Koutetsu Sangokushi: Lu Xun Would Strew the Very Ground with His Liver & Brains to Requite His Dear Master's Love

Of the three sides that made up China's Three Kingdoms era, the origin of Eastern Wu is probably the most interesting, mainly because it was very heavily based around family. Allegedly claiming to be a descendant of the legendary general Sun Tzu, the attributed author of The Art of War, Sun Jian was the patriarch of the Sun Family when the Yellow Turban Rebellion started in 184 AD/CE & was also part of the later coalition that formed in an attempt to dethrone Dong Zhuo from his tyrannical reign. During the attempted coup Sun Jian found the imperial seal, which had been hidden away after Dong Zhuo's forces left then-capital Luoyang, and felt that this discovery was proof that it was his family's destiny to eventually rule over the land. Unfortunately, Sun Jian would later be killed by the forces of Liu Biao in 191 via an ambush, upon which his oldest son Sun Ce took command at only the age of 16. It was Sun Ce who would conquer the lands of Jiangdong & Wu throughout the 190s, which is where his nickname of "The Little Conqueror" would come from, before he himself would be killed in 200, though the exact circumstances of his death are debated; Romance would take a more supernatural path via the sorcerer Gan Ji. Command would then go to Sun Ce's little brother Sun Quan, who would eventually go on to found Eastern Wu in the region that Sun Ce had taken control of. Decades later Wu would be the final kingdom to fall when the Jin dynasty conquered it in 280, at this point (poorly) ruled by Sun Quan's grandson Sun Hao, bringing an end to the Three Kingdoms era itself. While Sun Quan is technically the central figure of Wu & is contemporary to Liu Bei & Cao Cao, in truth Wu is very much a story about the Sun Family as a whole, and the friends, family, & allies they accumulated to get to that point.

In that regard I can sort of see why, whenever anime adaptations of Romance were made back in the 80s & 90s, the focus was put primarily on Liu Bei & Cao Cao, as those two made for the perfect "protagonist/antagonist" pairing, and Wu would only really get involved when it came to the iconic Battle of Chibi (& Sun Jian discovering the imperial seal, before that). Also, despite their importance in the overall story of the era itself, Wu was kind of doing its own thing for the most part, as once Sun Ce found a proper home for his people before his death they were essentially an uninvolved third party until Cao Cao started encroaching on their territory & Zhuge Liang decided to use Wu to help hold back Cao Cao's ambitions, in order for Liu Bei to properly establish his own kingdom of Shu. Still, there is an interesting story to be found within Wu, and in 2007 a TV anime would be produced that finally put the focus on the seemingly oft-ignored third kingdom. Co-produced by NAS and (of all companies) Konami Digital Entertainment, Koutetsu Sangokushi/Steel Three Kingdoms debuted in late-night on TV Tokyo on April 5, 2007 & was part of a larger multimedia "Koutetsu Sangokushi Project" which included a manga version by KYO that actually came first in late 2006, as well as a radio program that debuted the prior January & aired throughout the entire year, two light novels that acted as both a prequel & collection of side stories, a trio of drama CDs, and even a stage show in June of 2008. Oddly enough, considering that Konami's literal video game division was a co-producer, there was no Koutetsu Sangokushi video game... and this was back when Konami was still very much active in the video game business, as seen the last time Konami was related to an NAS-produced TV anime.

Anyway, I remember when Koutetsu Sangokushi first debuted back in the day & I was admittedly a bit curious about giving it a go, since I super into Dynasty Warriors 5 & felt that it was cool to see Wu be given the focus in an anime, for once. So I gave the show a try via the fansubs as it was coming out, but after a few episodes just never got back to it, partially due to how... different it was; I'll get to that in a bit. However, this show would wind up being the first (&, to this day, only) TV anime adaptation of Romance of the Three Kingdoms to ever see an official English release when it was added to Viki's catalog for streaming in May of 2012, alongside Don Dracula, The Three-Eyed One, & Marvelous Melmo; yeah, one of these is not like the others, for sure. However, unlike the modern Rakuten Viki that exists, this was back when Viki almost exclusively relied on crowd-sourced translations for all of its offerings (the first 19 episodes of Koutetsu were subbed as of the ANN news article, but I can't vouch for the rest), and the site itself wasn't really known that much by anime fans in the first place; regardless, it's definitely not streaming anywhere officially in English anymore. Despite how I wound up trailing off of the show back in the day I still always have had some curiosity about Koutetsu Sangokushi, and since this year I decided to watch & review a bunch of anime adaptations of Romance I might as well include this series in the festivities, mainly because it's the de facto Wu-focused adaptation... even though it's easily the loosest "adaptation" of them all.

