Chapter One - Before the Mushroom

CHAPTER ONE

Before the Mushroom

KYOTO, JAPAN. 1889.
A man named Fusajiro Yamauchi opens a small business. Not to make games. Not to sell consoles.
He’s making… cards.
Hanafuda, to be exact. Colorful, hand-painted playing cards used for gambling, games, and occasionally, organized crime. (Hi, Yakuza.)

This is Nintendo’s first hustle, a company born in shadow in an era when Japan was still finding its modern footing.
And this little card shop? It would never die.
Nintendo reinvents itself again and again, like a video game boss with infinite phases.

Fast forward through the early 1900s, Nintendo dabbles in all kinds of shit: taxis, novelty food products, and even love hotels (yes, that kind of hotel).
Desperate moves. Failed ventures. But they keep crawling forward.

Then comes Hiroshi Yamauchi, Fusajiro’s great-grandson, and he doesn’t mess around.
He grabs the reins in 1949 at just 22 years old, and he doesn’t let go for over 50 years.

Under Hiroshi, Nintendo mutates into something new: a toy company.
And in post-war Japan, that’s gold. You’ve got plastic toys, novelty gadgets, and quirky inventions. Nintendo becomes king of kids’ crap.

But it’s not enough.
Because in the 1970s, something wild appears: arcade machines.
Electronic. Addictive. Profitable.

And Nintendo, being scrappy, relentless, and weirdly brilliant, sees the future in pixels.

Cue the arcade experiments of the late ’70s and the moment Shigeru Miyamoto walks into the building.

The stage is set.
A certain mustached hero is about to be born, and the world is never going to be the same.