Tulunk Village

I noticed just the other day that before the Telefang title screen, there are credits given for the original creator (Kino Kozue) and the Denjuu designer (Takaki Saiko). I did Google searches for their names in both English and Japanese, and was surprised to find that they're both mangaka. Takaki Saiko apparently did one called Vampire Hunter, and Kino Kozue had one named Aidoru wa raku ja nai ("It isn't easy being an idol", or something to that effect).

Both of them are listed as the authors for the Telefang manga, so apparently they worked on it together or something. However, while Kino Kozue is the main author of the manga, Smilesoft, Natsume, and Kodansha are all credited for the copyright along with Takaki Saiko for his designs, in smaller print at the start of it, which seems to indicate the game came first.

If the game came first, why are these two mangaka listed on the title screen for Telefang? "Gensaku" seems to me to mean "original work", implying that perhaps the manga might have come first, even though it seems that the manga came second because of the credits in the manga and the fact that the manga's style is different from the official art, or for that matter, the game. Did Smilesoft just decide to hire some mangaka to do the graphics/design for their game? I know that Toriyama Akira, for one, has been doing character designs for video games lately, so that kind of thing is possible, but then again, there could be any number of explanations.

Does anyone know enough about the creators of Telefang to explain this? I don't actually have the manga; I've only seen what's been uploaded to MangaHelpers.com.

I can answer this!! XD

Most places, Kino Kozue is listed as the manga author or original creator (gensaku), with Takaki Saiko listed as the character designer. In the game credits, it narrows "character design" down to Denjuu design. *nod* So most likely, Takaki only designed the Denjuu, and the human characters that appear in the manga (these) were done by Kino Kozue, the author. :O

It looks like in the case of Telefang, the manga series was tied pretty closely to the game... So while it was originally planned to be a game, they got a mangaka to design the characters for the game and make a series for Comic Bom Bom, probably so that the series would already be known when the game came out. *shrug* I know that Medarot, another game series and Bom Bom manga, did this as well. XD It seems the Telefang manga actually started in March 2000, while the game was released 8 months later in November. :O

So basically, Smilesoft owned the rights and handled sales, but the game was developed (graphics, music, writing, programming) by Natsume, with much thanks to Kodansha for running the manga series in Comic Bom Bom, which was written by Kino Kozue using the Denjuu designs by Takaki Saiko. *nod* So indeed, nothing really came first? XD At least, I think that's how it went. *shrug*

Kino Kozue doesn't seem to work as a mangaka anymore, but they still do artwork. Their site is here.

Takaki Saiko wasn't a mangaka at the time of Telefang, but is now, doing the manga version of the novel series "Vampire Hunter D". XD It's kind of well known even in english, so that's pretty cool. *nod* It also means the chance of another Telefang game with the same style is basically nil. *sigh* Their site is here. XD

Takaki did all of the character design for Telefang 2, though, including the humans. XD It's a really different style from the people in 1, which is why I assume they didn't do those... *nod*