An unlikely game has made its way to the top of Steam’s bestsellers list in Japan: a strip mahjong game. Not only has Super Real Mahjong Venus Returns, the latest entry in a series that dates back to PCs and arcades in the late 1980s, become a surprising sales hit, but it’s also become an online obsession on social media as fans share suggestive clips and reminisce about their childhoods playing older entries, something its producer has come to address in a new interview with Automaton West.
This latest entry took a lot of work to bring into existence: news of the planned revival of the series, with support for both traditional screens and VR, came through a Campfire crowdfunding campaign in Japan that raised 33.8 million yen (about $216k), 1690 percent of its goal. The premise is simple; it’s you and four attractive female characters playing mahjong, with victory leading the other characters to remove an article of clothing till they are entirely naked. It’s a simple mix of typical simulated mahjong and sex appeal, but social media has helped propel the release to new heights.
Beginning in the late ’80s, the series found an audience in the arcades with mostly-young and horny teenage boys thanks to its risque content, according to producer Kentaro Matsui, who attributes the game’s existence and success to society being more permissive about sexual content in spaces like arcades at the time of the original game’s release. “From the late 1980s into the 1990s, this country was, for better or worse, an extremely permissive place, and the idea of keeping adult content confined to adult-only spaces barely existed. Japan is sometimes jokingly called ‘the land of hentai,’ and back in the day, strip mahjong genuinely was a nationwide boom.
“There was no chance an impressionable teenager like me would escape that influence. I was completely, hopelessly devoted to those girls. I’d clutch what little pocket money I had, challenge them, and lose again and again. I was left penniless.”
Since its release, fans have spoken up to reminisce about sharing the director’s experience of losing their pocket money trying to win rounds and see the girls strip. “This is Super Real Mahjong!” one user declares. “It was terrifying the way the original game could steal 100yen from young boys in mere seconds.” Another shared a clip of the new entry while reminiscing about the “brotherhood” that would form between teenagers in arcades who would contribute their own money to other players in the hopes they could win and prompt one of the female opponents to remove an article of clothing.
Achieving this was no simple feat, and it’s continued to be challenging in this new title. Successful players have been eager to share clips of their naturally suggestive exploits, with particular love being given to the tomboyish Mizuki Tohno. Those failing can’t help but sigh over how difficult it is to win at the game.
In arcades, the game’s had a win condition such that if you reached a state where the girls would be forced to remove their final article of clothing, it would suddenly end. This was a legal requirement due to the game being played in arcades, but with the new release being placed in the privacy of people’s homes, full nudity can now be achieved. “The moment a girl reached her last piece of clothing [in the original], someone’s parent would walk in, or the next customer would show up, and the scene would cut away,” Matsui recalls. “Going beyond that line was this project’s central mission, and we managed to achieve it.”
The developers chose to make the gameplay scenarios almost identical to those of the original game, focusing more on updating visuals while keeping the characters the same and making some tweaks to gameplay inspired by modern titles like Mahjong Soul and Bunny Garden. That, and introducing VR support to the game, which compliments the now-3D visuals of the game, letting players freely move around the space and the female opponents. “The person undressing is sitting directly across the table from you. You can stand up, lean in, and watch from whatever angle and distance you like. Compared to classic strip mahjong, where you watch a video play out on the far side of a screen, it’s a completely different experience. Originally, we conceived this as a VR-only feature. But realistically, a great many people don’t own a headset, so we built it out properly for Desktop Mode as well.”
All the excitement has seen the game shoot up the Japanese sales charts, where it’s competing with major new releases like Onimusha as one of the best-selling premium games in the country by revenue; separately, its VR-enabling DLC is charting above titles like Palworld and Forza Horizon 6. Sex sells, and in some cases, it can even unite a country!
The series’ legacy was a major factors in this success. “Among the many different strip mahjong games, this series was legendary, and the reason is clear,” explains Matsui. “At a time when static pixel art was the norm, Super Real Mahjong was the one series where the characters moved beautifully and smoothly, almost like in a TV anime. In today’s terms, it felt like an artifact from the future. The moment it’s announced, people can’t help posting their old memories on social media. We actually spent almost nothing on advertising, and we were still fortunate enough to get an enormous amount of attention. It felt less like we did something clever and more like 30 years of accumulated memories erupted all at once.
“While sexy games are hardly uncommon these days, I don’t think Super Real Mahjong was embraced simply because it’s sexy. It never competed on raw explicitness. What people responded to, I suspect, was the act of undressing itself, and the room for imagination left just before and just after it.”
Seeing this “overwhelmingly beautiful and unreasonably strong” series make a comeback has ignited the memories of older fans while making newcomers curious, a perfect storm that social media helped propel to new heights. Notably, this is the first title in the series to be available in English, for anyone who wants to play it for themselves, something that has even led major VTubers to consider giving it a try. The developers have added support to assist mahjong newcomers, including an auto mode, but surely the true satisfaction is in winning via your own skills. Hopefully the interest in Venus Returns drives people to develop their own mahjong skills, and they find getting better at the classic Chinese game of tiles and almost as rewarding as this release’s other draws.
