30 years! That’s the gap in time it took for us to learn about the curiosity J2 Wonder Project on the N64 to getting a copy. We finally nabbed it for £28 at a retro gaming market in Bolton this March of 2026.

Retro gaming is big business now and there’s an indelible beauty behind it all. How games from your childhood, even ones you haven’t played before, can connect you to your past. And that’s what we’re exploring here today, with one weird Japanese game that never launched outside Nippon, but did eventually make its way to Lancashire.

An Introduction to Japanese Culture in J2 Wonder Project

There it is above, with the Japanese commercial from 1996. It was developed by the now defunct Japanese business Givro Corporation and launched on 22nd November 1996.

The Nintendo 64 was already out in Japan at that point, but in Europe we had to wait until March 1997 to get our grubby hands on one (the official UK launch was March 1st 1997).

Why, then, is this random game so embedded in our nostalgia bank?

The very first magazine we ever bought was the July 1996 edition of the Official Nintendo Magazine (issue 46). We remember that as we had to skip school due to illness, so got a copy of this from a Horwich newsagent, and lounged around in bed reading it in utter fascination.

We learned about the upcoming (and now beloved) Donkey Kong Country 3, the Nintendo 64 (mind-blowing information right there), and… J2 Wonder Project! This thing here, as covered by Glenn Plant of YouTube fame.

Having played the SNES classic Secret of Mana across 1994 and 1995, we had some concept of Japanese-style games. But this was something else entirely, part of the bishōjo (美少女) cultural genre popular to this day in Nippon. It features an attractive young woman doing attractive young woman stuff (existing etc.).

It’s all innocent and tends not to be sexualised, instead focussing on otaku (anime/manga) and kawaii (cute) culture. A celebration of cute stuff, which flips and applies to men as well in these things.

We never played the game, still haven’t, yet seeing that box on the little sales stall in Bolton instantly snapped back a world of memories. Like a bloody time machine back to July 1996.

Mr. Wapojif had to buy the weird game from his past!

And so he did for a multitude of reasons. Owning the physical copy means a lot on a personal front, the connection to our past, what was going on in 1996, and the seeming impossibility of ever owning a copy.

Gaming in the mid-1990s was a hell of a lot different to how it is now. For a start, a new console like the N64 launching with giant gaps between countries was normal. Plus, Japan’s unusual game concepts hadn’t taken off fully in the west. A game like Secret of Mana launching in the UK was a rarity, but began the increased demand for Japanese developer’s more manga-styled creations.

You think of cinema, too, and the likes of Studio Ghibli hadn’t fully taken off in the west either.

For our young brain looking at J2 Wonder Project, it represented an alien world. What was this thing?! It was out on the N64, too, a console available in Japan already but with no sign of a release in England at that point. It was all so mind-bending, like it was all from a different planet.

The game’s inventiveness stuck with us over the decades until that moment in Bolton last month.

As if BY FATE (!!!!!!), we also got a copy of a rare Japanese walkthrough for Secret of Mana. Very rare and popular with collectors as they’re so artistic and colourful. As is the J2 Wonder Project box art, booklet, and double cartridge thing (we don’t even know what that second smaller one is for).

It’s a different type of retro gaming memory than, for example, our love for iconic SNES platformer Donkey Kong Country (1994). We played that at Christmas 1994 and remember it all clearly, the groundbreaking impact of the pre-rendered graphics, and that astonishing David Wise soundtrack.

J2 Wonder Project is more a relic of surprise, a childhood hint at the greater cultural world stretching out there that was unfathomable 30 years ago. One we’ve since totally immersed ourselves into, even if we still haven’t played the game. But its influence has stretched on for decades.

And a Few Notes on Why Retro Gaming is a Thing

You can think of gaming markets as a car boot sale for retro games. The fun is taken seriously by people involved, as you can see with the lady above documenting everything.

The Bolton gaming market takes place inside Bolton’s football stadium (not on the pitch FYI), in a big room with a nice carpet on the floor. The café just out of the main room even stocks Bovril. Proper belting!

But… why the appeal?

Retro game collecting is a blend of nostalgia alongside historical artefact hunting. We got this buzz from the Bolton Gaming Market of 2025 when we were finally reunited with a copy of NES Duck Hunt after 30+ years. Previously, we’d been to one in Birmingham back in May 2023. They happen all the time across the world.

For 2026, we didn’t head to the market with a specific game in mind (whereas we’d been hunting for Duck Hunt across many years), but the instant we laid eyes on J2 Wonder Project we knew it had to be ours.

Now, it’s a personal thing for every person. Someone might crap themselves in excitement at the sight of PaRappa the Rapper on the PlayStation. There’ll be someone out there with a great deal of nostalgic reverence for it, even if it means little to us.

That’s the beauty of this whole retro gaming lark. Reconnecting with things you loved from your youth, in a giant room packed out with other geeks, and you can down some Bovril whilst you’re at it. Perfection? Close enough.