In what can only best be described as a bold gamble, Danganronpa series creator Kazutaka Kodaka has revealed that the the future of not just his personal career, but also that of his newly founded Too Kyo Games studio rests on the success of its upcoming release, The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy-.
A noted figure in the Japanese video game industry, Kodaka got his start in the industry in 2002, serving as a cutscene director on Capcom’s Clock Tower 3.
Following a handful of other such industry jobs which included providing design work on Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 and writing duties for the Detective Conan & The Kindaichi Case Files series, the Japanese dev would breakout in his own right in 2010 with the first entry of his aforementioned Danganronpa series, as produced for developer Spike Chunsoft.
A visual novel-esque collection of games centered on various groups of high school students who are forced into a murderous survival game by a sinister robotic teddy bear by the name of Monokuma (though, as fans know, not everything in these scenarios are as they seem), the series’ four mainline entries – Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Dangaronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, Danganronpa: Ultra Despair Girls, and Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony – have collectively sold over five million copies worldwide.
As a result, both Kodaka and the Danganronpa series have garnered a dedicated fan base – and it was thanks to this dedicated fan base that in 2017, Kodaka, alongside Danganronpa series composer Masafumi Takada and artist Rui Komatsuzaki, as well as Zero Escape series creator Kotao Uchikoshi, summoned the courage to leave Spike Chunsoft and form Too Kyo Games, a video game studio dedicated to fostering and developing “new IP“.
Since then, Too Kyo Games has launched three original titles – the interactive film Death Come True, the cyber-mystery puzzle game World’s End Club, and the investigative adventure title Master Detective Archives: Rain Code – and are now gearing up for the launch of their fourth, The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy-.
Reminiscent of Kodaka’s work on Danganronpa, albeit with gameplay centered on full-on tactical grid-based combat instead of mystery solving, the upcoming strategy RPG puts players in the role of teenager Takumi Sumino, who after being granted the powers to fight back against a mysterious species of monster that have invaded Tokyo is forcibly enrolled in the Last Defense Academy, a remote school which he and 14 other students are ordered to protect from the grotesque creatures for 100 days.
A bit of a change of pace for the normally more ‘click-and-point’ oriented director, Kodaka spoke to his ambitions for his upcoming game during a New Year’s interview given to Japanese news outlet 4Gamer.net.
Asked as to his aspirations for 2025 and whether he would like to give any specific message to the outlet’s readers, the director asserted, “On April 24, 2025, The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy– will be released. It is Too Kyo’ first in-house IP title, created with all of the company’s assets and debts. If it doesn’t sell well, we are prepared to go bankrupt and retire, but it will be worth it, so please wait and see.”
Notably, this is not the first time Kodaka has noted the high-stakes that have resulted from The Hundred Line‘s development.
Providing a behind-the-scenes look at the game’s production process during a June 2024 interview with Famitsu, as machine translated by DeepL, the industry veteran recalled, “Even if we had sold our shares and invested all of our money, we still would not have had the working capital to maintain the scale of development that had grown so large. We were looking for a publisher who would work with us while we were in debt and looking for a way to develop the game, and we made a connection with Aniplex, and things went very smoothly.”
“However, since this title also includes a simulation RPG part, we also needed a development company,” he added. “We were introduced to Media Vision, a company with a proven track record, and they agreed to participate in the development as a developer. Jet Studio, who helped us with the Danganronpa series and Master Detective Archives: Rain Code, also cooperated with us.”
“We managed to release this title in this way, and for us at Too Kyo Games, it is a “culmination” of our “persistence” at this stage,” Kodaka concluded. “We can proudly say that it is the “culmination” of our efforts at this point in time, and the “final product” of our work. We are still in debt, so it is also a title for which we are “risking our lives” (laughs).”
Ultimately, while Kodaka is taking a light-hearted bent to his discussion of the financial risks inherent with his next game, it seems the performance of Too Kyo’s upcoming title will have a massive effect on determining the studio’s future.
As noted above, The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy– will be released for Nintendo Switch and PC on April 24th, 2025, with physical editions set to be distributed by Xseed Games.