Something completely random: I’ve become a huge fan of Lucky Star, so along with the now 5 manga volumes I picked up the “Lucky Star Public Guide Book,” a guide to the manga (and other associated stuff) for hardcore fans in a manga format, similar to Love Hina 0. In the back there’s an interview with him. It turns out that he got into TRPGs in middle school (when he was enjoying the Lodoss novels and accidentally bought a replay), and started playing them more seriously in high school. All this got mentioned in the interview because when it came time to put together a 4-koma manga he was having a hard time coming up with characters, so he opened up his RPG scrapbook and pulled out some of his characters. It doesn’t mention what TRPGs in particular they came from, though it shows very tight pictures of the character sketches from the character sheets and three of the four have a box for “運命” (unmei/fate) underneath. The interview doesn’t really get into much detail about his TRPG habits, and whether he still plays or has since given it up a la Stephen Colbert. Still, especially in light of the fact that his manga is one of the key inspirations for a game I’m working on, I found it interesting.