During the first half of the 1980s, while the erogē genre was still very much in the process of developing, by 1985, a few patterns had begun to emerge. First, considering that the figure of the lolita had started to become popular across anime, games, and manga, and that Sofurin had yet to be established, it was not uncommon for there to be lolita-centered erogē. These were largely spearheaded by the developer PSK who were responsible for Lolita (1982); Lolita II (1983); Alice (1984); Final Lolita (1985); and Yellow Lemon (PSK, 1985). Second, as far as their ludic rules were concerned, erogē frequently drew upon games of chance to provide narrative justification for why characters would be made to strip. Popular were games based on yakyūken (野球拳),1 dice, and poker, including Yakyūken (Hudson 1979); Lolita Yakyūken (PSK, 1982); Sailor Uniform and Yakyūken (CSK, 1982); Yakyūken (Tsukumo Electric, 1982); Miyuki the Gambler (Pax Softnica, 1983); Adult Roulette (Tsukumo Electric, 1983); and even another game from Hudson Soft, also titled “Yakyūken” (1983).2
One standout amongst these games was mangaka Tadashi Miroku’s Mari-chan Narrowly Escapes Danger (マリちゃん危機一髪, Enix, 1983). The story centers on the protagonist who must continuously save their girlfriend Mari from various killers by winning games of yakyūken. Mari-chan would go on to win Enix’s 1982 award for outstanding program and alongside Miroku’s follow-up, Panic at the Girls’ Dormitory (女子寮パニック, Enix, 1983), and Katsumi Mochizuki’s Lolita Syndrome (ロリータ・シンドローム, Enix, 1983), demonstrates Enix’s brief flirtation with erogē.3 These developments culminated with Tokyo Nanpa Street (Tokyo ナンパストリート, Enix,1985). Headed by another mangaka, Hikaru Sekino, Tokyo Nanpa Street differed from its predecessors by contextualizing its adult content within the activity of dating rather than gambling or for that matter, the adventure elements which had defined other erogē. The game’s loose narrative centers on the protagonist attempting to “pick-up” women on the street, the term “nanpa” itself referring to this exact practice.
Tokyo Nanpa Street begins by offering the player two options of engagement. They can either visit a specific neighborhood or area (Shinjuku, Harajuku, Yokohama, or a women’s university) where they will stand around and invite women out on a date. Conversely, the player can answer a series of questions (age, job, appearance, b/w/h, etc.) to create a custom-made woman and immediately transition into a date. In either case, locations for dates include a cafe, disco, restaurant, hotel, and the seaside. A few more introductory mechanics are time, money, and the FT and EX meters. When out on the street, time seems to affect what women are actually out and about—characters have different occupations, and attitudes. Players can specify how much money the protagonist starts off with and can then spend that money traveling to certain areas or at certain date locations. The FT and EX meters seem the equivalent of a skill and experience points respectively. Taking actions, such as calling out to women, raises the FT meter which caps out at 99,900. Successfully engaging in physical acts, like touching a woman’s hand, raises the EX meter. Displeasing a date who then decides to leave results in a game over and players receive a phone-number which functions as a save-state. Should a player continue, all these resources carry over and this sense of character progression gives Tokyo Nanpa Street an RPG-like quality.
The actual date takes the form of a conversation. Players can discuss several topics, such as asking the woman about herself, talking about themselves, sports, music, art, politics, nature, and literature. Each of these topics open up towards sub-topics that ultimately shape the direction of the dialogue. For example, on deciding to talk about music, players can then choose from a list of genres which includes rock, jazz, enka, classical, etc. The actual subsequent back-and-forth here is rather simple with dates either responding positively or negatively, the latter reaction making for some perhaps accidental moments of humor. In one instance, when I asked a date how she felt about rock music, she instead responded by asking me what day of the week it was. After a few repeated attempts to discuss other genres of music, she eventually decided to bail, leading to a game-over.4
What is more impressive here is the attention to detail, not in the script but in body language. Normally, the characters bear a neutral, blinking expression, but upon reacting will sometimes smile or grimace, a mechanical trait that would become central to the dating-sim as a diegetic method for alerting players to how other characters are responding to their dialogue and actions. Players also have options for flirting, such as complimenting or touching a specific body part or proffering a kiss. This too gets taken up by later titles such as Can Can Bunny (Cocktail Soft, 1987). While there is a danger in rushing to claim a game as the progenitor of a genre—Tokyo Nanpa Street is certainly drawing upon a few games which preceded it—it is at least clear that it is with Tokyo Nanpa Street that certain mechanics and stylistic approaches of the dating-sim are cohering.
