Back to Prominent Figures

Kazuki Tajiri

Kazuki Tajiri (born April 1, 1965) is the often overlooked creator and artist for the original Elemental Monster Duel TCG. In many ways, Kazuki Tajiri is the father of the entire ELoTH:TES franchise, although living a quiet and reclusive life, he is often ignored for his influence over more eye-catching personalities such as Tycho Brahe, James Langomedes, and Tomono Shuuan. He is also the inventor of the first TCG.

Childhood and Education

As a young boy, Kazuki lived in the suburbs of Kyoto. Suffering from autism, Kazuki was withdrawn and antisocial, prefering to read manga and collect flowers than actually play with other children. He also suffered from obessive compulsive disorder, and was known to be constantly organizing all of his material posessions.

Kazuki began to aspire to become a manga creator, but his dreams were crushed by several critics who claimed that no one would ever want to read a manga about adorable collectable monsters.

As a teenager, Kazuki became involved with several roleplaying groups in Kyoto. To make campaign management easier, he would design cards to organize the information on various monsters and items. As the popularity of his Dungeon Master management system grew, Kazuki began to realize he was on to something.

PlayOtaku

In 1982, Kazuki and his friends Lawrence Sugimori and Suzuki Takahashi started to publish a roleplaying and collectable newsletter called PlayOtaku. After having their art win several contests, they had enough money to start publishing Kazuki's idea of a role-playing game would could play using collectable trading cards. Amongst the goals of the game was for shy, reclusive geeks to meet and trade cards with eachother, to actually get out of the fucking house once in a while.

The basic idea behind the franchise was magicians who summoned "Elemental Monsters" from another world to do battle with eachother. This was the basis for the Elemental Monster Duel TCG, and later, the entire concept of Elemenstation.

Things Get Wild

The Elemental Monster Duel Trading Card Game becomes an explosive success, creating an entire genre of games. Hundreds of tie-in products are licensed in the first three months of the game's success alone.

Eventually, some of the toys based on the TCG are released in America by Hasbro as Monsters of the Hierarchs. It is at this time that Tajiri reportedly "lost hold of the entire thing".

In one of his rare interviews he said this on the success of his creation:

His business partners, Sugimori and Takahashi began licensing out the franchise left and right, till Tajiri had no idea what was being produced. Tajiri, being shy and withdrawn, remained in charge of the TCG for 20 years, designing new monsters, spells, and items. He had little to no understanding of the many mutations his concepts were going through.

Back On Track

As of late 2006, Tajiri has began to get over his shyness, and is trying to reclaim what is rightfully his. He sued Sugimori and Takahashi successfully for licensing rights and is slowly but surely regaining intellectual control over the many spinoffs that the franchise went through.

With PlayOtaku now owning most of the main licensing rights and Kazuki having more say when it comes to creative input, the future is starting to look bright for Tajiri once more. He is relaunching the card game in the US and Japan simultaneously under the name Hierarch Hyper Colosseum Alpha. Together, he and Ichigo Shuuan are producing a new anime series, Element Story which is going to be based on a concept of Battal closer to Kazuki's original vision. In addition, Kazuki is bringing several lawsuits against James Langomedes for reasons that should be obvious.