Obscusion B-Side: Atypical Alchemists Associate, NEC Home Electronics' Last Stand (& UFO Interactive's First)

In June of 1953 electronics company NEC Corporation split off its radio division as its own company & named it Shin NEC, where it'd manufacture & sell things like vacuum tubes, CRTs, tape records, & later on radio receivers & "white goods"; i.e. major home appliances. In 1981 Shin NEC would debut its first ever personal computers, namely the PC-6000 & PC-8800 series, the latter of which eventually becoming the most popular PC line in Japan during that decade. In 1983 Shin NEC would change its name to NEC Home Electronics (or NEC-HE, for short), expanding into products like CD players. In 1987 NEC-HE would enter the video game market with the PC-Engine (alongside Hudson Soft), which would become the closest competitor to Nintendo's Famicom & Super Famicom in Japan during the 16-bit generation & even introduce the idea of games being released on CD; outside of Japan the "TurboGrafx-16" was another story entirely. NEC-HE would continue seeing success into the 90s with the PC-Engine Super CD-ROM² upgrade as well as the later models in the PC-9800 series of computers, but eventually the good times would come to an end.

That started with the launch of the PC-FX in 1994, the Japan-only successor to the PC-Engine that simply failed to deliver & would sell only around 300,000 units before being discontinued in February 1998 & becoming NEC's final console; still sold better than the Atari Jaguar, at least. Meanwhile, the PC-98 eventually lost momentum to Windows 95 PCs, though NEC did later make PC-98s that supported all the way up to Windows 2000 up through 2003. Still, this resulted in NEC-HE now being a third-party video game company, for all intents & purposes, but by this point that seemed kind of redundant as there was already a video game development & publishing division with NEC Interchannel, itself the successor to the music division NEC Avenue, which had already expanded out into publishing games on non-NEC hardware a couple of years prior. Think of this like how Sony Computer Entertainment Japan & Sony Music Entertainment Japan were both publishing video games between 1994 & 2004, i.e. two separate entities under the same overall corporate umbrella.

However, NEC-HE seemingly still wanted to remain relevant in the video game industry so it would enter the third-party business itself, deciding to work with partner developers to put out titles that would be completely different from Interchannel's output. For those wondering about market confusion, NEC-HE had full rights to use the iconic blue-lettered NEC logo on the covers of its releases, whereas Interchannel had its own unique logo for its releases, so there was no way to confuse which division released which game. Unfortunately, outside of a PS1 port of PC-FX game Wakusei Koukitai Little Cats (which itself was published by FamilySoft, not NEC-HE) in June 1998 & Dead of the Brain 1 & 2 for PC-Engine CD in June 1999 (the final official release for that console), NEC-HE would only release four original games before getting shut down in early 2000, all of which came out on the Sega Dreamcast. However, these four games all booted up showing the above image of something called "Atypical Alchemists Associate", with Sega Retro calling it "an internal development group" within NEC-HE. However, I think this was meant to be more of a collective branding than an actual development studio & that's because, aside from NEC-HE having never really developed a game in-house, these titles share a common central goal that was 100% true to the brand's name: Being anything, & I mean ANYTHING, other than "typical".

Seeing as 2024 marks 25 years since the launch of the Sega Dreamcast in North America, & two of these games did see release outside of Japan, let's go over the quartet of games released under the Atypical Alchemists Associate branding & see how NEC Home Electronics, the division that gave us the legendary PC-88, PC-98, & co-created the PC-Engine, went down swinging as a third-party publisher.

