Yanoman

Yanoman at a Glance

Yanoman was a Japanese publisher that operated from 1990 to 1997. Founded in 1959 as a company for physical board games, cards, and accessories, the firm tried its hand at video games during the 1990s. Their digital presence is small. PlayPile lists only 14 games from this era. They acted as publisher on 13 of these titles and developed just one. The company focused heavily on the Super Famicom platform, where they released eight games. They also published three titles for the Sega Saturn and another three for the Game Boy. Their catalog is dominated by role-playing games. Nine of their 14 releases fall into this category. The remaining titles include four puzzle games, two strategy games, and one sports game. All 14 of these projects appeared during a single decade. Their output slowed in the later years. By late 1995, they released Hiyake no Omoide & Himekuri: Girls in Motion Puzzle Vol. 1 and Rejoice: Aretha Oukoku no Kanata. The next year brought Aretha II: Ariel no Fushigi na Tabi in December 1994. Activity continued with Body Special 264: Girls in Motion Puzzle Vol. 2 in September 1996. Their final listed release was Cube Battler: Anna Miraiden in May 1997. After this point, the company seems to have stopped publishing video games entirely. There are no user ratings provided for these titles in the available data, so the quality of their work remains unquantified by public scores. The short window of operation suggests they were a niche player rather than a major industry force. They released only one game per year on average during their active period. While they had a long history before entering video games, their time in the digital space was brief and limited to specific consoles like the Super Famicom.