the video game developer ELF. For now, it specifically focuses on print coverage, gathering advertisements, reviews, interviews, and walkthroughs. Puttin…ogrerun.comOgre RunWere AliceSoft and ELF really so dominant? For ELF, we’re talking Dōkyūsei (1992) to YU-NO (1996), a run that includes Words Worth (1993), Metal Eye (1993), Shangrilia 2 (1993), and Dragon Knight IV (1994). ELF were also able to capitalize on porting games especially to the Saturn.
Hey, you may not be at Wonder Festival Summer but you can get the super cool Zimmerit/garagekit.club resin kit NIRASAI sculpted by heroic_scale. 1/144 scale. Available here: garagekit.club/products/nir...
Nirasai Resin KitThe first original garage kit from Zimmerit and garagekit.club, Nirasai is a 1/144 scale resin kit that draws on the style and look of 1980s mecha design. Comprised of 15 parts and standing roughly 5"...garagekit.club