Thursday, 12 December 2001.
ZAGE Campus, United States.
Zaboru had only recently returned to the United States after spending several days in Japan. His birthday was approaching, which meant he would need to return home again by the weekend to celebrate with Ayumi, Zenshin, Arumi, and the rest of his family. Normally, that would have been enough reason for him to finish his work quickly and avoid getting distracted.
Unfortunately, something had already captured his attention.
A ZGBA game.
Zaboru sat comfortably inside his private office, holding the small game box in both hands while examining the cover with increasing amusement. He chuckled and said, "Well… these are certainly unique."
The game had been developed by a small Japanese studio called WUGONG, and even the box art was enough to make Zaboru wonder what kind of people worked there.
At first glance, it looked suspiciously similar to Pokémon. There were several strange monsters positioned dramatically across the cover: a blue-scaled dragon, a large red-furred cat, and a snake surrounded by what appeared to be electric spikes mohawk.
That was where the similarities ended.
The artwork was horrible.
Not technically bad, exactly. The illustrator clearly knew how to draw. The problem was that every monster looked intentionally unpleasant.
The blue dragon had the face of an exhausted middle-aged salaryman, complete with a bald head and thick eyebrows. The red cat had the smug expression of a drunk uncle who had just lost half his salary gambling. The electric snake looked like an old man who had somehow been electrocuted halfway through getting his hair styled.
None of them were conventionally cute.
None looked heroic.
None looked like something ZAGE would ever approve as a normal Pokémon design.
And Zaboru loved them immediately.
He looked down at the title printed proudly across the box.
OssMON!
Underneath it was the full name.
Ossan Monster.
Zaboru stared for several seconds before bursting into laughter. "Hehehe… what the hell?"
The concept immediately reminded him of something from his previous life.
Sujimon.
The ridiculous parody system from Yakuza: Like a Dragon where ordinary criminals and strange people were catalogued almost like Pokémon. Construction workers, drunks, gangsters, weirdos, and various other lunatics could somehow become part of a parody monster encyclopedia.
Zaboru rubbed his chin and smiled. "This is basically Sujimon before Sujimon exists."
Then he looked again at the grotesque monsters on the cover.
"Although these guys are still holding back."
If Zaboru ever created Sujimon properly, he would make it considerably more insane.
But that was for another time.
For now, OssMON had his complete attention.
Zaboru inserted the cartridge into his ZGBA and started the game.
The opening immediately surprised him.
He had expected a cheap Pokémon imitation.
Instead, OssMON possessed a remarkably distinctive visual identity.
The world did not resemble the colourful modern cities and routes commonly associated with Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire. OssMON instead used environments inspired heavily by old Japanese paintings, ukiyo-e illustrations, folklore scrolls, and exaggerated Edo-period architecture.
Mountains curved unnaturally across the horizon. Clouds were drawn like enormous painted waves. Villages used traditional wooden buildings with deliberately distorted perspective, while forests were filled with strange shrines, lanterns, statues, and creatures hiding between trees.
Even the interface looked like something painted onto old parchment.
Zaboru's amused expression slowly became more genuinely impressed.
"Oh…"
The developer had clearly borrowed the fundamental idea of collecting monsters from Pokémon, but visually, OssMON had no interest in pretending it was another ZAGE game.
The monsters themselves were equally ridiculous.
The first OssMON Zaboru encountered was the same blue dragon shown on the cover.
AoHage.
A long blue dragon covered in beautiful scales, except its head resembled a bald man in his late fifties. It had enormous eyebrows, a slightly crooked nose, and a permanent grin that made it look deeply untrustworthy.
The in-game encyclopedia described it as:
AoHage — The Prank Dragon.
An elderly dragon that enjoys hiding young people's belongings and pretending it knows nothing. If confronted, AoHage will usually blame nearby children.
Zaboru stared at the description before laughing. "Why specifically young people?"
AoHage's combat animation made it even worse. Instead of roaring intimidatingly, it scratched its bald head and laughed before attacking.
Then Zaboru encountered the red cat.
Its name was BakuNeko.
BakuNeko was enormous, fat, and covered in deep red fur. Its face resembled an older man with narrow eyes, a thin moustache, and an expression suggesting he had already made several irresponsible financial decisions that morning.
Its description stated:
BakuNeko — The Gambling Cat.
Frequently found near gambling halls. BakuNeko will gamble anything it owns, including food, territory, and occasionally itself. Despite losing constantly, it believes its next game will definitely be the winning one.
Zaboru covered his mouth. "This developer has issues."
He continued playing.
The next monster was KaminariJiji, an electric snake with wild white hair sticking in every direction. Every time it attacked, its hair expanded even further until nearly half the screen was covered.
Its description explained that KaminariJiji became furious whenever children called it old and would chase them while screaming that sixty-three was still young.
Zaboru laughed again.
Then came KoshiIta, a large turtle with the face of a tired old construction worker. It possessed incredible defence but occasionally lost a turn because its back hurt.
Another OssMON called NomiOjii resembled a mosquito with the face of a drunken old man. Rather than drinking blood, it stole alcohol from taverns at night.
Then there was SushiHage, a bald fish monster that balanced pieces of sushi across its head and became enraged if anyone ate them.
Zaboru eventually encountered FutonJiro, which looked like a giant hairy creature permanently wrapped inside a futon. Its attack power was surprisingly high, but it had an ability called "Five More Minutes" that occasionally caused it to fall asleep instead of attacking.
"This one is goated" Zaboru really impressed
Even stranger was KuchiKusai, a small green demon with the face of an elderly fisherman whose primary attacks involved breathing directly onto enemies.
Its strongest move was called Morning Breath.
Zaboru stared at the screen. "That's disgusting."
