Tengai Makyō

Did You Know?

• A two-episode OVA titled Tengai Makyō was made in 1990.
• Tengai Makyō was included in the two volumes of the 1992 manga anthology by Minori Shobo, which featured stories about different Hudson franchises.
• Tengai Makyō II protagonist Manjimaru Sengoku appears as a playable character in the 2003 crossover fighting game DreamMix TV World Fighters.

Overview

The Tengai Makyō series includes three games set in Jipang, a fictional feudal Japan whose name comes from Marco Polo’s term. Each game follows a Fire Clan descendant and their allies fighting often silly villains. The stories are fantasy but parody Western misunderstandings of Japanese culture. The first game, Tengai Makyō: Ziria, came out in 1989 for the PC Engine CD-ROM². It was the first RPG on CD-ROM and the first in its genre with animated cutscenes and voice acting. Its plot and characters draw from the Japanese folk tale Jiraiya Goketsu Monogatari, with the hero’s name intentionally misspelled. Ryuichi Sakamoto, an Academy Award winner, composed the music. Computer Gaming World’s November 1990 issue previewed it; writer Roe R. Adams called it “a truly gigantic game” as big as two or three Ultimas combined. He said if NEC could handle the translation, Ziria might be the hit of 1991, unless Nintendo or Sega countered with their own sequels. The sequel, Tengai Makyō II: Manjimaru, released in 1992, was reportedly the most expensive game ever made at that time. Lead programmer Hiromasa Iwasaki later said its budget was about ¥1 billion (around $10 million adjusted), possibly making it the first AAA CD-ROM production. Joe Hisaishi, known for Studio Ghibli film scores, composed its music. Plans for a North American release fell through because the TurboGrafx-16 failed there. No Tengai Makyō games reached that market until Far East of Eden: Kabuki Klash in 1995.

Creators

The Tengai Makyō series was primarily built by Oji Hiroi and Red Company, now known as Red Entertainment, with Hudson Soft handling nearly all publishing. The games claim to be based on a nonexistent 19th-century book, "Far East of Eden," supposedly written by a fictional Smithsonian professor named Paul Hieronymus Chada (P.H. Chada). This name is a play on "Prince (Oji) Hiroi," and the entire fabrication reflects the series' theme of Western misunderstandings about Japan. Similarly, the credited creator "Hiroshi Adachi" is a fictional stand-in for Hiroi, who even ran a fake personal website for Adachi. Hiroi and Red Company later gained fame for the Sakura Wars series on the Sega Saturn, which borrowed several elements from Tengai Makyō, including its pre-modern Japanese setting and use of animated cutscenes with voice acting.