: I did not know about that. As far as i am aware, the japanese fanbase is
: either discrete or simply silent. Never heard of them until now.
I hope I’m not too late to reply, but im going to copy-paste a relevant portion of the TvTropes page.
“in Japan the relative popularity of Macintosh computers and the slow decline of home-based ones (FM-TOWNS, X68000, PC-98 and so on) during that time resulted in a fanbase of a respectable size, and that is despite the general unpopularity of the FPS genre there. Perhaps befitting this, two regular contributors to the Marathon Vidmaster Page back in the day, Michio Hashimoto and Tomoaki Deguchi, are Japanese.
Note: The Vidmaster page claims that Hashimoto "has put out more Vidmaster films on the net than anybody", which was true at the time, but by now other players have no doubt surpassed him, particularly if one counts third-party scenarios, in which case Dr John Sumner, who's vidded all of Tempus Irae, Tempus Irae: The Lost Levels, the original Rubicon, and about a dozen other scenarios in full, plus about two dozen others in part, not to mention the entire original trilogy, is no doubt the record holder - and even if not, given that he's vidded every single level in M2 with fists only, amongst other impressive accomplishments. (Note that some of these films have not yet been posted to the Vidmaster page.)
The fact that the Marathon series has a reputation of being more cerebral and story-based than its contemporaries may have also contributed to its relative popularity in Japan.“