Obscusion B-Side: Hresvelgr (Formula Highpowered & International Edition/Jet Ion GP): Damn It, Gust, You're an Alchemist, Not a Pilot!

When it comes to video games, it's kind of natural for certain developers to become associated with specific genres & the like, and when they break away from that association it kind of makes the game more notable for that very reason... or possibly infamous. For example, Square is known mainly for its RPGs, which made a shoot 'em up like 1997's Einhänder all the more interesting to see from the company, especially since Einhänder is a rather cool shooter. Meanwhile, a company like Capcom is known for developing within a wide variety of genres, but then you still have titles from outside of their wheelhouse, like racing sims Auto Modellista & Group S Challenge/Circus Drive, or the Finder Love games on PSP, which mixed together dating sims with photography sequences starring real-life bikini models. There's nothing inherently wrong with a game studio trying something different from what they're normally known for, but at the same time there is always that feeling of "They don't tend to make these kinds of games for good reason", even if the game itself actually winds up being really good.

So did the subject of this B-Side manage to succeed "in spite of" being outside of its developer's comfort zone, or was it an example of proving people's hesitation right? Let's find out!

Founded on October 1, 1993 in Nagano, Gust was formed as a spin-off of the amusement software development division of Keiken System (which owned Gust until December 2011, when Koei Tecmo acquired the studio) & initially started off as a doujin developer. Gust would make its retail debut in 1994 with The Story of King Aress, a tactical RPG for the PC-98 that notably featured character designs by mangaka Seisaku Kanou, but it didn't take long for the studio to "go legit". Gust would become an officially licensed developer following The Story of King Aress & would make their "official" debut with Falcata in 1995 for the PlayStation, which was another tactical RPG-like title. However, RPGs weren't the only things that Gust would develop in its first few years, as while the studio would eventually become successful with the release of Atelier Marie: The Alchemist of Salburg for the PS1 in 1997 (which, in turn, would create a franchise that's still going strong to this day) it also made a variety of adventure-style games, namely the Welcome House duology in 1996, Karyujou/Fire Dragon Girl in 1997, & The Adventures of Robin Lloyd in 2000, all for the PS1 (& Sega Saturn, for the first Welcome House). Gust was even (allegedly) hired to develop a fighting game that wound up never coming out due to publisher Zamuse going out of business... though the TV anime adaptation produced by Toei Animation did actually air in late 1994. While RPGs were definitely already becoming Gust's bread & butter by 2000, the studio was still willing to experiment with other genres.

However, that would all change after that specific year. Five months following The Adventures of Robin Lloyd came out on January 6, 2000, & two months after Windows PC ports of Atelier Marie & Atelier Elie that April, Gust would release its very first "next-gen" title: Hresvelgr: Formula Highpowered. Named after the eagle-shaped jötunn that created the wind seen in Norse mythology, Hresvelgr was released on June 22, 2000, was Gust's very first game for the PlayStation 2 (which Gust would primarily develop for up through 2008), & as a racing game was also a first for Gust. However, it wasn't just your standard racing game, by any means, because Hresvelgr was a rarity by being a futuristic air racing game. Due to it being a PS2 game that came out prior to the console's international launch later that fall it wound up getting some international coverage at the time, with the likes of both IGN & GameSpot giving it rather poor "import" reviews, with complaints mainly being directed at the controls, sense of speed, & lack of any multiplayer at all; the reviews in Japan itself apparently were only marginally better. Gust would seemingly take the reception into account, though, as on December 21, 2000 (only six months later) Hresvelgr: International Edition would see release in Japan, which added in a new track (plus reverse races for all tracks) & two-player split-screen, as well as some tweaks to the gameplay. As the subtitle indicates, this update came about because it was actually planned for an international release, with Crave Entertainment even announcing an English release, under the name "Fusion GT", mere days after the initial Japanese version came out. However, despite that early announcement the only international release would happen in European regions in March of 2002, now under the name Jet Ion GP, with Ubi Soft handling the release there, though Crave was still credited for the localization itself. Hresvelgr would effectively end Gust's efforts in genres outside of RPGs, and aside from life sim Ciel Nosurge in 2012 (which itself was a spin-off of the Ar Tornelico RPGs) & Atelier Questboard in 2014 (a mobile spin-off of Atelier Rorona) the studio wouldn't attempt something wholly new & different from its usual fare until 2015's Nights of Azure, a hack-&-slash game (though still with action RPG mechanics); meanwhile, Hresvelgr remains Gust's one & only racing game in its entire catalog.

