Japanese Game fans support this kickstarter!

I want images of Mega Drive / Mega CD Power Drift or better still a video never going to happen though.

 

I disagree with that POV quite strongly.

Some big names like Shigeru Miyamoto and Hideo Kojima have been interviewed a lot, but there are countless (literally countless) developers with interesting and worthwhile stories which have not been interviewed. Also, even the big names which land a lot of interviews are always asked the same dull questions. Why has no one asked Kojima about his unreleased "Last Warld"? Why is it Eiji Aonuma is only asked about Zelda, and not his original game Marvellous, or his work as a sprite artist?

To give more examples:

Kazuma Kujo - he's worked on numerous games, but all anyone asked about in interviews was his involvement in R-Type. I was the first person to interview him about creating In The Hunt and Metal Slug. I mean, come on - METAL SLUG! I would have thought that carried enough gravitas to encourage journalists to ask.

The Taito WOWOW - has anyone interviewed anyone about this? Do we have any info besides those three magazine scans from 1992? This was an unreleased piece of hardware - I want to know more.

Yutaka Isokawa - he bridged the gap between a type-in listing for a magazine, and turning his free indie game into a licensed GB title (Catrap). He later programmed the Lunar games and worked on the Gundam franchise. There are interesting stories here.

Tsuruta Michitaka - I've only one found one interview for him, and it was not in English.

Roy Ozaki - founder of Mitchell Corp, developer of the Pang series and Polarium. I've only found one English interview with him, where he repeatedly said he couldn't answer questions due to being under contract. Now that Mitchell Corp is suspended, he's promised a tell-all interview with no restrictions.

Hidenori Shibao - I have never read an interview with him. He started as a manga writer, moved into journalism during the Famicom era, wrote the only guidebook to Super Monkey Daibouken, designed Paladin's Quest and its sequel Lennus II, was a scenario writer for Enix - and he has plenty of contacts. The stories he has to tell are fascinating.

What about the guys at Telenet / Wolfteam, GameArts, Tecnosoft, Falcom, Quintet, Climax Entertainment, Hudson, those who worked on the Satellaview, or various early pioneers on Japanese home computers? Right now I'm (hopefully) being put in touch with Yoshio Kiya, who created one of Japan's earliest RPGs.

With all due respect, if you think that those worth interviewing have all been interviewed, you are extremely mistaken. There is an entire world of undocumented Japanese gaming history, which is worth reading. Over 35 years of it, mostly undocumented and unknown. I've no interest in asking the same questions as those who came before me, or retreading the same old ground. I want every page to document something new, something fascinating. I want Wikipedia editors to curse my name because I've given them a lifetime of work adding ten thousand new sources for their pages.

My god - English speaking journalists have barely glimpsed the true depth of video game history in Japan. The only risk here is not that those worthy have been interviewed already, but rather that this will be only a single, finite book, when what this topic deserves is a series 100 volumes long and of infinite length.

I'm not interviewing the mainstream. My intention is to document The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers.

There are many Japanese books. Many. And also many Japanese magazine articles. In fact on my desk I've got a copy of Game Maestro Vol 1, which features interviews that are 30+ pages long each for various important figures.

Professionally translating existing material for republication abroad is impossible. And it requires a big publisher, with more money to spend than this Kickstarter is asking for. You need to track down the authors, the interviewees, the publishers and developers, and cut through an ocean of red tape and licensing logistics. It really is not possible.

A new book, with freshly harvested material, is comparatively much easier. I've already got the interpretors, and as listed on the KS page, I've already got developers who want to be interviewed. Over 40, at my last check. Plus I've promised introductions to many more. In addition to which, I have the support of fellow journalists, such as Ash Day and Florent Gorges of Pix'N Love.

I started this KS because I was seeing all these Japanese books being produced, but not in English. The sad fact is there's too much bureaucracy to bring them over.

 

Good news guys the project hit the £50.000 mark with 4 days to spare.

 

Congratulations.

Look forward to the product. I would've liked to have gotten one of the LE physical books, but the weak Dollar against the pound is pretty bad right now. (35 pounds and it ends up being around 54$).


I can live with regular.


But quick question, will this book end up being available on say, Amazon.com in North America?

 

Sounds like an interesting book as you are not going for the easy route of finding the big names and asking them for the seventh billion time about games that have been asked about hundreds of times before. Hopefully, you will call this book Vol. 1 as there are hundreds of people you could interview and easily do a second book. I will be disappointed if you do not do a full softography for each person you interview too.