Ultimately, the goal here seems to be raising the EX meter high enough so that inviting a date back to one’s own place or a hotel passes the skill check. During my own playthrough, this became possible after attaining 2,900 EX. At this point, gone are the dialogue choices, replaced now with physical actions. Slowly, the date begins to undress, a single article of clothing being removed from their posed body. Of course, all this foreplay leads to the act of sex itself which is presented through a montage depicting the date (and never the protagonist) in several positions, moaning. All this happens at a rapid-fire pace while the FT meter just as quickly drains down.
It is as if all the erogē from Miroku to Hikaru were leading up to this moment of climax. Here is a group of mangaka adapting their skills to the relatively new medium of video games, resulting in an emphasis on the movement of animation. Mari-chan and Panic each boot up with the characters and the logo quickly being drawn.
Likewise, Tokyo Nanpa Street opens with the process of movement, the game’s logo, which adorns the top of the screen, slowly lighting up. The montage during sex takes a similar approach. The illustrations during this scene are given more anatomical and realistic detail compared to the rest of the game and hastily fill in as they appear. The moment is made all the more striking, and frankly erotic, by both its animated and cinematic qualities.
Enix may have turned their back on erogē, but do these early titles not demonstrate the same artistic process that cinema did in the 1920s? The Soviet film director Sergei Eisenstein wrote of cinema, “It seems that all the arts, throughout the centuries, tended towards cinema.”5 As the film scholars Yves-Alain Bois and Michael Glenny explain, for Eisenstein, montage emerged as an essential condition for film as a medium. It is through montage that Eisenstein not only came to understand older artforms, such as literature and painting, but also how he developed an avant-garde approach to filmmaking. The same logic seems to hold true for this group of erogē born from artists working in manga.6 In other words, it seems that all the arts, throughout the centuries, tended towards video games, and given the subject matter, from the outset, erogē became a particular genre rife with visual experimentation.
Footnotes
- Two points. First, yakyūken follows the same rules as rock-paper-scissors. Second, it would be incorrect to call yakyūken gambling but considering how it was deployed within these early erogē, I think it is fair to place it into discussion with the other aforementioned games. ↩︎
- For a detailed account on the history of yakyūken and its incorporation into erogē, I highly recommend Joey Wawzonek’s excellent account on the matter, “Yakyūken: The First Commercial Eroge.” As of this writing, the most updated version of the essay can be found on Wawzonek’s website, The Stacks, here. ↩︎
- Much like Koei, Enix would leave the erogē genre behind. ↩︎
- After one particular game-over, a mysterious smoking NPC appeared to dole out advice. See the image below.
↩︎ - Sergei M. Eisenstein, Yves-Alain Bois, and Michael Glenny, “Montage and Architecture,” Assemblage, Dec., 1989, No. 10, pp. 112. ↩︎
- Coincidentally, Eisenstein’s own theories of montage were influenced by Japanese aesthetics, including Kabuki and haiku. Eisenstein understood both these artforms as being “pictogrammatic.” That is, symbolic. See, Odin, Steve. “The Influence of Traditional Japanese Aesthetics on the Film Theory of Sergei Eisenstein.” ↩︎
Bibliography
Eisenstein, Sergei M., Yve-Alain Bois, and Michael Glenny. “Montage and Architecture.” Assemblage, no. 10 (1989): 111–31. https://doi.org/10.2307/3171145.
Odin, Steve. “The Influence of Traditional Japanese Aesthetics on the Film Theory of Sergei Eisenstein.” Journal of Aesthetic Education 23, no. 2 (1989): 69–81. https://doi.org/10.2307/3332942.