The Steve Jackson Fighting Fantasy Collection 40th Anniversary boxset is released today in Japan, having been delayed from the end of last year.
On your Earthly Plane, the Tokyo Olympics have commenced, having been delayed for a year. Athletes from all over the world have converged on Japan to compete against each other, rather like competitors gather from all over Allansia to brave the dangers of Baron Sukumvit's Deathtrap Dungeon.
ファイティング・ファンタジー was the name given to the Fighting
Fantasy series in Japan, which translates simply as ‘Fighting Fantasy’. In
1986, Shakaishisou Sha, the Japanese publishers of the
range, arranged a publicity tour for the two co-founders of Fighting Fantasy,
and invited Jackson and Livingstone to visit Tokyo to sign copies of their
books. Fans turned out in their hundreds.
“And so it was that in 1986 Ian and I flew to Tokyo and
embarked on a memorable publicity tour. On our arrival, our hosts gave us both
envelopes which we assumed were itineraries. But later we found they had given
us around £1,000 cash each! I suggested this was to pay the hotel and put a
limit on our expenses – so they didn’t have to pay for long phone calls back to
our families in the UK, but no. As we checked out of the hotel we were told
that the company had paid for our rooms already. The cash was simply our
‘pocket money’!”
Shakaishisou Sha even arranged a Fighting Fantasy Day and
went so far as to register the names of the co-creators in Kanji (the system of Japanese writing that uses Chinese
characters).
Jackson: “First event was a signing at a big bookstore in
Tokyo. We arrived to find a queue stretching from our signing table, right
across the shop floor and up three flights of stairs. And people had brought us
small gifts. Next day was a ‘Fighting Fantasy Convention’. The hall was packed
with fans who we spoke to through our interpreter. Then we went on the Bullet
train to various other cities for signings, etc. We were overwhelmed by the
response to this tour.
Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone on tour in Japan in 1986. (© Ian Livingstone, 1986 and 2021)
“On the Bullet train to Kyoto we asked our editor how our names would appear on the book covers in traditional Japanese. He explained that Western names were not really translatable, but they could be registered in Kanji. It was a bit like the trade mark system. You put some characters together and officially registered them. And from then on they meant something in Kanji. He offered to create Kanji characters that would represent our names. Mine was a combination of three existing characters which translated into ‘Happy Emperor Samurai’ or something like that. Three weeks after we returned home I received a packet from Japan which contained official ink stamps with our Kanji translations, and a few T-shirts with our characters printed on them. The only problem was we couldn’t tell which was which! So for all I know, Ian has three T-shirts with ‘Steve Jackson’ on, and I have the Ian Livingstone ones!”
Coming soon from Faraos Cigarer are another two titles in the Danish translations of Fighting Fantasy, or Sværd & Trolddom, as the series is called in Denmark.
Can you guess which classic Ian Livingstone titles these two are?
In Fighting Fantasy's heyday, in the mid 1980s, Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone's premier gamebook series was a huge hit in Japan.
The good news for Japanese FF fans and hardcore collectors, is that the books are coming back, courtesy of Group SNE, who have recently published the Advanced Fighting Fantasy Second Edition RPG in Japan.
Here are the first five titles, which are also rocking some classic art on their covers.
