To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Ultima 2, Pix has posted scans from (and a download of) the Japanese Ultima 2 gamebook:

This was published on November 1 1986 by JICC and conveniently has a passage in English on the back cover so to quote:-

These days, this world goes mad! I was in New York city, or at least I believed so. Now I’m in a strange land trapped within time. And many weird things and monsters attack me!

Realizing Minucks, apprentice of Evil Lord Mondine, devised these things, I set forth to destroy Minucks, through the time and the space. But, what a terrible end! How could I imagine it, and Minucks is mad with joy!

Spelling differences aside, that sounds roughly like Ultima 2 to me but as ever I haven’t got the Japanese skills to say much more. A scan is in the downloads for people who have.

For the rest of us, there is loads of artwork scattered throughout the book which I’ve put into a gallery below…

Click on through to see the images, and judge for yourselves just how closely the story in the gamebook follows that of the game. Honestly, I can’t tell just looking at the pictures.