Hirameki International Group Inc.

Overview

Hirameki International Group Inc was a publisher that was founded in March 2000 by Masato Someya, who served as the company's CEO, and employed a bit less than 20 people [1][14]. Initially planning to "introduce new anime related products into the American market," Hirameki was involved in a variety of different fields with the company releasing anime on home video, publishing a quarterly magazine called AnimePlay Magazine, and operating an online store named AkibaOtaku. One of the company's main businesses, however, was localizing various Japanese visual novels and releasing them under their "AnimePlay" line of interactive DVDs and PC titles.

Many of the company's other ventures would fall to the wayside over time until the company announced on their website that they would be bowing out of the visual novel industry on January 2, 2008 [10][11]. Later on Hirameki would reopen their website in 2010 as the official North American seller of Cyber Gadget's video game accessories. However, around 2013-2014, Hirameki finally closed down their website for good and are currently completely inactive.

Video Games

AnimePlay DVD

A majority of the products released by Hirameki came from the company's brand of interactive DVDs, which were games that could be played on DVD players or other devices that played DVDs such as video game consoles like the PlayStation 2. The line began on May 24, 2002 with Phantom of Inferno, which was published by Hirameki along with another company called ComuNet [22]. Their catalog was expanded greatly in 2003 when Hirameki announced that they would be releasing fifteen additional titles that year alone [8]. While the company would eventually end up releasing 10 titles under their interactive DVD brand, 11 of the games that were announced in 2003 never saw the light of day. Some catalogs also mention two other DVD titles that never saw release including a trivia game called The Quiz Master and a "sci-fi love adventure game set to classical music" named KOU-GA-SHA: Space Odyssey which would have featured mechanical designs by Katsumi Itabashi [26]. Eventually, Hirameki announced during their New York Comic-Con panel in 2006 that they would discontinue making Interactive DVD products after the release of Exodus Guilty Vol. 2 and 3 in order to focus purely on publishing PC titles [9].

• Phantom of Inferno (2002)
• Amusement Park (2004)
• Day of Love (2004)
• Hourglass of Summer (2004)
• Tea Society of a Witch (2004)
• Ishika & Honori (2004)
• Dragonia (2005)
• Exodus Guilty Vol. 1 Present (2005)
• Exodus Guilty Vol. 2 Past (2006)
• Exodus Guilty Vol. 3 Future (2006)

Unreleased Titles:

• The Sixteenth Night Love Song
• The Bride of Ergeners
• Separate Blue
• AZRAEL
• Sweet Legacy
• FIVE O ONE
• Lying on Yoshia Heights...
• KOIMUSUBI: Lover's Knot
• Snow Talk
• CANARY
• Hooligan
• KOU-GA-SHA -Space Odyssey-
• The Quiz Master

AnimePlay PC

While the DVD market was very large in the early 2000s, Hirameki realized there just wasn't a large audience that was interested in interactive DVD games. Hirameki thought that the DVD format would make their games more accessible but it turned out that most people wanted a passive viewing experience when using DVDs plus the interactivity of the format was far more limited compared to PC titles [19]. So Hirameki reconsidered their product line and started releasing their Interactive Visual Novel titles for Windows-based PCs in 2005.

The line began with two titles developed by KID Corp, those being Ai Yori Aoshi in September and Ever17 in December of 2005. Hirameki would then release Animamundi and Yo-Jin-bo in 2006 which both ran on Flash-based game engines so they were compatible with both PC and Macintosh operating systems [15]. These titles were also notable for appealing to a female audience, compared to the more male focused games Hirameki published previously, with Yo-Jin-bo being the very first otome game to ever be officially released in English. Hirameki even spoke of plans to translate more female oriented titles in the future, with the company potentially creating a "Hirameki Girls" and "Hirameki Boys" line, but nothing ever came of these plans [14]. Finally, Hirameki would released Piece of Wonder in 2007 which experimented with digital distribution, with the title being released first as a download title and then later being released physically [18][19].

