Video game history often remembers companies more easily than people. Enix, Natsume, Sega, and the Famicom all occupy recognizable places in the story of Japanese games, but the individuals who moved between manga studios, computer magazines, tiny software projects, and commercial development can be much harder to trace. Tadashi Makimura is one of those figures.
Makimura, whose name appears in Japanese sources as 槙村ただし and in other forms including 真樹村正, 槙村正, and later Doronpa, built a career that crossed manga and computer games at a time when those fields were beginning to overlap. Preservation records connect him with some of the earliest commercially released Japanese microcomputer games, including Yakyūken, Mari-chan Kiki Ippatsu, Joshiryō Panic, and Eldorado Denki. His later work stretched into the action RPG Gandhara, the Natsume computer game Majo Riko, production on the Famicom shooter Abadox, and a credit on Mazin Saga.
His career is especially revealing because Makimura did not simply leave manga behind and become a programmer. He carried the visual language of manga into games, continued drawing comics while working with computers, supervised educational publications about programming, and eventually wrote books explaining both digital manga production and game creation.
From Dynamic Pro to the Microcomputer
The surviving biographical record places Makimura’s birth in 1951 and connects his early career with Dynamic Pro, the manga organization built around Go Nagai. Manga reference sources identify him as an artist associated with Dynamic Pro, while the National Diet Library’s catalog reveals just how broad his publishing career became. Its records include comics, educational works, historical manga, computer books, Mutant Turtles adaptations, and later works connected with Gamera. Oh!FM-7, a specialist archive of Japanese computer software, likewise identifies Makimura as a 1951-born creator and records both 真樹村正 and Doronpa among his alternate names.
That manga background matters when looking at his games. The Japanese computer business of the early 1980s was still loose enough that a cartoonist with programming knowledge could conceive an idea, create graphics, work out a game system, and see the finished program sold commercially. The boundaries between programmer, designer, illustrator, and writer had not yet hardened into the specialized production departments that would dominate larger game development later in the decade.
Makimura appears almost perfectly suited to that moment. Famitsu’s history of early Japanese PC software identifies him as both a manga artist and, at the time, a member of Go Nagai’s Dynamic Pro. According to the same account, the large computer retailer Tsukumo commercialized a game he developed called Yakyūken in 1982.
Yakyūken and a Game Born from Manga
Yakyūken is important not because it resembles the kind of elaborate games that would eventually define Japanese development, but because of how directly it connected Makimura’s comic work with interactive software.
Oh!FM-7 records the game as a 1982 Tsukumo release and identifies Makimura as its author. More intriguingly, the archive reports that its concept had previously appeared in Makimura’s manga My Computer Love. In other words, an idea imagined within a manga about computers apparently crossed over into an actual computer program that people could buy and play.
The game used the traditional Japanese yakyūken format, a variant of rock-paper-scissors associated with removing clothing after losses. By later standards it was technically simple, but that simplicity should not hide its historical setting. In 1982, Japan’s home computer market was still fragmented among competing machines, software distribution was developing quickly, and individuals could sometimes produce commercial games largely on their own.
For Makimura, the transition from drawing a computer game in manga to producing one for sale would lead almost immediately to something more consequential.
The First Enix Game Hobby Program Contest
In 1982, Enix announced its first Game Hobby Program Contest, inviting computer owners to submit original games. The contest became one of the foundational events in early Japanese computer game history because Enix did more than award prize money. The Game Preservation Society’s reconstruction of surviving Enix material explains that thirteen prize-winning entries were commercially packaged, distributed, and paid royalties according to sales.
The contest closed on December 20, 1982, and the winning games began appearing commercially around February 1983. The group included Koichi Nakamura’s Door Door, Yuji Horii’s Love Match Tennis, and Makimura’s Mari-chan Kiki Ippatsu. The Game Preservation Society identifies Makimura by name as the author and records Mari-chan Kiki Ippatsu as an Excellent Program Award winner. Its preserved FM version was sold by Enix for ¥3,600.
This places Makimura inside a remarkable class of creators. The contest is now frequently remembered because Nakamura and Horii later became closely associated with Dragon Quest, but Makimura’s presence shows how much wider the pool of early Enix talent actually was.
Enix’s method was also unusual for the era. Rather than maintaining a conventional internal development department capable of producing every game itself, the company could discover independent creators, package their programs professionally, and distribute them as commercial products. The Preservation Society notes that the company’s royalty arrangement also encouraged unusually clear attribution of individual creators at a time when game developers were often poorly documented.
