Novels, Manga, and OAVs
The original novel, Arslan Senki, was written by Dr. Yoshiki Tanaka. Though he is primarily a novelist, Tanaka's works have been 'translated' into manga and anime forms before. His novel Ginga eiyu densetsu became Legend of the Galactic Heroes, and Sohryuden became Legend of the Dragon Kings. There are eleven novels in the Arslan Senki storyline thus far. These novels were illustrated by manga artist and character-designer Yoshitaka Amano (whose other works include the character design for several Final Fantasy games and for Vampire Hunter D).
The popularity of the Arslan Senki novels was so great that it became natural for it to make a transition to manga form. The thirteen-volume manga was written by Tanaka and illustrated by Chisato Nakamura. The additional popularity of these manga led to the creation of a series of OAVs with character designs adapted by Sachiko Kamimura. The first two OAV episodes were released as "movies", which is why each one is an hour long, rather than the traditional half-hour.
Because of the aforementioned issues regarding translations and names, as well as possible issues with funding the project, it took an extremely long time for the Arslan anime to make its way to the United States. While they originally began production in 1990, as of 2006, they have still not completed the story. Even so, the final two chapters of the OAV arc were not made available until years after the first four had been released, in 2002.
A video game has been released in 1993 for Sega Mega-CD.
Yoshiki Tanaka's novels have no relation to the 1976 novel called Arslan written by M. J. Engh which is set in the present.
Read more about this topic: The Heroic Legend Of Arslan