The PaRappa The Rapper franchise started with the release of the rhythm game PaRappa The Rapper on December 6, 1996. With the millenial switch of 1999-2000, second game Um Jammer Lammy came out. A year later, 2001, the PaRappa The Rapper animation stared airing. In the same year, the third game, Parappa the Rapper 2 was released.
Development[]
Rodney Alan Greenblat, self proclaimed "mother" of the franchise, designed Parappa together with "father" Masaya Matsuura. Before creating Parappa and ever working with the concept of a video game, Rodney had already developed the characters Katy Kat, Sunny Funny and PJ Berri that were adopted into the franchise.
Anniversaries[]
On December 6, 2016, the franchise existed for 20 years (1996-2016), and the anime for 15 years (2001-2016). [1] In celebration of this occassion, PJ Berri no Mogu Mogu Munya Munya came to be, animated shorts surrounding PJ Berri, using the comic lore.
External links[]
- Extended Play: How PaRappa The Rapper ushered in a music game revolution by Alex Wiltshire, PlayStation Blog (2017-04-03)
- Retro Weekend: PaRappa the Rapper and Nanaon-Sha’s PlayStation Legacy by Austin Clark, Invisible Gamer (2015-04-18, archived 2016-03-08)
- Power-Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life, p.144 by Chris Kohler (2016)