loading . . . Technopolis – Every Issue Now Scanned! Hubz here, I’m excited to announce I’ve finished scanning another complete magazine run: **Technopolis**. Below the info on the scans, we’ve asked resident Japanese computer game expert **F_T_B** to write up an article about the rise and fall of Technopolis. But first a quick word on the scans before the download links.
First of all, a huge thanks to the **Video Game History Foundation** for purchasing the bulk of this run and loaning it to me to scan. We also can’t thank our **Patreon** patrons enough for funding that allowed me to purchase the remaining missing issues over the last few years.
I’m pretty proud of the quality of this set, as it’s the first run where _everything_ I’ve learned about scanning in almost a decade has come together. It’s also the first set we’ve used **Azure Document Intelligence** for the OCR which does very well for **Japanese text** compared to Adobe. The PDFs unfortunately still have issues with vertical Japanese text, but the rest is very good quality.
You can view all of the magazine’s run on the Internet Archive **here**. **(ADULTS ONLY 18+ Due to the Content!)** I have not yet uploaded the Azure Document Intelligence versions of all the issues, but I am working on it! If you’d like to download all of the OCRd versions, you can acquire them via a torrent link below. There are four folders in the torrent which will make for easier selecting – if you don’t need all the different format options.
**PDF** – OCRd PDF files with image compression. Ideal for research purposes.
**CBZ** – Much larger files as lacking compression or OCR. You will want these if you use a CBZ viewer.
**RAW Scan ZIP files** – These are images straight from the scanner with no changes. Useful if you’d like to edit the images to your own liking.
**JSON** – 99.8% of you will not need these. They are the output from Azure’s Document Intelligence with all the OCR data and coordinates. Could be useful for ingestion and possible research purposes in databases, etc.
**Again This magazine is for ADULTS ONLY 18+ due to it’s content. You have been warned.**
**Technopolis – Complete V1.0 [Gaming Alexandria] Torrent Magnet Link**
Enjoy! And now here’s the history of Technopolis by F_T_B.
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In 1982, large Japanese publishing house Tokuma Shoten decided to enter into the burgeoning microcomputer magazine market to compete with offerings from rival publishers like ASCII. Technopolis, the magazine that they established, would have many iterations over the 12 years of its run, until changes in the market and a series of controversial stances eventually accelerated its demise. However, through an emphasis on reader interaction, a massive focus on independently developed games, and a series of personal interviews with notable game developers before they found greater success, it also became an invaluable resource through its lifespan. The iterations of the magazine, the changes they went through, and the changing response of their audience give us an interesting and vital snapshot of gaming culture in the years of the Japanese Bubble Economy.
Starting in August 1982, the common story is that Technopolis started as a pure hardware magazine, but in reality the first issue already had some cultural magazine elements, including articles on robotics and audio equipment. It started with a focus on older audiences with features like computer business show reviews, a breakdown of Xerox’s failed competition with IBM, and a detailed map of Akihabara. It also contained type-in listings of programs and small tutorials for high-school students, as well as some looks at computers being used for education. The first attempt at publishing type-ins caused an immediate stumble for the magazine, with the second issue having to apologize for not including the machine language code for the magazine’s very first entry – a boxing game created by game studio SystemSoft.
Technopolis’ first type-in had an ignoble start, with machine code missing from the page.
The format of Technopolis would change quickly in its early issues, shifting to a focus on younger readers. Due to overwhelming reader response, the magazine found a more permanent voice in late 1982; articles began to reflect this as early as the third issue. The magazine began to more heavily feature game reviews, and had some design changes, such as the addition of two mascots designed by animator Gen Sato: PACO – a robot clearly inspired by Gundam’s HARO – and MY, a young girl.
This is best exemplified by issue four, where the changes began to crystallize. Instead of general interest science articles, the magazine led with game maker biographies and an article on how to set up your own pirate radio station, followed up by a series of articles that focused primarily on computer hardware. Part of the reason for all of these changes was the Technopolis Club, a reader response group run by the magazine that primarily focused on and had an overwhelming membership of teenagers. The feedback from these readers were the main impetus of this shift to a much greater focus on game and hardware content, and Technopolis was never shy about printing any reader feedback that might change their focus – starting with a four page article listing the club members’ many complaints, praises, and suggestions for improvement.
One of their most notable features began in June of 1983. HOT ACCESS TO TECHNO MAN was a series of monthly interviews with notable and up-and-coming game developers, and remains an invaluable resource with its more informal style and exclusive information. Starting with Rei Kazuto – the author of early prominent Japanese strategy game Battle of the Coral Sea – this feature ran regularly until December of 1987, ending with its 55th and final column interviewing Shinichi Nakamoto of Hudson Soft. It was supplanted by a similar, more formal series in 1988 called “Computer Specialist Now”, but that never caught on and was cancelled the same year.