For historians trying to reconstruct Makimura’s career four decades later, that decision is invaluable.
Mari-chan Kiki Ippatsu
Released in 1983, Mari-chan Kiki Ippatsu carried some of the adult humor and exaggerated visual sensibilities associated with Makimura’s manga background. Its imagery could be provocative and deliberately outrageous, and the game belonged to a period before the conventions separating mainstream computer games from adult-oriented PC software had become firmly established.
What matters historically is that Makimura’s artwork was not simply decoration placed around someone else’s program. The surviving documentation treats him as the creator. The Game Preservation Society’s Enix exhibition identifies him as the author, while separate archival catalog records preserve physical editions of the title. Contemporary game historians have also continued to place it among the important software released through Enix’s first contest.
Makimura’s game also emerged during the same period in which Japanese computer magazines themselves were changing. Veteran editors interviewed by 4Gamer recalled the early 1980s as a transition from general microcomputer coverage toward increasingly game-focused magazines. In that discussion, Mari-chan Kiki Ippatsu is specifically remembered as a 1983 Enix contest winner by Makimura.
The title therefore belongs to more than the history of adult computer games. It belongs to the moment when Japanese computer culture was becoming Japanese computer game culture.
Joshiryō Panic and the Growth of Makimura’s Game Design
Makimura followed Mari-chan Kiki Ippatsu with Joshiryō Panic. Although modern sources sometimes give conflicting dates for particular versions, the Oh!FM-7 archive records an FM release in June 1983 and again names Makimura as the author. It classifies the game as both adult and adventure software and describes it as a follow-up to Mari-chan Kiki Ippatsu with stronger adventure elements.
That change is significant. Makimura was already moving beyond a single novelty mechanic toward games constructed around settings, characters, exploration, and situations. His background as a cartoonist offered an obvious advantage. Where many early computer programs were built first around systems and abstract challenges, Makimura naturally approached games through recognizable characters and illustrated scenarios.
It is difficult to separate that development from his continuing manga career because the two were happening at the same time. He remained active in print while experimenting with software, which made the computer another medium for the sort of exaggerated characters and situations he was already accustomed to producing on paper.
Eldorado Denki and a More Ambitious Adventure
By the middle of the decade, Makimura was working on a considerably larger scale. Enix released Eldorado Denki in 1985, and the Game Preservation Society preserves a PC-9801 edition consisting of two 5.25-inch floppy disks. Its archival record identifies Enix as publisher, gives the 1985 release year, and lists an original price of ¥7,800.
Contemporary-style retrospectives describe the game as distinctly Makimura’s. AKIBA PC Hotline notes that the package itself was illustrated by Makimura and even carried wording effectively presenting it as a “Makimura Adventure.” The surviving research record also identifies it as one of his Enix works following his earlier contest success.
The distance between Yakyūken and Eldorado Denki demonstrates how quickly Japanese computer games were growing. A simple early program distributed on cassette could give way, only a few years later, to a comparatively substantial adventure presented across multiple disks.
Makimura’s career was growing along with the medium.
Teaching Computers Through Manga
His interest in computers was never confined to commercial games. In 1984, Obunsha published a series called Run Run My Computer: Basic Introduction Manga. National Diet Library records for the introductory, game, animation, and practical volumes all identify Makimura as the art supervisor.
These books are an important piece of his history because they show how naturally his two careers fit together. The personal computer was still unfamiliar to much of the Japanese public, particularly younger readers. Manga offered publishers a way to explain BASIC programming and computer concepts in a visual language they already understood.
Makimura had by then done something especially useful for that task. He understood both sides.
He had drawn professionally, but he had also created programs that became retail software. He was not a cartoonist merely illustrating someone else’s explanation of computing. His own career had already demonstrated the route from an idea on paper to a working computer game.
Gandhara and a New Scale of Production
Makimura’s work took another major step with Gandhara: Buddha no Seisen. The original game appeared from Enix in 1987, with later versions following on additional Japanese computer platforms. A 2026 AKIBA PC Hotline retrospective based on period advertising gives the original release date as May 28, 1987. More importantly, it identifies Makimura, credited there as 槇村正, with the original concept and graphics. Toru Hidaka handled composition and programming, while Dragon Quest composer Koichi Sugiyama supplied the music.