Akane-Iro no Kaze -Shinsengumi Keppu-ki-: This Sword is No Bazooka, & It Doesn't Play MP3s, But I Guess It'll Do

After Japan was forced to open trade with the west in 1854 the Tokugawa shogunate saw more political instability due to rebellion against working with "barbarians". This eventually resulted in the formation of the Roshigumi in late 1862, made up of various ronin commissioned by the bakufu, but when it was discovered that the leader actually planned on working with the imperialists instead of the shogunate, the Roshigumi were disbanded in early 1863. The few who remained loyal to the shogunate were initially reformed as the Mibu Roshigumi, before getting renamed on August 18, 1863 to the Shinsengumi. This group of swordsmen would patrol about then-capital Kyoto & protect bakufu representatives during the final years of the Bakumatsu, before getting involved in the Boshin War as part of the anti-Imperial Ezo Republic. In the end, the Shinsengumi would surrender to Emperor Meiji's forces on June 23, 1869, mere days before the Boshin War ended with the Ezo Republic's surrender. Nearly a century later, from May to December of 1962, author Ryotaro Shiba published 15 short stories about the Shinsengumi in the literary magazine Chuo Koron, which were extremely popular & would be collected into a single book in 1964 titled Shinsengumi Keppuroku/The Shinsengumi's Bloody Wind Records. While the Shinsengumi were initially not looked at fondly for decades after their dissolution, it was through authors like Shiba (& Kan Shimozawa before him, in the 1920s) that the Japanese populace started to look more fondly at the Shinsengumi in retrospect, though that was also in part due to some embellishments & purely fictional stories that showed the group in a positive light, including some by Shiba, seemingly being taken as historical fact.

Regardless, today the Shinsengumi are a common subject for all manner of jidaigeki that take place during the Bakumatsu, not to mention various fictional stories that feature groups plainly inspired by the Shinsengumi, more often than not portraying the group more as heroes than villains.

Thirty years after Ryotaro Shiba's short stories, after Silent Knight Sho got cancelled in late 1992, Masami Kurumada decided that he was done with Shonen Jump & wanted nothing more to do with the magazine. Likely in an attempt to prevent him from going to another publisher, Shueisha seemingly managed to convince Kurumada to move over to (the now defunct) seinen magazine Super Jump, a move previously seen with the likes of Buichi Terasawa, Shinji Hiramatsu, Tatsuya Egawa, Izumi Matsumoto, Kurumada's idol Hiroshi Motomiya, & even Kurumada's former assistant Jun Tomizawa. While not exclusively so, especially after some editorial shake-ups that moved a lot of mangaka to Business Jump & Young Jump, Super Jump was generally treated as the magazine Shonen Jump's readers would "grow up" into. The end result was Akane-Iro no Kaze -Shinsengumi Keppu-ki-/Crimson Wind -The Shinsengumi's Bloody Wind Chronicles-, a manga about the early days of the Shinsengumi which debuted in mid-1993 & whose subtitle definitely looks to be a direct reference to Ryotaro Shiba's stories, only replacing the kanji "録/roku" for "記/ki", i.e. a "chronicle" instead of a "record"; in other words, this wasn't a direct adaptation. In fact, many Japanese sources online, including Wikipedia, erroneously state that the subtitle in Japanese ends with "記録/kiroku", or "written record" (as in sports or official events, like a trial), combing the two kanji... despite the literal manga, in all of its printings, only using "記/ki" in its title & logo. Even the copyright section at the end of my physical copy has furigana that read "Keppu-ki"; technically it's "Keppuu-ki", but I'm using only one "u" purely for visual convenience, a la "shonen" or "shojo".

However, despite being given a new home, Kurumada never made Akane-Iro no Kaze on a consistent basis, only appearing in Issues 17 & 24 of 1993, followed by Issues 5, 9, 21, & 22 of 1994, totaling just six chapters. Since Super Jump was biweekly (i.e. only 26 issues/year) that meant that the last chapter was published right as Kurumada was about to debut B't X for Kadokawa Shoten's Monthly Shonen Ace... or possibly even being published AFTER B't X had already debuted, since exact dates can be tricky with manga magazines; regardless, it was damn close. Yeah, it's easy to see that Kurumada wasn't pleased with simply being shuffled over to Super Jump, at least at this point, so he eventually took Kadokawa's offer & left his Shinsengumi manga unfinished, possibly even taking some of the hiatuses between chapters to plan out his departure from Shueisha. A compiled released of Akane-Iro no Kaze listed as "Volume 1", despite there being no plans to continue it, was released by Shueisha on January 16, 1995, and on December 12, 2001 (after Kurumada had fully returned to Shueisha, & Super Jump, with Ring ni Kakero 2) two bunkoban books were released titled Never End Heroes, indicating works that Kurumada seemingly had no plans of ever returning to. Never End Heroes 1 contained Raimei no Zaji (which Kurumada did eventually return to in 2014, if only for a handful of pages) & Aoi Tori no Shinwa, while Never End Heroes 2 contained Akane-Iro no Kaze & Evil Crusher Maya. I've previously reviewed the other three manga that were re-released via the Never End Heroes books years ago, so as part of this blog's year-long celebration of Masami Kurumada's 50th Anniversary it's time to finally cover Kurumada's first ever seinen manga, & his final manga from his original 20-year run with Shueisha, Akane-Iro no Kaze.