He immediately added it to his party.
Despite the ridiculous monster designs, the game itself was surprisingly well made.
The combat system especially caught Zaboru's attention.
It was obviously influenced by Pokémon, but WUGONG had changed enough mechanics that battles felt closer to one of ZAGE's traditional JRPGs like Final Fantasy or Suikoden.
Instead of each OssMON possessing only a small fixed collection of moves, they could continuously learn new abilities as they levelled.
There was no strict four-move limit.
An OssMON could potentially learn dozens of skills over time.
Physical attacks, elemental techniques, debuffs, support abilities, strange passive effects, and absurd joke skills could all remain available.
That created an enormous amount of flexibility.
But it also created one obvious problem.
The ability menus became increasingly ridiculous.
After several hours, AoHage already possessed nearly fifteen different attacks.
Zaboru opened the menu and stared at the growing list. "Yeah… this is going to become a mess later."
Players could organise skills manually and assign favourites, but the system still risked overwhelming people once high-level OssMON accumulated too many abilities.
Still, Zaboru appreciated the philosophy.
Pokémon focused much more heavily on planning around a limited moveset, type advantages, team composition, evolution, statistics, and understanding individual Pokémon strengths.
OssMON was looser.
The creatures continuously became stronger and accumulated more techniques over time, making them feel closer to traditional JRPG party members.
There were also fewer hidden statistical systems.
Players did not need to deeply understand breeding, specialised training values, or complicated competitive optimisation.
OssMON cared more about exploration, bizarre monsters, levelling, equipment, and building ridiculous collections.
It was clearly inspired by Pokémon.
But it had managed to develop its own identity.
Zaboru respected that enormously.
He had seen countless companies imitate successful games while understanding only their surface features. They copied monsters because Pokémon had monsters. They copied turn-based battles because Pokémon had turn-based battles. They copied collection systems because Pokémon sold millions of copies.
WUGONG had at least asked a more interesting question.
What if we take the monster-collecting concept and make it completely ours?
The result was stupid.
But it was creatively stupid.
Zaboru continued playing.
He explored strange villages populated by people who treated OssMON as completely normal parts of everyday life. Old men complained about wild monsters stealing their sake. Merchants sold bizarre equipment. Shrine keepers offered mysterious quests that occasionally ended in absurd punchlines.
One side quest involved an elderly woman asking Zaboru's character to find the monster repeatedly stealing laundry from her yard.
He expected some kind of mischievous creature.
Instead, the culprit was PantsuTengu, a tiny Tengu-like monster wearing several pairs of stolen underwear around its neck like trophies.
Zaboru stared at the screen.
"No way."
PantsuTengu immediately attacked.
Its signature move was called Forbidden Collection.
Zaboru laughed so loudly this game is somehow like collection of "old fart" yokai
Another quest involved ShakkinOni, a demon constantly fleeing from debt collectors. Capturing it required the player to chase it through several villages while it repeatedly borrowed money from random NPCs.
Then there was Kacho, a bird-shaped OssMON wearing what appeared to be a salaryman necktie. It specialised in support abilities but became significantly stronger whenever lower-level monsters were nearby.
Its encyclopedia description read:
Believes it is everyone's manager. Frequently schedules unnecessary meetings.
Zaboru immediately stopped smiling.
He stared at the creature suspiciously.
"WUGONG…"
He narrowed his eyes.
"Are you making fun of management?"
Kacho chirped innocently from the screen.
Zaboru eventually laughed again. "Fair enough."
He had originally intended to test OssMON for perhaps thirty minutes.
Maybe an hour.
Instead, the game kept pulling him forward.
There was always another strange village.
Another ridiculous monster.
Another surprisingly good boss fight.
Another stupid encyclopedia description he wanted to read.
At one point he encountered a rare OssMON called BokeSennin, an ancient-looking monkey with a massive beard. It possessed extremely powerful magical abilities but occasionally forgot what move the player selected and used something completely different.
Zaboru hated it.
Then loved it.
Then hated it again.
Four hours later, he finally looked toward the clock.
Zaboru froze.
"What?"
He checked again.
Four hours.
He had somehow spent nearly the entire evening playing OssMON.
Zaboru slowly lowered the ZGBA and stared at it with genuine respect before smiling. "This is a really good game…"
That was probably the greatest compliment he could give it.
Not good for a small developer.
Not good for a Pokémon-inspired game.
Simply good.
WUGONG had taken obvious inspiration from one of ZAGE's biggest franchises and created something weird enough to stand beside it rather than disappear beneath it.
Zaboru was already considering contacting the developer.
He really curious and wanted to know how these people think and honestly it's super interest him.
His stomach suddenly growled.
Zaboru looked down.
Right.
Food.
He stood from his chair, stretched, and said, "Okay then… food first. Maybe I'll play another hour after dinner."
Before leaving, however, he casually opened ZAGE Forum.
He only intended to check whether other people had discovered OssMON yet.
They had.
Very much so.
Several threads had already appeared discussing the game. Some players praised its art direction. Others were sharing screenshots of the most disgusting monsters they had encountered. A rapidly growing thread was dedicated entirely to finding the funniest OssMON encyclopedia descriptions.
Zaboru smiled.
Then he noticed another section.
Pokémon fans.
His smile weakened slightly.
One thread already contained thousands of replies.
"OSSMON IS JUST A SHAMELESS POKÉMON RIP-OFF."
Another appeared immediately beneath it.
"STOP COPYING ZAGE."
Then another.
"WUGONG STOLE POKÉMON."
Zaboru raised an eyebrow.
He scrolled further.
The arguments were becoming considerably more heated.
Zaboru then frowned "this is not good… not good at all."
To be continued.
*Image
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