Preserved game credits provide even more detail. The PC-98 version credits Makimura with original work and graphics. The MSX version adds monster design, while the copyright notice names Makimura alongside Hidaka, Sugiyama, and Enix.
That credit list shows how far the production model had moved from Makimura’s earliest games. Gandhara was no longer simply the product of one creator making a small program. It brought together design, programming, music, graphics, packaging, conversion work, and direction.
Yet Makimura’s fingerprints remained visible in the areas where his manga experience mattered most: concept, graphics, and creature design.
His involvement extended outside the executable game as well. AKIBA PC Hotline reports that beginning with the July 1987 issue of Popcom, Makimura himself drew a strategy manga for Gandhara.
The circle was complete. Manga had helped lead Makimura into games, and now one of his games was returning to manga.
Majo Riko and the Dynamic Planning Connection
By 1989, Makimura’s game work intersected more directly with Natsume and Dynamic Planning. Majo Riko, released for Japanese computers, provides some of the clearest surviving credits for what he actually contributed.
The preserved PC-88 staff listing credits Tadashi Makimura with original work, original artwork, and game design. The PC-98 version repeats those credits. Takashi Nagai is named for scenario arrangement, while the production copyright identifies Natsume and Dynamic Kikaku, or Dynamic Planning.
The Game Preservation Society’s PC-88 archive independently describes Makimura of Dynamic Pro as handling work from the scenario through the graphics.
These records are useful because they make clear that Makimura was not merely an illustrator brought into a game project to provide drawings. His role included the underlying work and game design itself.
That distinction is important when considering his place in game history. Makimura’s artistic career was obvious, but the credits demonstrate that he also participated in deciding what the games were.
Abadox and the Famicom Era
The same year brought Makimura into one of his most recognizable projects for Western players.
Natsume released Abadox for the Famicom in Japan in 1989. The vertically and horizontally scrolling shooter took place inside a gigantic alien organism, filling its stages with biological scenery and grotesque enemies. North American players received it through Milton Bradley in 1990.
The surviving staff roll names Atsushi Okazaki as director and credits Takashi Nagai and Tadashi Makimura as producers. Hidenobu Takahashi was character designer, Kiyohiro Sada handled sound creation, and Kimiya Sasaki, Seiichi Tajima, and Koichi Dekune are credited as programmers.
That producer credit marks another stage in Makimura’s evolution. The man who had once authored small Japanese computer games was now working in a production role on a commercial Famicom title built by a multi-person staff.
The title screen also carried a connection to Dynamic Planning and Makimura, reinforcing the link between the game and the creative network in which he had spent much of his career.
Abadox has endured largely because of its striking setting and punishing difficulty, but Makimura’s presence gives it another historical connection. It links the mature Famicom market of the late 1980s directly back to the small-scale Japanese microcomputer scene in which creators such as Makimura could still build games almost as personal works.
A Career That Never Fit One Medium
Makimura did not abandon manga as his game credits accumulated. National Diet Library records show him continuing to publish extensively. In 1993 he authored Multi Paint de Tanoshimu Manga no Kakikata, a book about drawing manga with computer graphics software. In 1994, his name appeared on several volumes of Mutant Turtles. Other catalog records connect him with educational and historical manga as well.
His game connections also continued. The 1993 Mega Drive title Mazin Saga: Mutant Fighter lists Makimura under Special Thanks, while Dynamic Planning is credited with planning and production.
None of those later credits is as central as his authorship of the early Enix titles or his design work on Majo Riko, but they show that his relationship with the Dynamic Planning circle remained visible well into the console era.
Then, in 1995, Makimura produced perhaps the clearest surviving statement of his identity as a game creator.
Bijo Game Seisaku Kōza
The National Diet Library catalogs Makimura as the sole author of Bijo Game Seisaku Kōza: Visual Basic for Windows PC98 Series Taiō, published by Nihon Bungeisha in February 1995.
The book runs 223 pages and was originally packaged with four 3.5-inch floppy disks. The National Diet Library classifies its subject as computer games.
More than a decade had passed since Yakyūken and Mari-chan Kiki Ippatsu. Personal computers had changed dramatically. The cassette-based machines and fragmented early Japanese microcomputer environment had given way to increasingly powerful PC-98 systems and Windows software.
Makimura was still there, now explaining how other people could make games.
That may be one of the most fitting endpoints for understanding his historical career. He had entered computer games during a period when individual experimentation could become commercial software almost overnight. He had watched development become more complex, participated in larger productions, worked with Enix, Natsume, and Dynamic Planning, crossed into Famicom development, and then turned around and taught readers how to create digital work themselves.
