"Dragon Quest in the Japanese Culture" By: Hidetoshi Nakahashi (cxd02774@nifty.ne.jp) Edited by: Nick Marcotte (marcotte@sandiego.com) It can be safely said that the Dragon Quest and the Final Fantasy series are the cornerstones for most of the current Japanese RPG games that we enjoy today. Though many RPG fans in the US know of and love the Final Fantasy series, what about it's competitive counterpart? Dragon Quest is the Role-Playing series that most Japanese people would tell you began the entire Japanese RPG craze. For in Japan, as the following information will clarify, RPG's are characterized by the Dragon Quest series. In May, 1986, Dragon Quest was released in Japan. At that time, not many Japanese people knew what Role-Playing Games were. The three creators of the Dragon Quest series are very popular in Japan. One is Akira Toriyama, a cartoonist whose masterpiece is "Dragon Ball". Another is Koichi Sugiyama, a composer. Not one Japanese person exists that does not know his name. Last is Yuuji Horii, the scenario writer. All dramas written by him are a hit. Of course, Dragon Quest I was a big hit in Japan because the creators were very popular and the game system was very common. At that time, there was the Ultima series, but these games were too complicated for Japanese people. Dragon Quest II was released a year after Dragon Quest I. Dragon Quest II was the most popular game at that time. The Dragon Quest I and Dragon Quest II rom cassette did not have a battery backup system as Dragon Warrior I and Dragon Warrior II did. The way of saving was with a password system. Dragon Quest I had a 17 Japanese character password and II had a 52 Japanese character password. Many people made errors in writing down or inputing passwords. However, the password system was an interesting system. Most passwords had no meaning, but there were some passwords that had meaning that allowed people to start a special game (for example "slime is poor but skeleton is rich"). Dragon Quest III was released one year after Dragon Quest II. Releasing DQIII caused many problems. At the day of its release, some children were robbed of their DQIII rom cassette by high school students. Some children were absent from school to buy DQIII. These problems were told to the Japanese Diet. The Diet determined that the Dragon Quest series would have to be released on Sundays or holidays. So Dragon Quest IV to VI were released during the holidays. Every Japanese newspaper and television news reported that DQIII was a problem. The name of "Dragon Quest" became famous after that. In Japan, the pronoun of games is "DraQue." For example, a child plays a game that is not Dragon Quest, and his father says, "My son plays DraQue." In Japan, many people who don't play games think that all action games are Mario and that all RPG's are Dragon Quest. Of course, one of most famous game titles is Dragon Quest. The Dragon Quest series permeated Japan after DQIII. The spell of healing is "Hoimi" in Japanese Dragon Quest. In US Dragon Warrior, the spell of healing is "Heal" and means healing. But the Japanese word Hoimi did not have amy meaning before Dragon Quest. Therefore, the word was made by Dragon Quest. If a child is hurt, another child says, "Hoimi." Dragon Quest made a new Japanese Word. If you said to a Japanese person, "Draw a picture of Slime!" The Japanese person would draw the Slime of Dragon Quest like an onion. The Japanese feel that Dragon Quest is very close to themselves. For the Japanese, the Dragon Quest series is more famous than Windows and Bill Gates. And, of course, the opening music of Dragon Quest is more famous to the Japanese than Beethoven's No9 symphony.