Welcome to The Masquerade Ball, a fansite dedicated to The Weathering Continent, or Kaze no Tairiku (風の大陸), a Japanese fantasy light novel series that follows the story of three travelers, Teeye, Lakcee, and Bois, as they wander the turbulent continent of Atlantis and the events that decide its fate.

The Weathering Continent was written by Sei Takekawa and illustrated by the late Mutsumi Inomata, and began its serialization in Monthly Dragon Magazine in April 1988. The series spanned twenty eight novels and concluded in 2006, but also spawned seven side-story novels, an eight-volume side-series, and a brief sequel in 2010 named Shin Kaze no Tairiku (新 風の大陸), or The New Weathering Continent.

The series saw the height of its popularity in the early 1990s, which is when most of the supplemental materials and adaptations were released. This included things such as an hour-long animated film, drama CDs, audiobooks, art books, manga, and various merchandise. Only the film was ever released in English, which led to some understandable confusion regarding the plot, as it starts in the middle of an already ongoing story and was made with an audience that could read the novels in mind.

As for why I made this fansite; I've been utterly fascinated by The Weathering Continent ever since I first saw the film years ago. Accompanied by Inomata's gorgeous illustrations, even with my limited knowledge of the Japanese language, I could tell that this was a series filled with beauty and wonder. I want to share as much as I can about this series with other English-speaking folks, especially considering the unlikelihood of anything other than the film ever being released outside of Japan. And with everything but ebooks being out of print, it makes information that much tougher to track down.