End of an Era, as the final HOT ACCESS TO TECHNO MAN is published.
As the years went on, there were two things that Technopolis became well known for: coverage of doujin groups – far surpassing that of any other magazine – and extensive coverage of adult content that for a time outpaced competing periodicals like COMPTIQ.
With regards to doujin, the staff of Technopolis initially ran an article looking at the independent software available at the media festival Comiket in October of 1986. This write up became one of their most popular articles. It also contained a detailed look at many games designed by a particular independent programming group – also called a _doujin circle_ – named Onion Software.
Before publishing the article, Technopolis staff had begun courting a notable doujin developer to contribute to their magazine – polymath personality Yasushi Takeda, also known as Onitama. At the time of the article, he was working with Technopolis’ software division on publication of his doujin title MAJAventure, a strip mahjong game. Technopolis’ extensive coverage of _MAJAVenture_ led to Onitama being hired as a featured writer.
Due to the success of the coverage, Technopolis’ editorial staff expanded reporting on doujin into its own, dedicated section. Starting in July 1988, The Doujin Soft section of Technopolis became a monthly part of the magazine, mixing reviews of independently developed titles with extensive interviews, plus tutorials on things like developing packaging and how to start your own doujin circle. This section contained features by Onitama as a driving highlight. He also conducted a tremendous amount of interviews with both professional and independent developers, and authored a very large amount of highly technical programming tips and tricks. His calling card was a sentient vegetable character that looked suspiciously like a Dragon Quest slime.
The man, The myth, The onion.
Takeda and the staff at Technopolis went even further in covering this software than any other contemporary magazine. They worked with doujin circles extensively, publishing title announcements, player feedback, and information on bugs. Onitama and the staff also provided large breakdowns on the many doujin titles available at other Comiket fairs as well as for its sister conference Pasoket. This feature ran until the end of the periodical’s lifespan in March of 1994.
Technopolis also had its own software division, Technopolis Soft, which released both externally developed titles such as _MAJAventure_ and internally developed games and applications. These applications included utilities for game design and development that were heavily featured in detailed tutorials. Long-form articles that showcased this software served the dual purpose of advertising their titles and catering to the audience of young developers and doujin circle members that the magazine had cultivated. One of their most notable software releases was _LALF_ for the PC-88, arguably the first graphics editor to use layers, predating Macromedia by several years. Ubiquitous composer, programmer, and article writer Yuzo Koshiro also contributed here, designing a music sequencing language as part of the program _Music LALF_.
An example of a LALF tutorial.
Another feature the magazine launched simultaneously with this monthly doujin feature: “Lemon Chick World” (a Japanese slang play on words on the word “romantic”), which covered adult games extensively. Despite still covering a variety of genres, the doujin software section also started to lean towards adult content as well, making the second half of the magazine primarily salacious in nature moving forward. This continued throughout the early nineties.
The increasing focus on adult content despite the primarily young readership created a tension that was not sustainable. Multiple scandals in the early 90s would cause the magazine to take increasingly bold editorial stances, a management decision that would eventually blow back on the magazine and contribute to its demise.
Lemon Chick World – most of the rest of the cover pages are too NSFW to show.
In the summer of 1991, a young boy in the Kyoto Metropolitan area was arrested for shoplifting multiple adult games from a software store, including the game _Saori_ , a title whose advertising focused entirely on the severity of its content. This arrest led to a strong police response which consisted of raids on multiple adult PC game companies. These events received an extensive amount of media coverage. Starting In January 1992, Technopolis provided their own perspective on these events through coverage and editorials about these intertwined news stories. The magazine clarified that despite news reports of three other companies incurring arrests, only software developer Kirara and its subsidiary Fairytale were affected. Technopolis continued to cover the incident and industry response throughout the rest of 1992.
However, it was their editorializing that became more infamous. As part of their coverage, Technopolis wrote a series of editorials taking the position that there was a difference between adult games and other games labeled as “bishoujo” – ‘pretty girl’ – software, stating the tenuous argument that adult games developed with the intention of telling a story or that contained 3 dimensional characters deserved a different classification than pornography. The magazine vowed to defend the right of bishoujo games to exist. Multiple features throughout 1992 and 1993 delved into this topic, such as user surveys and recurring reporting on the establishment of the EOCS ratings system in Japan.