Saint Seiya: Saintia Sho (Manga): Even All Young Ladies Can Be Tomorrow's Braves... Ooh Yeah!

Oftentimes a series can become so big, so utterly popular & iconic, that people simply want more of it in a way that the original creators themselves aren't able to fulfill that demand on their own. When it comes to anime & manga that often results in spin-off works being produced that, at the very least, are signed off & approved by the original creator (& they get credited in some way for that) but otherwise are done by completely different people. Think of any major Japanese franchise & you can easily find spin-offs, especially when it comes to manga, and the same is true of Masami Kurumada, but specifically Saint Seiya. When Kurumada returned to Shueisha with Ring ni Kakero 2 in 2000 it also gave new life to Kurumada's most successful work. It started off slow, with 2002 seeing the release of Saint Seiya: Gigantomachia, a two-volume novel written by Tatsuya Hamazaki (best known for his One Piece & .hack novelizations) that detailed the Bronze Saints' (& as well as some novel-only new characters) battle against the Gigas of Greek myth that wish to revive their king, Typhon. This was then followed up with Saint Seiya Hades Sanctuary, the first of three OVA series that would eventually adapt the Hades Chapter of the original manga that the TV anime never got to do. After those, though, the floodgates would truly open up & the Seiya spin-offs would start to come out in full force.

The first was 2003's Saint Seiya: Episode.G by Megumu Okada, of Shadow Skill fame, which was a prequel starring Leo Aiolia & has since become a massive franchise of its own, with two sequels (Assassin & Requiem) totaling 43 volumes across all three parts (as of this review, at least) & even a couple of drama CDs. Then in 2006 came Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas by Shiori Teshirogi, a former assistant for Kozue Amano during Aria's serialization, which detailed an alternate universe version of the Holy War between Athena & Hades' forces in the 1700s (due to Saint Seiya: Next Dimension telling its own story in that same time period that supersedes LC) & would become the most recognizable of the Seiya spin-offs, running until 2011 for 25 volumes before immediately getting a side-story Gaiden series of its own that'd run until 2016 for another 16 volumes (41, in total), & from 2009 to 2011 would even get a 24-episode OVA adaptation by TMS that adapted up to just shy of the halfway point. There was also a short-lived manga version of Saint Seiya Omega by Bau in 2013 that only made it to one volume before the magazine it ran in (Kerokero Ace) got canned. Then there's 2020's Saint Seiya: Dark Wing by Kenji Saito (writer) & Shinsu Ueda (artist), which is an isekai story where a high school student & his classmates & teachers get reincarnated as the forces of Athena & Hades in a completely original plot from the OG series. Most recent of them all is the 2022 duo of Saint Seiya: Rerise of Poseidon by Tsunakan Suda, a midquel taking place during the Hades Chapter's latter half & sees Poseidon & his revived Mariners needing to protect the world from the forces of Nemesis, & Saint Seiya: Time Odyssey by Jérôme Alquié (writer/artist) & Arnaud Dollen (co-writer), which sees the OG cast take on the forces of Chronos. However, there's one spin-off manga that I didn't mention here, and that's because it's the only one to have received a complete official English release (since Ablaze is still currently releasing Time Odyssey, which itself it still ongoing).

