‘Danganronpa’, ‘Shuten Order’ Creator Says “Uniquely Japanese Games” Can Only Survive If Studios Embrace “Originality”
In the view of Danganronpa and upcoming Shuten Order creator Kazutaka Kodaka, the only way for the Japanese video game industry to retain their “uniquely Japanese” identity amidst an ever-growing global market is for studios to get out of their creators’ way and reembrace the concept of “originality”.
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One of the more eccentric devs in the current era, Kodaka’s nearly 20 year video game career has been defined by his willingness to experiment with more ‘out there’ scenarios and concepts, having made a name for himself with his aforementioned murder-mystery series before leaving developer Spike Chunsoft in 2017 and founding Too Kyoo Games, where he has since let his creativity run wild with titles like Death Come True, World’s End Club, Master Detective Archives: Rain Code, Tribe Nine, The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy.
To this end, his games all bear a few specific ‘signatures’ in the form of fleshed-out casts, differing gameplay offerings – Death Come True is an interactive film, World’s End Club a mobile puzzle game, Tribe Nine a mobile action-RPG, The Hundred Line being a tactical RPG with 100 total endings, and both Danganronpa and Master Detective Archives are visual novel-esque mysteries – and themes/aesthetics heavily inspired by various aspects of Japanese culture, such as the country’s rigid school expectations (Danganronpa) or the daunting responsibility of needing to rebuild society in the face of a massive explosion (World’s End Club).
And it was from this history that Kodaka recently offered his thoughts regarding his favored medium’s future.
Discussing the topic with video game news outlet Automaton, the storied video game director asserted, “Personally speaking, it would be good for Japanese game development to be more dependent on individual creators and focus on nurturing originality. That way, more uniquely Japanese games will get produced.”
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However, far from just letting creators do whatever they want without pushback or consequence, Kodaka affirmed that this ‘hands-off’ development style can only work if said creators took a more direct and total responsibility for both the good and the bad that may come their way.
“That is one of the goals I set for myself, and it also comes with a sense of responsibility for the work itself,” he said. “If a project has my name or Too Kyo Games’ name on it, regardless of who has the ownership rights, I feel the responsibility to sincerely confront players [of the games I worked on] no matter what.”
Notably, this is not the first time Kodaka has weighed in on the importance of Japan retaining its specific video game identity.
Speaking with Automaton in April ahead of The Hundred Line‘s release, the director opined, “I’ve always felt that the strength of Japanese games lies ‘on a different axis’ from AAA-scale production.
“Games that have a strong sense of individuality, like those from the PS1 or PS2 era, feel very ‘Japanese’ to me. Back in 2020, one of the titles I really looked up to was Vanillaware’s 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim. The sheer quality and volume of the graphics felt truly ‘insane’ in the best sense. Seeing games in that lane succeed really got me thinking deeply about what it would take to compete with a brand-new IP.
“Nowadays, game development is becoming ‘product-driven,’ but for Japanese games like ours to survive, I think we have to go in the opposite direction from what’s happening overseas by doubling down on the creator-driven approach – like what you see in [Too Kyo Games co-founder and Zero Escape series creator Kotaro] Uchikoshi’s and my own work. I’d really like to demonstrate that with The Hundred Line.”
Presenting players with three different gameplay styles – puzzle-heavy visual novel, dating sim, and isometric dungeon crawler – with which to resolve an apocalyptic cult leader’s sudden murder – ostensibly inspired in some part by the 2022 assassination of late Japanese Prime Minsiter Shinzo Abe over his connections to South Korea’s shadowy Unification Church – Kodaka’s next title, Shuten Order, is set to hit shelves this Friday, September 5th.