Why Tadashi Makimura Matters to Video Game History
Makimura does not fit neatly into the familiar categories used to describe game developers.
Calling him a programmer misses the importance of his drawing. Calling him an artist ignores the games he designed. Calling him a manga creator overlooks his place in Enix’s earliest software history. Calling him a producer explains Abadox but not Mari-chan Kiki Ippatsu, Gandhara, or Majo Riko.
His importance instead comes from the fact that he could move between all of those roles.
Makimura belonged to a short period in Japanese game history when the medium had not yet decided exactly what a game creator was supposed to be. A manga artist could learn enough about microcomputers to turn an idea from his comics into software. That software could lead to a winning Enix contest entry. The contest entry could lead to adventure games, RPG design, educational computer books, Famicom production, and eventually a book teaching game creation.
The documentation surrounding him remains scattered. His changing professional names make the record harder to follow, and some early games survive today more clearly in preservation databases, old advertisements, and physical archives than in conventional histories. Even so, the outline that emerges is unusually consistent.
Tadashi Makimura stood at the meeting point of manga and video games when Japanese computer entertainment was still inventing itself. His career preserves a glimpse of an era when a single creator could draw the characters, imagine the story, design the game, and sometimes help build the program that brought all of it to life.
For that reason, Makimura deserves to be remembered not simply as an obscure developer attached to a handful of old Japanese computer games, but as one of the creators who demonstrated what a video game artist could be before the industry had settled on the definition.
Sources & Further Reading
Game Preservation Society. “The Dawn of Enix: First Game Hobby Program Contest.” Game Preservation Society. Accessed October 15, 2026. https://www.gamepres.org/media/honorary/hidaka/exhibition2015/
Game Preservation Society. “Mari-chan Kiki Ippatsu.” Game Preservation Society Catalog. Accessed October 15, 2026. https://www.gamepres.org/en/catalog/?cat=1&id=8811001989001&nav=brand
Game Preservation Society. “Mari-chan Kiki Ippatsu, Pasopia 7 Edition.” Game Preservation Society Catalog. Accessed October 15, 2026. https://www.gamepres.org/en/catalog/?cat=1&id=8811001988004&nav=brand
Makimura, Tadashi. Bijo Game Seisaku Kōza: Visual Basic for Windows PC98 Series Taiō. Tokyo: Nihon Bungeisha, 1995. National Diet Library. https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000002-I000002408300
National Diet Library. “槙村ただし [Tadashi Makimura], Author Search.” NDL Search. Accessed October 15, 2026. https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/search?cs=bib&from=0&q-author=%22%E6%A7%99%E6%9D%91%2C+%E3%81%9F%E3%81%A0%E3%81%97%22&size=20
Takashima, Shigeru, et al. Run Run My Computer: Basic Introduction Manga, Game Edition. 1984. National Diet Library. https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000002-I000001704855
Takashima, Shigeru, et al. Run Run My Computer: Basic Introduction Manga, Introductory Edition. 1984. National Diet Library. https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000002-I000001704854
Takashima, Shigeru, et al. Run Run My Computer: Basic Introduction Manga, Animation Edition. 1984. National Diet Library. https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000002-I000001708583
Takashima, Shigeru, et al. Run Run My Computer: Basic Introduction Manga, Practical Edition. 1984. National Diet Library. https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000002-I000001708584
Game Preservation Society. “Gandhara: Buddha no Seisen.” Game Preservation Society Catalog. Accessed October 15, 2026. https://www.gamepres.org/catalog/?cat=1&id=8811000851002&nav=brand
Game Preservation Society. “Eldorado Denki.” Game Preservation Society Catalog. Accessed October 15, 2026. https://www.gamepres.org/catalog/?id=8811001935008&tab=basic