Was Hresvelgr truly so bad that it made Gust decide to never make another non-RPG (related game) ever again? Did International Edition/Jet Ion GP actually improve on the original in any way? I've admittedly always been curious about this game ever since it was first previewed & import reviewed back in 2000, so it's time to see how Hresvelgr holds up 25 years later.

Tekken Chinmi: Get Ready for the Next Battle!

In today's modern world of entertainment, where streaming has become such a focal point, the idea of various works never receiving some sort of physical release, one that someone can purchase & hold on to for future viewing (regardless of its availability in the digital realm), has become more & more of a reality. Even looking at things solely from an anime perspective there are now tons of anime that are only available outside of Japan via streaming (if they're even still available, in that form) but will more than likely never see a physical release, and even in Japan there are anime that remain without a proper physical release at all, for one reason or another. However, that's not to say that they are always "lost anime", as while they may not have regular physical availability they are still known to exist, & in Japan may ever get re-aired every once in a while. I bring this up because the subject of this review is one of those very examples in Japan, as while it's never received a "proper" home video release it's by no means "lost", as I managed to eventually find rips of it. They're admittedly not high-quality rips, but they're nowhere near the worst I've ever seen, or even anywhere near the worst I've had to rely on for a review (of some sort) here.

Born on July 29, 1960 in Asahikawa, Kamikawa, Hokkaido, the same exact town both Kazuhiro Fujita & Buichi Terasawa were both born in, Takeshi Maekawa would graduate from Daito Bunka University (where he was a member of the Manga Research Club OB) before making his debut in manga in late 1983. Said debut was with Tekken/Ironfist Chinmi (sometimes also referred to as Kung Fu Boy) in the pages of Monthly Shonen Magazine, which showed the rise of the titular Chinmi as he went from a mere martial arts student to a hero of the people when in need. While he also made other manga, like billiards series Break Shot (his other major work, at 16 volumes), soccer series The Striker, sumo series Hakkeyoi, & even a fellow martial arts series with Kung Fu Tao, Tekken Chinmi is the one that continues to run to this day... technically. You see, the original Tekken Chinmi ran until early 1997 & totaled 35 volumes, but the very next issue of Monthly Magazine saw the debut of New Tekken Chinmi, due to Chinmi now being a master in his own right, which ran until late 2004 for an additional 20 volumes. Then, after a two-year break, Maekawa returned to his iconic series in late 2006 with Tekken Chinmi Legends, still within the pages of the Monthly Magazine, which is still running to this day & currently at 28 volumes (making 83 volumes, in total), but has been on hiatus since 2021 due in part to circumstances following the COVID-19 pandemic; there is also Tekken Chinmi Gaiden, which collects various side-story one-shots & remains at four volumes since 2015. However, it was announced on May 8 that Tekken Chinmi Legends would finally be returning in the October 2025 issue of Monthly Shonen Magazine, marking the return of the magazine's longest-running manga series (by age) after a near five-year hiatus; Monthly Magazine's longest-running manga series (by length) is Dear Boys by Hiroki Yagami, at a current total of 95 volumes. I should also note that Tekken Chinmi did actually see English release (only in the UK) between 1995 & 1996 as Ironfist Chinmi, by way of Bloomsbury with a translation by the legendary Jonathan Clements, but only made it 12 volumes in before stopping; this looks to be the only manga Bloomsbury ever released. Still, it was published in right-to-left fashion, predating TokyoPop's industry standardizing move to that orientation in the US & Canada by around five years!

