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Yoshikawa Update

The translation of the final answer in our Shouichi Yoshikawa interview still needs some tinkering, but at least I've finally gotten around to putting up Kid Fenris' Q&A with Yoshikawa-san about Wurm. Wurm fans will want to click here.

CRV 07:03, 5 May 2008 (CDT)

The Adventures of Ken'ichi and Atsuko

If you've followed our Arc and Minato Giken research closely, you've no doubt seen the names Atsuko and Ken'ichi Iwanaga (I assume they're related somehow). Anyway, I did some searching and came across a 2005 blog post plugging a concert event called RockFesta 625. The first band scheduled to play that night was a Whitesnake cover band called Zanzibar. Ken'ichi was on guitar and Atsuko was on the keyboard. Maybe it's a bit presumptuous of me to think these are the same people that were involved with video games, but the kanji in their names are the same as what I have on file and really, what are the chances of two people named Atsuko and Ken'ichi Iwanaga playing in the same band? Atsuko also played the keyboard in a Deep Purple cover band called Deep Atsuko that performed later that night. As much as the idea of listening to Japanese people cover Deep Purple and Whitesnake songs appeals to me, an even better idea would be to get in touch with these two and ask them about Arc and Minato Giken. But that probably won't happen anytime soon.

Speaking of Minato, we've added a few games to our list recently: Battle Baseball (FC), Tetsuwan Atom (SFC), Cult Master: Ultraman ni Miserarete (GB), and Quiz Sekai wa Show by Shoubai!! (GB). Nothing terribly exciting, but Tetsuwan Atom's a decent little game (watch my YouTube video here).

I had Idrougge retranslate some of Shouichi Yoshikawa's answers. Someday, I will fix up the interview accordingly. I also need to put up Kid Fenris' Q&A with Yoshikawa about Wurm. When will that happen? Don't know.

CRV 08:02, 24 April 2008 (CDT)

Shouichi Yoshikawa

If you haven't read our Shouichi Yoshikawa interview yet, read it! And if you read it before, you might want to read it again. Translations and rewrites will continue to be tweaked, but pretty much all the questions that are going to be put up are up (I have one last question awaiting a response).

This Q&A is undoubtedly the largest and most comprehensive in GDRI history, encompassing a month's worth of e-mailing each other back and forth, but I did leave some things out. Someone on the Lost Levels forums and various others posted magazine scans featuring unreleased Gen/MD games. One such game was Macress, which looked like Saint Sword to me. I asked Yoshikawa about this. He said Saint Sword was the US version of Macress. Then I pointed out that it was called Saint Sword in Japan, too. Then he said the main character's graphic in Saint Sword was different from the one in Macress, likening the situation to what happened with Time Diver: Eon Man.

I also asked him about why developers like A.I and Cyclone System weren't mentioned on games. At first, he thought I was talking individual staffers. He said it was taboo in the game industry at that time, but he tried to fight that by using full names in Golgo 13. I clarified what I meant, but I still didn't quite get what I wanted. His answer was interesting just the same.

CRV 08:09, 12 April 2008 (CDT)