Debuting in the pages of Akita Shoten's Champion Red magazine in mid-2013 (specifically two issues after Episode.G had ended), Saint Seiya: Saintia Sho was done by Chimaki Kuori, who at the time was known primarily for being the illustrator for a variety of light novels (Parsley Legend, Rumble Fish, Ambition Waltz, Mobile Suit Gundam: High Streamer, etc.) & for making the manga Gundam Seed Destiny: The Edge, which retold the events of the 2004 anime from the perspective of Athrun Zala. Not just that, but Saintia Sho itself was notably different from other Seiya spin-off manga of the time because it actively took place during the main plot of the original manga, instead of taking place either before the OG manga or in its own separate timeline; again, Rerise of Poseidon & Time Odyssey came later on. Not just that, but this was also a female-focused series, introducing the concept of Saintia, which acted as Athena's personal guard of handmaidens. Finally, though admittedly the most minor of all, the title itself (& the name of the main character) was a direct reference to Silent Knight Sho (right down the literal kanji for "翔/Sho"), the short-lived failure of a 1992 manga Kurumada made after Saint Seiya. Saintia Sho would run until mid-2021 & total 16 volumes (as well as receive a 10-episode ONA adaptation in late 2018 that was generally not liked by fans), but in 2017 Seven Seas announced that it had licensed the manga, the first time a manga with Masami Kurumada's name on it would receive an official English release since Viz & TokyoPop both finished their releases of Saint Seiya & B't X, respectively, in 2010.

Unfortunately, despite trying to initially market it to fans of Sailor Moon, Seven Seas' release of Saintia Sho seemed to bomb just as hard as Viz & TokyoPop's attempts at releasing Kurumada manga in English did back in the 00s. While there are no sales numbers to reflect this, it is telling that Seven Seas stopped printing the opening splash pages in color after Volume 9's release (i.e. it was no longer worth the extra cost to do that, though these pages were actually B&W in the original Japanese tankouban), the release schedule was admittedly never all that consistent to begin with (even when there was no worry about catching up to Japan early on), and Volume 15's physical release kept getting delayed after its digital release that once it finally came out the final volume would come out literally just a week later(!); also Seven Seas doesn't even bother to sell it on their own webstore, which I think says it all. Regardless, Seven Seas still managed to release all of Saint Seiya: Saintia Sho, releasing the final volume in January of 2023 (five years, faster than Viz or TokyoPop!), so as part of this blog's year-long celebration of Masami Kurumada's 50th Anniversary let's see if this spin-off was truly the right one to release in English for newcomers and if it's a good series, in & of itself.

Obscusion B-Side: Prowling the Official Atari Jaguar Catalog: 1996 (Part 2)

Previously on Prowling the Official Atari Jaguar Catalog:

"When you look at everything surrounding these four games released on the Atari Jaguar in the first three months of 1996 it's really only natural to wind up thinking negatively... Luckily, the titles that Atari Corp. were putting out in these final days are honestly really good to solid games...for as much flak that the Atari Jaguar has gotten in the decades since its release back in late 1993 the actual official catalog of games that came out on it has surprisingly veered more on the side of 'good-to-great' than being absolute crud, and even this late into the console's short life (officially) this remains true."

We finally made it, people. No, this isn't the final part of Prowling the Official Atari Jaguar Catalog (though this 11th entry was originally intended to be the end, before a much better release order was discovered), but we have made it to a true milestone when it comes to the life of the Jag itself: The End of Atari Corporation. As mentioned last time, barely a month after making an appearance at Winter CES in January of 1996 Atari Corp. announced that it would be entering a reverse merger with JT Storage, effectively resulting in the death of one of the two companies formed by the splitting of the original Atari, Inc. back in 1984. While we're not quite at that point juuuuuuust yet, we will be hitting it during this penultimate part of the series. Before we get there, though, we have April 1996 to go over, because in this month two things happen regarding the "Atari" brand. First, ironically enough, was the revival of Atari Games after Time Warner sold off its entire video game business to WMS Industries, which at the time owned Bally, Williams, & Midway's arcade games & brands; this was after Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell had put in an unsuccessful bid to buy Atari Games.