Naturally, with a manga as long-running & iconic for Monthly Shonen Magazine as this, as well as having won the Kodansha Manga Award for Shonen manga in 1987, it's understandable that an anime adaptation of Tekken Chinmi had to have happened at some point. That came to be throughout the second half of 1988 with a 20-episode TV anime produced by Ashi Pro & Toho, though it's not quite an exact 1:1 adaptation of the manga, complete with a couple of anime-only characters. However, despite having been re-aired since then & even being made available via streaming in Japan at points, the Tekken Chinmi anime has never received a proper home video release, whether that be via VHS, DVD, or Blu-Ray. The only exception would be Tekken Chinmi: Kenpo Daizukan/The Great Illustrated Guide to Kenpo, a VHS tape that came out sometime in 1989, but at just 32 minutes it's obviously nowhere near a "complete" representation of the anime. Obviously, I can't even guess as to why the Tekken Chinmi anime has never been available for purchase physically, outside of a single VHS tape that likely is just a themed recap, despite the manga being readily available in Japan digitally, both via individual volumes & even bundles. Personally, though, I do have a bit of a soft spot for Takeshi Maekawa, as when I was first really getting into manga in the mid-00s, shortly after really getting into anime, I actually came across old fan translations of some of Maekawa's works, namely the first couple volumes of Break Shot & his one-volume historical drama Hoshi no Ken. I quickly found out about Tekken Chinmi, but even back then its length made me hesitate to get into it (hell, the fan translation for the OG run apparently only finished up last year!), but I have always been curious about the anime, even if it has no English translation whatsoever; there's word of an English dub having been made, but I can't find any proof of its existence.

Is the Tekken Chinmi anime without a (proper) home video release "for good reason", or is it simply just a victim of factors beyond its control preventing an otherwise enjoyable anime from being traditionally purchasable? Time to check it out for myself & see if the Tekken Chinmi anime is more Marshall Law or Forest Law.

Obscusion B-Side: The "Origin of Heaven"... in Japan?! Tengen & Time Warner Interactive's Japan-Exclusive Games

After Atari, Inc. lost owner Warner Communications $500 million by the end of the Summer of 1983, it was decided that Warner would sell off the home & computer division of Atari, which wound up in the hands of Jack Tramiel, leading to the creation of Atari Corporation. However, the arcade division of Atari was still profitable & wound up staying with Warner, with it getting renamed Atari Games. As per the agreement between Warner & Tramiel, Atari Games would be allowed to continue using the "Atari" name, but only as long as the word "Games" always came after it (this would not prevent many people from thinking that it was all still one singular "Atari", even to this very day), and it could only use the "Atari" name in arcades, not in the consumer market, i.e. home consoles & computers. However, once Nintendo revitalized the home console market with the NES it didn't take long for Atari Games to want to have a piece of that pie. They would license out their titles to Atari Corp. so that ports would see release on the 2600, 7800, & later Lynx, but when it came to non-Atari hardware Atari Games decided to do it themselves, resulting in the creation of Tengen.

Named after the "Origin of Heaven", i.e. the center point on a go board (similar to how the "Atari" name was also a go reference), Tengen was founded in 1987 & initially started off as your standard third-party Nintendo licensee, releasing Gauntlet, R.B.I. Baseball (a localization of the first Famista game), & Pac-Man for the NES as official releases in mid-to-late 1988. The latter two games were the result of Atari Games' close relationship with Namco, which had been majority owner of Atari Games from 1985 to 1987. At the time Namco had infamously decided to not agree to be a licensee for Nintendo of America, due to the terms, instead preferring to license its Famicom games out to other companies for international release, like Bandai, Sunsoft, & Tengen; Namco wouldn't publish its first NES game until 1993. Similarly, Tengen was also no fan of Nintendo's licensee terms & never planned on staying official, so after those initial three games it went rogue & became an unlicensed third-party, illegally acquiring a copy of Nintendo's lock-out program, so as to bypass it, by telling the US Copyright Office that they needed it for potential litigation against Nintendo. The initial unofficial releases would start a legal battle between Nintendo & Tengen that would hound the latter for pretty much its entire life (under that name, at least), during which Tengen would eventually find fairer pastures over with Sega of America & its Genesis, Game Gear, & (in Europe) Master System, among some other short-lived deals on other hardware, like TurboGrafx-16, PCs, & even the SNES (via officially licensed third-parties, like Mindscape & THQ, for that last one).

