Bandai Design Master Denshi Mangajuku – Complete Game Library Dumps & Scans

On March 3rd, 1995 Bandai released a new portable gaming console geared towards children. It was called the Bandai Design Master Denshi Mangajuku (電子 漫画 塾), the first touch screen console ever created. The Design Master was released along with several other consoles created by Bandai in a short 5 year span in the mid-to-late 90’s including the Playdia and Wonderswan. They used licensed characters for all but one of the games for the console, and even managed to license Mega Man X (Rockman X) and Street Fighter characters from Capcom. If you’d like a detailed back story on the console itself please visit The Video Game Kraken’s website about the console by clicking here.

Working with various groups and individuals over many months we have been able to get the entire library for this obscure console preserved and scanned! This is the first of hopefully many game libraries we’ll hopefully be able to complete here at Gaming Alexandria.

Thanks go out to Noah Bacon ([email protected]) for initiating and arranging the project between the parties and purchasing all but two titles for the library as well as multiple consoles. The consoles were subsequently sent to be de-capped and examined by ClawGrip and Team Europe for possible emulation in MAME someday, though no timetable on that is available. They were able to get the carts dumped and preserved successfully, which bodes well for the future!

Another thanks to The Video Game Kraken for providing two carts including the very rare Weekly Shōnen Jump Special to be scanned and preserved. Extra props to Senn for various translation help throughout the project as well as creating the video thumbnails.  Yahweasel created a YouTube series playing through each of the carts, which you can check out below if you’re interested in seeing the games in action.

The system itself had 9 total cartridges released for it, however only 8 of those were released at retail. Four of the cartridges in total can be considered games, and the other 5 are design/manga carts which contained various licensed characters you can use representations of in the actual games by piggy-backing the design carts onto a game cart. The games themselves are for the most part nothing fancy and were either basic RPG battle arenas, simple drawing programs, or horoscope games. Let’s look at each of them.

Download Bandai Design Master System Game/Design ROMS [External Link]

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Bandai Design Master Console Scans [600DPI] –

Download box RAW scans (1200DPI) [External Link]

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Cartridge Name – Dragon Ball Z Taisen-gata Search Battle
Catalog ID – G.01

Based on the Dragon Ball Z series, Search Battle allows you to draw or use stamps to create a fighter to battle characters from the popular series. The game appears to generate battle stats for your drawing seemingly at random. Other design/manga carts can be mounted and used for additional stamps in addition to those included with this cartridge. The package also contains very simple animation and drawing programs that you can mess around with if you insert the cartridge by itself with no addons.

Download manual
Download manual (Compressed)
Download RAW manual scans
Download box, manual, cart RAW scans (1200DPI) [External Link]

600DPI Scans –

Cartridge Name – Dragon Ball Z
Catalog ID – M.01

Also based on the Dragon Ball Z series, this design/manga cartridge that contains additional Dragon Ball Z stamps to be used with other game cartridges, not just Search Battle.

Download manual
Download manual (Compressed)
Download RAW manual scans
Download box, manual, cart RAW scans (1200DPI) [External Link]

600DPI Scans –

Gameplay Video by Yahweasel

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Cartridge Name – Dungeon Diver
Catalog ID – G.02

This game is the only cartridge on the Bandai Design Master that isn’t licensed from an existing property. In Dungeon Diver you explore randomly generated dungeons fighting monsters in RPG battles and solving simple puzzles. As with the other games, additional design/manga carts can be mounted and used for additional stamps.

Download manual
Download manual (Compressed)
Download RAW manual scans
Download box, manual, cart RAW scans (1200DPI) [External Link]

600DPI Scans –

Gameplay Video by Yahweasel

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Cartridge Name – Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Super S – Illustration Club
Catalog ID – G.03

On this game cartridge you can attempt to draw various Sailor Moon characters and be judged on your drawing skills. In addition, this software also contains a horoscope-like game where you can input your birthday in for a fortune. Interestingly Bandai released a new design of the Design Master called the Paluseata (パルシータ) marketed towards girls along with this title. This package is unique in that it doesn’t allow addon carts to be mounted to it, unlike other cartridges for the system.

Download manual
Download manual (Compressed)
Download RAW manual scans
Download box, manual, cart RAW scans (1200DPI) [External Link]

600DPI Scans –

Gameplay Video by Yahweasel

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Cartridge Name – Rockman X3 Buster Battle
Catalog ID – G.03 & M.03

Bandai licensed Mega Man X3 (Rockman X3) for the Design Master and released it as a pack-in for a version of the console released after the first revision. Unfortunately, it seems the cartridge was not released separately, so it suffered the curse of a pack-in exclusive game where existing owners could not obtain it without buying and additional console. This package came with both a game cartridge (dark blue) and a manga/design cartridge (light blue) for additional stamps. The game consists of a simple battle feature where you pick a character, draw a weapon for them, and battle various Rockman X3 villains in RPG-like battles.

Download console manual
Download console manual (Compressed)
Download console RAW manual scans

Download G.03 manual
Download G.03 manual (Compressed)
Download G.03 RAW manual scans

Download M.03 manual
Download M.03 manual (Compressed)
Download M.03 RAW manual scans

Download box, manual, cart RAW scans (1200DPI) [External Link]

600DPI Scans –

Gameplay Video by Yahweasel

Gameplay Video by The Video Game Kraken

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Cartridge Name – From TV animation Slam Dunk
Catalog ID – M.02

This Manga/design cartridge is based on the anime/manga Slam Dunk, a Shōnen Jump property from the 1990s. The main use of this cartridge to add stamps to the other various game cartridges. Like the Dragon Ball Z standalone cartridge, it contains simple animation and drawing programs you can mess around with if you insert the cartridge into the system by itself.

Download manual
Download manual (Compressed)
Download RAW manual scans
Download box, manual, cart RAW scans (1200DPI) [External Link]

600DPI Scans –

Gameplay Video by Yahweasel

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Cartridge Name – Super Street Fighter II X Grand Master Challenge
Catalog ID – M.03

This manga/design cartridge was based on Capcom’s Street Fighter II. Similar to the Dragon Ball Z and Slam Dunk cartridges, the only self-contained function of this cartridge are programs for drawing and animation. It serves as a piggy-back to the other game programs.

Download manual
Download manual (Compressed)
Download RAW manual scans
Download box, manual, cart RAW scans (1200DPI) [External Link]

600DPI Scans –

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Cartridge Name – Weekly Shōnen Jump Special
Catalog ID – N/A

Rumor has it that only 300 of these special Weekly Shōnen Jump Special cartridges were made, which were given out as prizes alongside a special edition Bandai Design Master console in a Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine contest. This compounds the rarity of a complete set of these cartridges for what was already not a very common system!  While it’s rare, it’s nothing too special, as it’s another manga/design cartridge based on several Weekly Shōnen Jump characters. It contains no game by itself, instead being like the other design cartridges where the stamps are the main attraction.

600DPI Scans –

Gameplay Video by Yahweasel