Meanwhile, right as Atari Games was coming back from the dead, Atari Corp. would release its final video game... one that simply added fuel to the ironic blaze with its very title.

Truly, it's only fitting that the final game Atari Corporation ever released on the Jaguar (& the company's final game, in general) would be titled Fight for Life, released on April 19. Like some other games for the console, this 3D fighter originally started development back in May 1994 & was designed & directed by Francois Yves Bertrand, who most notably was one of the first two non-Japanese employees for Sega's iconic AM2 team, with Bertrand handling the camera & collision system for the original Virtua Fighter. Bertrand eventually moved to the US, which is where he got hired by Atari to make Fight for Life, & he even got a friend of his, Silvio Porretta, a job at Atari to handle the texture artwork for the game. Unfortunately, Fight for Life's very development was its own "fight for life", as while Bertrand's actual development was going by fine it had a rotation of various people acting as producer, with one of them even making the higher ups believe that it'd redefine the entire genre! Later, when Atari sent preview copies out to video game magazines it accidentally labeled the cartridges as "For Review Only", which resulted in some mags actually reviewing the unfinished build as though it was complete!! Finally, while Bertrand had finished the overall development of Fight for Life by December 1995, he still felt that it needed more time for some extra polish. However, by this point Atari Corp. was already starting talks with JT Storage about the merger, which had resulted in Bertrand even getting fired from Atari, so Bertrand actually tried to hold off on giving Atari his final build for as long as he could, so as to give the game those last little touches. In the end, Bertrand would later admit that the version of Fight for Life that saw release was "in an almost finished state", and though there are rumors of a 100% finished build there's been no evidence of such a thing existing. Still, Bertrand enjoyed his time developing on the Jag, calling it an interesting piece of hardware, & felt that owners at the time respected the effort he put in, especially since it would be Atari's final hurrah for the console. However, does that really mean anything when it comes to how good or bad the actual final release is?

Twelve Short-Lived Musical Acts That Hit Hard with Their Only Anime Part 2

In music there's the concept of the "one-hit wonder", which is a musical act that is known primarily for only one song that wound up becoming a big hit in a major region (usually North America), but it's a concept that really is purely regional. Many "one-hit wonders" are, in fact, simply acts that were big in the region they came from (mostly Europe, in these examples) & remained relatively popular there, but only had that one fleeting moment of being a true worldwide smash. In the cases of these "one-hit anime wonders", as I called them at the end of Part 1, I wanted to make sure I avoided that technicality, as there are Japanese musical acts that have been around for a long time but only ever had their music officially matched to an anime a single time, or maybe they only had one anime for a long time but eventually wound up getting a second one. Examples of the latter would be Masatoshi Ono & Diamond Yukai, both of which had songs attached to the Rokudenashi Blues movies Toei made back in the early 90s, only to never get another anime attached to their name until the 2010s, namely with the Hunter x Hunter anime reboot & Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal II, respectively; Ono would later perform other anime theme songs. Even if they only had one anime to their respective names, though, I still wouldn't consider either Ono or Yukai for this list due to their longevity.

No, this is a list about those musical acts that truly had short lives, and only one anime to their respective names, so let's see what examples from the first decade of the 21st Century I could find.

When it comes to something like the music industry, it's sometimes just as important to have a memorable name as it is to produce memorable music, and it's arguably even more so when it's not a solo act. Group names are imperative, and there have been some especially unique & memorable ones throughout history. I bring this up because we start off with a duo who went with a name whose readability depends on how good someone is at reading phonetics. Formed in 1999, the duo of vocalist Kyou Kodama & guitarist/producer Rei Kimura decided to name their group "Exceed"... but not in that simplistic fashion. Sure, in Japanese the group's name is written in katakana (イクシード), but officially the proper spelling was [iksí:d], which is technically the way the word is written phonetically... maybe. According to the Cambridge dictionary the phonetic spelling for the word "exceed" is "/ɪkˈsiːd/", but at this point I think that'd be splitting hairs, so let's get to the actual musical duo.