Professor Layton and the Other Professor

I have a Nintendo DS Lite. Rosy-pink, in transparent armor case, customized with a pink check ribbon sticker by me. Matches my ugly rosy-pink MP3P perfectly. :) Since first got the DS, I played only Animal Crossing : Wild World and Nintendogs during a year. I was a lot more into Animal Crossing, simply because I'm not a great dog lover. I usually prefer cats.

One day my friend peeped my monotonous game life and said, "When I saw you with your DS, the DS looks like some early handheld electronic game devices. " I laughed away at the point, without a "Hey! " of objection. I always had seen fickleness in my very nature, so I was rather proud of myself for playing the same video game nearly half a year.

Anyway a year later, I finally became tired of AC and tried to find other DS games. Then my friend recommended me Professor Layton and the Curious Village. Hmm, puzzles. I usually like puzzles, especially when it came with beautiful pictures. As you know, Professor Layton and the Curious Village is one fine game. Animations in the game are very delicate. The settings and characters of the story are fascinating. I really like the tower's design. But about the puzzle itself, I thought the it was a set of too well-known, common brain teasers. And logic puzzles, matchstick puzzles, etc,. Sometimes I answered the question almost automatically. I was too accustomed myself to those kind of puzzles.

But, there's something :
Throughout playing, a feeling resembled that "Hey, wait a minute. I know this guy..." or something teasing my brain. Or tickling my brain. Not only the puzzles' style, but also the hints' style. Lovely, humorously mischievous elder professor-like...or all the puzzle book writers are sound like this? It wasn't sure.

Without solving this, I cleared the game. When I was watching a credit roll, suddenly something caught my eyes.

Puzzlemaster ... Tago Akira

Aha.
Of course I knew him! Tago Akira(多湖輝) is Japanese Psychologist who deeply interested in puzzles, published many puzzle books. His Atama no Taisou(頭の体操, means Head Gymnastics) series is published first in 1966 and sold over 12 million copies in Japan. He established the conception of enjoying puzzles in Japan.

When I was a child, my father had Tago's puzzle books in his bookshelf-about 10 of them, I remember. They were Korean translation version of Head Gymnastics, titled Making Brain in Korean. How I loved the books! Later he gave them to me and I kept them in my shelf several years. To confess, for the reason that the author of 10th book was not Tago, but "Tanaka Minoru", I thought Professor Tago passed away. I have no idea why the Korean publisher did that thing.

Thus I was very glad when I recognized his name on credit roll and knew he was alive. Later I heard that Hino Akihiro, the producer of "Professor Layton" series, was huge fan of Tago's puzzle books in his childhood. He turned his enthusiasm into Professor Layton series-a small, but really fine world of riddles. I haven't played the other Professot Layton games. I hope that the riddles in those games are more unique, enthralling one. But, I'm touched so far, by Hino's adoring of Professor Tago's works. It's not just old riddles, it's THE old riddles that were told me first time in my life.

(Although I think "Miss Layton" or "Governess Layton" might be more appealing to me... : )