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There're some Mamoru Oshii book lists on the Internet, but they don't have detailed explanations about the contents. My Mamoru Oshii book collection is far from complete, but I'd like to write some short summaries for each of those books.
I apologize in advance for grammatical errors and misinformation.
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title: 注文の多い傭兵たち オシイマとその一党のコンピュータゲームをめぐる冒険
(The Mercenaries with Many Orders: Computer Game Adventure of Oshiima's Party)
release: 12/20/1995 (reprinted on 03/27/2004)
publisher: MediaWorks (reprinted by Tokuma Shoten)
[contents]
Replay
Encounter with the Soulless Opponent: Dir. M's case
In the Britannian Field: ULTIMA 4
In the Dragon Island: Dragon Wars
Haunting Ghost-sama Banbanzai: BLACK RAINBOW
The Party in My Delusion: DINOSAUR
Inumaru III's Logbook: The Atlas
There Were No Just Wars in The Spring and Autumn Annals: Record of Lodoss Wars II
Mom: BLUE
In the Cave of Deja Vu: Heroes of Might and Magic III
The Feast of The Stronger: Heroes of Might and Magic III
In Gilgamesh's Tavern: Wizardry
Projects
Parametoria Chronicle
The Great Maze of Overkill
Crush Dragon Melon
Pighide: Ten Commandments for Breeding and Transporting Livestock
The Crystal Mouse
Sword Beside the Window
Mobile Police Patlabor: The Maze Runner
[review]
This is a collection of Oshii's game essays written from 1990 to 1994. The illustration was done by Tamayoshi Sakura, the character designer of the Sansara Naga series.
To talk about this book, I need to look back on Oshii's career. Let me explain his post-Urusei filmography:
After releasing Beautiful Dreamer, Oshii got confidence in his skills. He quit Studio Pierrot and started making Angel's Egg. It became a cult classic, but he was sidelined due to its commercial failure. Oshii's dark period began. He finally came back as a star director with Patlabor OVA. Angel's Egg was released in 1985. Patlabor OVA was released in 1988. During those two years, Oshii could make only The Red Spectacles and Mystery Case File 538. None of them is a profitable project. Oshii family's livelihood depended solely on the royalty of Beautiful Dreamer.
More importantly, Oshii had nothing to do every day. He just kept playing NES. After he got bored of NES, he bought a PC and crazily played Wizardry. Simply speaking, he became a total game addict.
This book is an essay collection based on Oshii's depressed but happy game life.
However, I can't call it an "essay". As the contents table says, the first half of this book is written in the "TRPG replay" style. Maybe some people don't know what it means. For example, one of the essays goes like this:
Oshiima: Everyone, let's talk about our problem.
Gwenno: No thanks.
Shamino: Give me a weapon.
Maria: Buy me herbs.
Iolo: I want a horse, at least...
Gwenno: We killed so many monsters. Where's our money? Who is responsible for our poverty?
Shamino: Hey, why are you wearing such nice armor?
Oshiima: (silent)
Gwenno: (sigh) Hey, you're Avatar, right? Use your brain a little.
Oshiima: But I didn't want to become Avatar in the first place.
(a heavy silence)
Like a TRPG session, Oshii plays a game as a character and talks with other non-player characters. Oshii himself is usually called Oshiima. (Only 4 characters could be used for the hero's names in the early Dragon Quest games. Oshii mistakenly named the hero "OshiiMa".) Oshiima makes long, pedantic, and fourth-wall-breaking speeches to other characters. Those speeches are actually Oshii's critical analysis of game mechanics. For example, Oshiima says this in ULTIMA 4 chapter:
"Stories need their autonomous <motivation>. From the beginning to the end, characters are very paradoxical entities: they should be independent selves but they also should be controlled by the authors' intention. In that kind of sense, game players' autonomous behaviors contradict stories."
That might sound very basic, but we should also remember that it was written in 1990. There were some early examples of critical game analysis in the 80s, but they were not so common.
Oshiima/ Oshii talks about the fundamental themes about games: What drives players' motivation, what kind of goals are needed, what kind of mechanics and system conflict with players, etc.
(The latter half of the book is Oshii's idea collection for new games. It includes a real proposal for a Patlabor game. It's not the Patlabor PC-Engine version. It's Oshii's original game based on the underground labyrinth episodes.)