• Ai Yori Aoshi (2005)
• Ever17: Out of Infinity (2005)
• Animamundi: Dark Alchemist (2006)
• Yo-Jin-Bo: The Bodyguards (2006)
• Piece of Wonder (2007)

Other Ventures

Anime DVD Videos

Hirameki International had a short lived anime DVD line that began in 2003 with the release of Idol Fighter SU-CHI-PAI on June 24, 2003 and the first volume of Soar High! Isami on September 15, 2003. Idol Fighter was licensed through Jaleco while Isami was licensed from NEP21 (NHK Enterprise 21) [8]. All of the anime released by Hirameki were also dual audio with both shows containing an English dub. Some of the same actors/actresses, such as Rumiko Varnes, even performed roles in both programs. However, Hirameki would only end up releasing four DVDs before quietly discontinuing their anime line in 2004. The last release by Hirameki would be the third volume of Soar High! Isami with volumes 4-6 being advertised as sub-only releases that ultimately never made it to market.

• Idol Fighter SU-CHI-PAI (2003)
• Soar High! Isami (2003-2004)

AnimePlay Magazine

AnimePlay Magazine was a "viewable anime and otaku magazine" released by Hirameki International that featured information about anime and interactive DVDs. Every issue also came with a DVD that had various trailers, interviews, articles and other features not included in the print magazine. AnimePlay began as a bi-monthly publication on June 17, 2003 with the release of the July 2003 issue with Shinya Masuda serving as the Editor in Chief [3]. The premiere issue was mainly available at various anime conventions in the Summer of 2003, as well as through Hirameki's online store, and didn't get wide spread distribution [27].

One of the most famous inclusions in AnimePlay Magazine was actually a full length episode of the NHK "Extracurricular Lesson" documentary series. The series features famous people returning to the school of their childhood to teach the current students something about their careers. Issue 1 of Animeplay contained a completely translated episode featuring Evangelion creator Hideaki Anno exploring his former hometown and teaching children about animation.

Later in 2004, the magazine was reworked into a quarterly publication with Robert T. Silva taking over as Editor in Chief [13]. Ultimately, only six volumes of the magazine were released before it was discontinued at the end of 2004.

AkibaOtaku

Starting on July 26, 2003, Hirameki opened their own online storefront called AkibaOtaku with the slogan "Bringing Akihabara to you" [12]. While the store initially only sold Hirameki's products, it eventually expanded to include import merchandise from Japan including art books, manga, and figures such as Pinky Street which were heavily advertised by the company. Hirameki eventually opened a brick-and-mortar store as well in City of Industry, California on January 2, 2006 [7]. The same year, the company also rebranded their online store as simply "Hirmakei" with the new slogan of, "Welcome to the wonderful world of visual novels." However Hirameki's physical store location ended up closing in November 2007 and the online store was closed when the company left the industry in 2008 [11].

Game Development

Among the company's many localizations, Hirameki International also had ambitions of creating original visual novels for the western market. Dragonia was the first of these projects to be announced with the game being advertised back in 2003 inside the pages of AnimePlay Magazine [30]. Two other original projects include "KOU-GA-SHA: Space Odyssey" and "The Quiz Master" which were talked about in Hirameki's E3 pamphlets and magazine [26]. However, Dragonia wouldn't be released until 2005 and KOU-GA-SHA was later revealed to simply be an interactive artbook, despite initally being advertised as a "love adventure game" [26][31]. After Dragonia's release, none of the other original games or products being developed by Hirameki were published.

Potential Reasons for Closing

Despite the company trying to diversify their products and distribution over time, Hirameki ended up stretching their resources too far across multiple ventures and faced many difficulties in the visual novel space. The company had a big issue with getting their games into retail stores due to many sellers not fully understanding what their products were and often not considering them to be "real" video games [17][18]. Later on, Hirameki also had trouble acquiring more titles for localization. They had hoped to license more games from KID Corp but, due to the company filing for bankruptcy in 2006, were unable to acquire any of their other games [18]. Hirmakei also couldn't justify paying the high licensing costs to acquire games from other popular developers due to many of their previous releases not meeting sales expectations [14][19]. One of the factors for Hirameki's low sales was that their games were heavily pirated. Links to download their games could often be found in Hirameki's own BBS forum and the company even issued a statement about the illegal distrabution of their software on their blog in 2006 [28][29]. All this combined with other issues that were assuredly going on behind the scenes lead to Hirameki leaving the industry at the beginning of 2008.