However, Tengen (& Atari Games) wasn't solely operating in North America & Europe. Established in 1988, Tengen, Ltd. was Tengen (Inc.)'s Japanese subsidiary that not only released Japanese versions of Tengen's titles, plus both James Bond 007: The Duel & MIG-29 Fighter Pilot for Domark, but also did some development of its own; from here on out I'll just refer to it as "Tengen Japan". More often than not this was in regards to port jobs, but occasionally Tengen Japan developed original games, though the only one of those that ever saw release outside of Japan would be 1991's Magical Puzzle Popils for the Game Gear. And, in that case, we reach the subject of this overview: Japan-exclusive releases! Shockingly enough, there were only seven games (via eight releases) put out by Tengen, & its later incarnation of Time Warner Interactive, that only ever saw release in Japan (at least back in the day, for two of them), and they actually wind up coinciding with the final years of Atari Games' console division, in general. So let's go over Tengen & Time Warner Interactive's Japan-exclusive games, all while seeing how an infamous third-party console developer/publisher eventually got put out to pasture.

Twelve Iconic & Influential Mangaka to Have Yet to See Official English Release Part 2

A very strict requirement when it came to compiling this list is that the mangaka must not have been published officially in English at all... in any way. Therefore any official English release of a manga featuring a mangaka's name disqualified them from contention, even if said manga was by no means what one would call "representative" of their notoriety. For example, I was all ready to include the late Shinji Wada (creator of Sukeban Deka) in this list, only for me to realize that Wada had actually been officially published in English in the past, namely by way of Crown, a mid-00s manga that Wada only wrote (with You Higiri doing the artwork) that Go! Comi managed to release only two volumes of before going out of business in 2010; still, it's an official English manga release for Shinji Wada, so I had to remove him. I also would have absolutely loved to include Kazuhiko Shimamoto (creator of Blazing Transfer Student, Moeyo & Hoero Pen, & Aoi Honou/Blue Blazes), but I own TokyoPop's release of Shimamoto's sequel/reboot to Shotaro Ishinomori's The Skull Man from the early 00s, and while that manga is generally considered to not be one of Shimamoto's stronger works it remains the only time he was ever officially published in English and, therefore, DQs him from the list.

However, there is one absolute icon of manga, right up there with the likes of Osamu Tezuka, Shotaro Ishinomori, & Shigeru Mizuki in how influential he was on manga, who has yet to be officially published in English, so let's start the second half of this list with him!

Born on June 18, 1934, Mitsuteru Yokoyama was inspired to become a mangaka after reading Tezuka's Metropolis back in the 40s, & after graduating high school worked at both the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation & later a movie company in his hometown of Kobe while making manga on the side. Yokoyama would then hit it big in 1956 with Tetsujin 28, which would become one of the most popular of its era (rivaling the popularity of Tezuka's Tetsuwan Atom/Astro Boy) & the anime adaptation by TCJ (now Eiken) in 1963 would then get released around the world, where it took the name Gigantor. Tetsujin 28 is also generally considered the modern origin of the mecha genre, especially for anime, & the idea of creating (or at least solidifying) entire genres would become a common thread for Yokoyama. Aside from mecha Yokoyama is also associated with helping define magical girls with Sally the Witch, establish some of the earliest framework of battle manga with Babel II, help solidify ninja manga with both Iga no Kagemaru & Kamen no Ninja Akakage, create one of the earliest manga & TV "media mix" franchises with Giant Robo, & pushed forward the idea of manga as a form of literary adaptation with conversions of classics like Water Margin & Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the latter of which would be Yokoyama's longest single work at 60 volumes. Sadly, on April 15, 2004 a fire broke out in Yokoyama's home, with Yokoyama suffering severe burns & falling into a coma, and he'd pass away later that same day from his injuries at the age of 69; Yasuhiro Imagawa's TV anime reboot of Tetsujin 28 had debuted only a little over a week prior.