Minna de Bokumono - Story and Findings

I didn't say anything about going to Japan or trying to get the sourcecode for Minna de Bokumono because I figured I would go to an office, ask them for it in broken Japanese, they'd either give it to me or kick me out, then I'd let everyone know what happened. Instead, there was actually a lot of history surrounding it and the company that made it.

Minna de Bokumono was originally made by One-Up Inc. (one-up株式会社). One-Up merged with DFQ Corp. in March of 2012, 7 months before Minna de Bokumono was shutdown. There's not a lot of information about DFQ as it was a small company, but I did find one of its original employees, Hiroyuki Kawamura, who has ties to the Fate series alongside Marvelous. In March, 2014, One-Up merged with G Mode Corp., which they'd change the company name to later that same month. (As of 2016, one-up株式会社 is the name of a Japanese telemarketing company). One month later, in April, 2014, it was announced in a Famitsu article that the three presidential candidates for G Mode were Takeshi Natsuno, Morishita Ichiki, and Ken Kutaragi. I can't find a source on which of the three were made president, but I'm assuming it was Ken Kutaragi (despite his 2011 retirement) as he had ties to Marvelous (and he invented the Playstation, definitely would make a good front for the company), there was already at least one other employee with ties to Marvelous, and Marvelous' then director Seichiro Kato took over as president of G Mode in April 2015, one year later. G Mode is now owned by Marvelous and is in the same building, two floors above the main office.

Not knowing all that, I went to the current One-Up Inc. and ended up asking a bunch of confused telemarketers for Minna de Bokumono, but I panicked, forgot what to say, and instead asked: "Anata wa Minna de Bokujou Monogatari desu ka", or "Are you a farm story with everyone?".

After I got back to my hotel I looked into it more and realized G Mode Corp. is where I needed to be, so I got the address and floor number and took a train the next morning. It was a small town in southern Tokyo, so I definitely stood out a lot being a casually-dressed foreigner walking around the office at 6:00 AM. The building itself was multiple corporate offices in the east wing, with a hotel in the west wing. I walked around the main floor for a while, but the main lobby was locked despite the building being opened 24/7, and I could see I needed a keycard to get into the office wing's elevator.

I left and started walking back to the station, but decided to poke around a bit more and try to get in. I went to the basement and found an automatic glass door locked behind a keycard panel. Just as I went to leave, fully-convinced I wasn't getting in, a business man walked by me, nodded, used his keycard and went into an elevator. The glass doors stayed open since I was standing close enough, so once his elevator doors shut, I went to the opposite side and to the 7th floor as listed on the G Mode website.

It was small, basically just a W shape with a bathroom, vending machine, and 5-6 Marvelous-branded offices that were locked behind more keycard panels and said "Staff Only" in English, so I couldn't play dumb if I got caught in one of them. I walked around a bit, went to the 6th and 8th floors to see if I could find someone to talk to, but they were leased to different companies. Returning to the 7th floor I got spotted by a janitor, so I left.

Convinced I wasn't getting anything, I got tickets for a bullet train to Sendai and left. I decided to look into it more on the train and went to Marvelous' marv.jp site, where I found another address that looked the same as where I had just been, which was confusing, but all the offices were brandishing the Marvelous logo so I just assumed they moved their main office there and none of the company history sites I was using had updated yet. Then I noticed the location was listed as the 5th floor of the east wing, not the 7th where I had been. Along with pictures of a more formal-looking office lobby with Marvelous' games on display, it hit me that I was in the wrong place; I had gone to their G Mode floor, which explained the small size and amount of offices. If I had checked every floor I would've found it, but instead I just checked the 6th and 8th which were leased to different companies.

I got an earlier train back to Tokyo before my flight and went back to the office, this time with formal clothes to fit in more, and a front shirt pocket to record everything. It was the weekend now, so I was worried no one would come into the office, but after 5-10 minutes someone showed up and I followed them in.
While waiting I noticed a sign listing Marvelous on the 4th, 5th, 7th, 9th and 10th floors, so I checked all of them.

I couldn't select the 5th or 9th floors in the elevator, [it gave an error message in Japanese I'll translate when I'm back home], so I went to the others and found more-or-less the same floor, but the 4th had a phone service room that was locked, but not behind a keycard. I found the same thing but with cardboard cutouts on the 7th floor, locked as well. Neither were marked as staff only, so I'm guessing they were locked because it was the weekend.

I left and came back a few times, got lucky and the keycard panel broke so I could just walk in without waiting for someone. I passed one G Mode employee, but he went in a locked door before I could ask him anything. I did notice the break and smoke rooms were unlocked, but I couldn't find the lobby-looking area shown on their website. I'm assuming it was on the 5th floor as listed on their website, but it's either 100% staff only, or closed during the weekend.

I'm back in the U.S. now, so I'll post the raw videos I recorded soon. I plan on making a full video about all this once I actually get Minna de Bokumono or at least a definitive answer on what happened to it. I'll go back as soon as I can afford it, possibly later in 2019 if I do 2-3 days in a hostel and the shittiest seats on a plane.