This controversy also affected how Technopolis covered adult material. They became much more selective in what was covered, instead concentrating on games that had a greater focus on plot and writing. This started the shrinking of Lemon Chick World, where the number of adult games covered would be reduced, and more overtly pornographic games would not be covered at all. Then a second incident in 1993 caused the blowback to become even greater.
The first of many editorials about bishoujo software, starting in January of 1992.
When another minor obtained the game _Dennou Gakuen_ from a Takeru vending machine in Miyazaki prefecture, the local government argued for banning sales of the title and asked for the destruction of the game. This caused publisher GAINAX to attempt to sue the prefecture, a case they eventually lost. During this legal battle, Technopolis published a two-part editorial from the studio offering their defense, blaming unattended Takeru machines and general procedural law as the true causes of the minor’s acquisition of the software. The final part of this editorial brought the most attention that Technopolis had ever had from other members of the industry about their content. This particularly attracted the ire of amusement news magazine Game Machine in July of 1993, who responded strongly and directly to the editorial. This article was strongly skeptical of GAINAX’s arguments, and stated both that the protection of minors could not be understated and that the media company’s arguments were completely unfounded.
Gainax’s Editorial…
Game Machine’s response
One month later, in August of 1993, Technopolis changed the content of their magazine for a final time, moving away from adult games and tutorials almost entirely and shifting to game previews and reviews. Many staff departed under these alterations, as members involved with adult content had moved on to form the magazines BugBug and PC Angel. Onitama himself left in the fall of 1993. This exodus left behind a magazine with generic content in its final months. Some of the newer features were poor, such as their new review section, which consisted of only black and white text pages and no images.
Technopolis tried to experiment in their late issues with some new features. These included packing in a floppy disk with demos and programs, as well as running chapters from concurrent manga. Despite this, the readership dwindled, and the magazine narrowed in scope and size. In March of 1994, facing lower sales and declining readership, Technopolis ran their last issue, a slim and uncaring half-size effort which was a shadow of the magazine in its heyday.
Many years later, there was a small revival of Technopolis in 2014, a promotional mini issue for ALICESOFT’S adult game _Toushi Toushi 2_. While most of the staff behind Technopolis has scattered with the four winds, Onitama is still active in the industry, running the Onionsoft channel and writing extensively on all sorts of gaming subjects including doujin and arcades.
In the end, Technopolis was many things across its 11 year lifespan. Their biggest feature – the one that remains the most memorable – was their constant focus on the readers and communities that the magazine staff were able to foster.
From reader surveys determining early paths for the magazine, to its huge focus on independent gaming and doujin circles, the staff were always trying to interact with their readers and make them feel wanted. However, over reliance on adult material and allowing other companies to take editorial stances in their pages eventually led to their demise.
Now, through Hubz and VGHF’s incredibly hard work over the last three years, we now have the complete set of this magazine up for download, where you can see for yourself these features and changes across the entire run.
Technopolis says goodbye.
**Sources:**
_Systemsoft Boxing Program_. Technopolis, Vol. 1, pg. 178. August 1982. Tokuma Shoten, Minato, Tokyo.
_Technopolis Club_. Technopolis, Vol. 4, pg. 104. November 1982. Tokuma Shoten, Minato, Tokyo.
_HOT ACCESS TO TECHNO MAN: Shinichi Nakamoto_. Technopolis, Vol. 65, pg. 97. December 1987. Tokuma Shoten, Minato, Tokyo.
Takeda, Yasushi (Onitama). _Let’s make doujin software together with female college students!_ Technopolis, Vol. 78, pg. 100. January 1989. Tokuma Shoten, Minato, Tokyo.
_LALF_. Technopolis, Vol. 84, pg. 80. July 1989. Tokuma Shoten, Minato, Tokyo.
Technopolis Editorial Staff. _Long live Bishoujo Software_. Technopolis, Vol. 113, pg. 88-89. January 1992. Tokuma Shoten, Minato, Tokyo.
_GAINAX Opinion Advertisement: OUR LAWSUIT_. Technopolis, Vol. 129, pg. 94-95. May 1993. Tokuma Shoten, Minato, Tokyo.
_Harmful Software_. Game Machine, Vol. 451, pg. 7. June 15, 1993.
Monthly Technopolis Cover Collection. http://furuiotoko.la.coocan.jp/room03/mz12.htm. December 31, 2005.
Matsui, Monetatsu. _An interview with Onitama, who has been making indie game ＝ doujin software for over 30 years_. https://www.redbull.com/jp-ja/game-creator-onitama-intaview.
May 5th, 2017. https://www.gamingalexandria.com/wp/2025/09/technopolis-every-issue-now-scanned/