Legacy

According to Hirameki's Japanese website, the company's goal was to introduce bishoujo games with branching stories to a general audience in the United States through interactive DVDs [2]. There were other companies before Hirameki that localized bishoujo games into English, such as JAST USA and Himeya Soft USA, but Hirameki was one of the first to exclusively sell all-ages titles to a mainstream audience. More importantly, while other companies would label their games as "anime games," "ADVs" or "bishoujo games," Hirameki was the first American company to classify their games as "visual novels," which began in 2004 with Ishika & Honori. The term "visual novel" is not really a genre title that is used very often in Japan itself with most fans and publishers just calling their titles "adventure games" [25]. However, Leaf (the company that coined the term) and Type-Moon (a very popular former doujin group) did call their games visual novels which might have lead to Hirameki adopting the the term for their "Interactive Visual Novel" product line. While many of Hirameki's releases are forgotten curiosities, their release of Ever17 had a huge long-term impact on the modern visual novel fandom in the West. Ever17, which was co-written by the future creator of the Zero Escape franchise (Kotaro Uchikoshi), would turn many people into hardcore fans of visual novels. Several professional visual novel translators have even stated that Ever17 inspired them to enter the industry by making them fans of the genre, such as H. Anthony Israel and John Hooper, the founder of Lemnisca LLC [21]. The prolific online encyclopedia known as the Visual Novel Database was also created because its founder, Yorhel, was so impressed with Ever17 that he wanted to create a central resource for English information on visual novels [20]. So it could be stated that Hirameki International's advertising and release of Ever17 helped in many ways to define the visual novel genre in the West.

External Links and Sources

1. Official Website (2003, 2007, 2010)
2. Japanese Website
3. AnimePlay Magazine Website
4. Akiba Otaku Store (2003, 2006)
5. Anime Damasii Blog
6. Hirameki Community Hub
7. AkibaOtaku Shop
8. E3: Hirameki International by Brandon Sheffield (Insert Credit, 2003).
9. Hirameki Panel News from NY Comic-Con by James Jursudakul (Advanced Anime, 2006).
10. Hirameki Announces it is Leaving the Industry (Hirameki-int, 2008).
11. Hirameki No Longer Publishing Interactive Visual Novels by Egan Loo (ANN, 2008).
12. AkibaOtaku now Open! (Hirameki-int, 2003).

13. AnimePlay Magazine Completely Revamped (Hirameki-int, 2004).

14. The AX Reports - Part 1: Hirameki Panel by Misuzu (Visual News, 2006).
15. Japanese 'visual novels' come to Mac by Peter Cohen (MacWorld, 2006).
16. Yo-Jin-Bo 'visual novel' set for Oct. 30 release by Peter Cohen (MacWorld, 2006).
17. 'Visual Novel' publisher has tough time finding U.S. audience by Peter Cohen (MacWorld, 2007).

18. Short-Interview with Hirameki Sales Manager Aldo Donnaloia by James Jursudakul (Advanced Anime, 2007).

19. Fanime 2006 Report by zalas (Visual News, 2006).
20. Visual Novel Database About Page.
21. Ever17 Anniversary Interview (Lemnisca Translations, 2017).
22. Phantom of Inferno Akiba Otaku Store Page (2004).
23. Interview with Shinichi Shimura, Tokyo Office Team Leader of Hirameki International by James Jursudakul (Advanced Anime, 2006).
24. AX 2006: Interview w/ Hirameki International Group Inc. by James Jursudakul (Advanced Anime, 2006).
25. Interview with Kotaro Uchikoshi, "The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers Vol. 1" (Pages: 340-341).
26. Photos of AnimePlay Catalog (@necrosofty, 2019).

27. Buried Treasure: Hideaki Anno Talks to Kids by Justin Sevakis (Anime News Networks, 2007).

28. Our Stance on the Illegal Distribution of Hirameki Software (Anime Damasii, 2006).
29. Hirameki's Piece of Wonder BBS (2007) - Features dozens of torrent links to download the game for free.
30. Early Dragonia Advertisement (AnimePlay Magazine Issue 3, November 2003).

31. KOU-GA-SHA: Space Odyssey Preview (AnimePlay Magazine Vol. 6).