The TRPGs Have Landed

I now have the care package of Japanese RPGs and such that Andy picked up for me in Japan. It’s been a while since I got more TRPG action, and now I have a huge stack of books to go through. (I put all of the pictures up on Flickr). I’ll be posting extensively about this stuff as I read it, but here’s a quick lowdown of my initial impressions.

First, here’s a picture of the loot. Be impressed.

Demon Parasite: Oni Mitama
Demon Parasite is a “Dark Henshin Hero” RPG, for stuff in the vein of Garo and Hakaider. This is apparently a complete game, basically DP with stuff based on Japanese mythology rather than just animals and such.

Dokodemo Aru Fushigi

This is a doujin from Kamiya-sensei’s circle. It’s a sort of Yuuyake Koyake/Witch Quest crossover book, with one replay for each, and a dialogue between Kamiya and Sasuu.


This is a doujinshi Touhou TRPG. I know next to nothing about Touhou, to be honest, but I’ve been meaning to rectify that. I’ve heard that it has an exceptionally good introduction to role-playing, and it does start off with a couple pages with cute little diagrams and such. Character creation apparently involves picking one of 8 flowers, and one of 5 races.

Hitotsuna Komichi

The second supplement for Yuuyake Koyake weighs in at 56 pages. The main attraction here is that you can now play as “Old Henge,” types of animals that were previously only NPC local gods: spiders, snakes, and centipedes. There are also rules for creating new types of animals, with turtles as an example. It’s also got two scenarios, some stories, and a new relationship chart.

Nekomusume Michikusa Nikki

This is the first volume of a manga by the Ike, the artist who did such wonderful artwork for Yuuyake Koyake. In some ways it’s a lot like YK, but it also goes into territory that the game definitely doesn’t. (Though if you’ve perused Ike’s site, it won’t exactly be unexpected…)

Satasupe Remix+

This is an earlier game from the publisher of Meikyuu Kingdom. The title is short for “Saturday Night Special,” and it’s a gonzo “Asian Punk RPG.” The artwork is apparently by the same artist that did most of the interior art for Meikyuu Kingdom, and pages without some kind of artwork are the exception to the rule. It looks like all kinds of crazy fun.

Savage Science


School Days Panic (Sukupani)
This game is about total weirdos attending a normal high school. You can play a soldier, a la Full Metal Panic, but the character types also include kendo practitioners, cyborgs, magicians, espers, and vampires. The game uses playing cards, and there’s definitely something neat going on with using the cards to set up relationships with pre-made NPCs from the school.

Silver Rain Supplement: Werewolves vs. Vampires


Sword World 2.0 Book 1

Sword World was the first major original RPG from Japan. Record of the Lodoss War actually takes place in a corner of its setting. And this is the second edition. It’s in bunko (Japanese paperback) format, but it’s also nearly 400 pages, and this is just Rulebook I, basically the Player’s Handbook of Sword World. Skimming through, it comes off as being kind of a generic fantasy RPG, but with a definite crazy manga/Final Fantasy/Disgaea sensibility to it.

Tsugihagi Tayori Vol. 1

Another doujin from Kamiya’s circle. It has a game called “Kosodate Dragon” (literally “Raising a Dragon,” though I’d call it “Dragon Nursery” or some such if I translated it). It also has an article about the countryside that I’m looking forward to reading, a Yuuyake Koyake store (a straight-up story written in prose), an article on the “secret story of the birth of Absolute Slaves,” and the first part of what looks like an academic paper on RPGs.

Tsugihagi Tayori Vol. 2

This volume kicks off with Mugen Daiuchuu (Infinite Universe), a mini RPG about crazy rampages through the cosmos, accompanied by a replay that’s around twice the length of the actual rules. After that, there’s an article on NPC-driven game sessions, another Yuuyake Koyake story, and a couple of YK 4-panel comics, and finally the next part of that paper.

Tsugihagi Tayori Extra


White Chaos


Yuuyake Koyake Calendar

Yeah, the year’s pretty much over, but it has more color artwork, and a mini-game on the back.



And… going through all that took me more than 2 hours. Wow.

10 thoughts on “The TRPGs Have Landed

  1. Heh.

    I’d like to have the Silver Rain art :P

    I’d say “Want!”, but that would have been if I also had the knowledge to read it, that is, about the lot.

    Not the dice, the normal dice with the big red 1, hm.

  2. Basically, we have errata type stuff from multiple people, and we need to go through and compile it all into one thing, and then apply it to the document. I’m too busy to work on it myself because I need to get my thesis done in about 2 weeks, so right now Andy’s slowly going through it when he can. Hopefully by January, but it really depends on how Real Life stuff goes.

  3. Man, Demon Parasite sounds *awesome*. I’m a fan of dark, gritty henshin heroes- Too much GARO and ZETMAN, really. Any chance of an overview?

  4. Chan,

    Eventually. The rulebook has very little art, and walls of dense text, so I’m not as enthusiastic about reading it as a lot of the other stuff I got, just because the format will make it a little headache-inducing to read.

  5. Ah, well. Still, nice to hear it. White Chaos looks quite nice, too- Sort of like Pastel Chime Continue. Damn, why can’t the West publish games like this.

  6. Looks like a really nice haul.

    The Touhou RPG intrigues me and I wish to learn more.

    If you want to start with Touhou stuff, I’d advise giving Perfect Cherry Blossom a try, and Imperishable Night. is a pretty good resources to learn about it. The best way to really learn, though, is to just immerse yourself in the fan works. You’ll pick up quite a bit from context.

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