Game Preservation Society. “Majo Riko.” PC-8801 Software Archive. Accessed October 15, 2026. https://www.gamepres.org/pc88/library/1989/1989_2.html
Game Preservation Society. “Software Contests.” PC-8801 Software Archive. Accessed October 15, 2026. https://www.gamepres.org/pc88/library/contest.htm
Game Developer Research Institute. “Credits Repository Archive 05.” GDRI. Accessed October 15, 2026. Includes surviving credits for Majo Riko. https://gdri.smspower.org/wiki/index.php/Credits_Repository_Archive_05
Game Developer Research Institute. “ITL (Credits).” GDRI. Accessed October 15, 2026. Includes preserved Abadox production credits identifying Tadashi Makimura as producer. https://gdri.smspower.org/wiki/index.php/ITL_%28credits%29
MobyGames. “Abadox: The Deadly Inner War: NES Credits.” Accessed October 15, 2026. https://www.mobygames.com/game/11083/abadox-the-deadly-inner-war/credits/nes/
MobyGames. “Gandhara: Buddha no Seisen: PC-98 Credits.” Accessed October 15, 2026. https://www.mobygames.com/game/51192/gandhara-buddha-no-seisen/credits/pc98/
MobyGames. “Gandhara: Buddha no Seisen: MSX Credits.” Accessed October 15, 2026. https://www.mobygames.com/game/51192/gandhara-buddha-no-seisen/credits/msx/
MobyGames. “Mazin Saga: Mutant Fighter: Genesis Credits.” Accessed October 15, 2026. https://www.mobygames.com/game/37953/mazin-saga-mutant-fighter/credits/genesis/
MobyGames. “Tadashi Makimura.” Developer profile and credit record. Accessed October 15, 2026. https://www.mobygames.com/person/121872/tadashi-makimura/
Oh!FM-7. “槙村ただし [Tadashi Makimura].” Creator profile. Accessed October 15, 2026. https://fm-7.com/museum/products/i5zwepvc/
Oh!FM-7. “野球拳 [Yakyūken].” Oh!FM-7 Museum. Accessed October 15, 2026. https://fm-7.com/museum/products/88klrret/
Oh!FM-7. “まりちゃん危機一髪 [Mari-chan Kiki Ippatsu].” Oh!FM-7 Museum. Accessed October 15, 2026. https://fm-7.com/museum/products/1paitdl4/
Oh!FM-7. “エルドラド伝奇 [Eldorado Denki].” Oh!FM-7 Museum. Accessed October 15, 2026. https://fm-7.com/museum/products/333wukd2/
Oh!FM-7. “ガンダーラ 仏陀の聖戦 [Gandhara: Buddha no Seisen].” Oh!FM-7 Museum. Accessed October 15, 2026. https://fm-7.com/museum/products/1omxi1e2/
Oh!FM-7. “リコちゃんのウェディングアドベンチャー [Riko-chan no Wedding Adventure].” Oh!FM-7 Museum. Accessed October 15, 2026. https://fm-7.com/museum/products/zkfvqe8q/
AKIBA PC Hotline! “Did You Get Past the Difficult Opening? Enix’s Eldorado Denki.” Impress Corporation. Accessed October 15, 2026. https://akiba-pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/column/retrosoft/1299867.html
AKIBA PC Hotline! “Gandhara: Buddha no Seisen.” Impress Corporation. Accessed October 15, 2026. https://akiba-pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/column/retrosoft/2082850.html
Famitsu.com. “History of Early Japanese PC Adult Games.” December 10, 2023. https://www.famitsu.com/news/202312/10327281.html
Famitsu.com. “Interview on the First Enix Game Hobby Program Contest.” September 14, 2020. https://www.famitsu.com/news/202009/14204712.html
4Gamer.net. Interview with Tsuyoshi Shiozaki and Naoto Yamamoto on Japan’s early computer and game publishing industry. August 2024. https://document.4gamer.net/games/999/G999905/20240813008/
BEEP. “History of Early Japanese Game-Development Contests.” BEEP Akihabara. Accessed October 15, 2026. Includes discussion and reproduction of contemporary material surrounding Enix’s contest. https://www.beep-shop.com/column_entry/70900/
I/O. December 1983. Contemporary Enix advertising featuring Joshiryō Panic and Mari-chan Kiki Ippatsu. Digitized by the Japanese Retro Game Magazine Digitization Society. https://retoge-mag.websa.jp/archives/1704
Arcade-History. “Abadox.” Accessed October 15, 2026. Includes staff and title-screen credit information for Tadashi Makimura and Dynamic Kikaku. https://www.arcade-history.com/game/53805/abadox-model-nat-a3
Arcade-History. “Mazin Saga.” Accessed October 15, 2026. https://www.arcade-history.com/game/56651/mazin-saga-model-g-4078
Arcade-History. “Tadashi Makimura.” Works and credit index. Accessed October 15, 2026. https://www.arcade-history.com/index.php?name=Tadashi+Makimura&page=person