JRPG visionary and Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii is receiving one of the highest honors that can befall a video game developer: he's getting his own manga chronicling his life and career.
Per Automaton, Dragon Quest Creator Yuji Horii: New Educational Manga Biography (Automaton's translation) releases on February 24. Being published by Shogakukan, the manga will reportedly explore Horii's life from his early days living on Awaji Island in Japan all the way to his current position as CEO of Armor Project, which co-owns the Dragon Quest IP with Square Enix.
My favorite part of all of this is that the Yuji Horii manga will have RPG elements reflecting the veteran designer's philosophy that "life is an RPG." As such, it'll show Horii "encountering companions who become his greatest strengths," "making choices at life’s crossroads," and "facing various hardships."
My least favorite part of this is that it doesn't seem like the manga will be getting an English translation, at least not at release. That said, if you can read Japanese, you'll soon be able to embark on a visual adventure of Horii's life with the 160-page manga, whose creation was supervised by Horii himself.
While these days his name is synonymous with Dragon Quest, Horii also supervised and wrote the story for Chrono Trigger, itself one of the best JRPGs of all time. At 72, he's still leading the Dragon Quest series as supervisor and director, including for the upcoming - although conspicuously quiet - Dragon Quest 12, announced in 2021. The last we heard from Horii on that was in May 2025 when he said the team was still "putting lots of work" into it and that it'll "be great."
