From the Preface: When the design process for HeartQuest: Romantic Roleplaying in the Worlds of Shoujo Manga began in 2001, Seraphim Guard as a company was barely an idea and shoujo as a roleplaying genre was seen as barely imaginable. People told me all the time that the game could not be done, that the problems of writing rules for a genre that was built around the mental and emotional states of player characters were insurmountable. When the game was published in 2002, the execution was far from perfect but I am proud to say that many fans have embraced the concepts and ideals of HeartQuest. When 2003 came around, our desire to extend the line and expand our company led to a desire to revise HeartQuest, fix the problems that people had noticed and that we had discovered, and expand the possibilities of the game further still. This led to mecha rules, new settings and a complete revision of some systems. It also led to a thorough copyedit of the entire book and the commissioning of a ton of new art. It is now the Spring of 2004, and the result of our efforts is the book you hold in your hands today. Many of you are joining the HeartQuest community for the first time with this edition. To you, I offer a warm and hearty welcome. Let me be the first to show you the delights of shoujo roleplaying. The experiences you will have with this game are found in no other roleplaying game on the market today. As you develop your own campaign setting, adapt your favorite anime or manga series, or explore any of the half-dozen campaign settings offered in this book, you will find yourself stretched in new directions. Roleplaying is as much about self-discovery as it is about taking on another persona, and there's lot more to this game than defeating enemies. Enjoy the journeys on which this game will take you.