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extra=born January 2, 1968, known by his alias Suda51, is a Japanese video game designer and writer. Affiliated with Human Entertainment from 1994 to 1998, he founded Grasshopper Manufacture in 1998 with a number of other Human Entertainment staff to produce their own titles. His best-known work has come from Grasshopper Manufacture, including The Silver Case (1999), Killer7 (2005), the No More Heroes series, and Lollipop Chainsaw (2012).
Suda is from Nagano Prefecture, moving to Tokyo at the age of 18 and eventually being hired by Human Entertainment after having a number of other jobs including as an undertaker. His first projects were in the Fire Pro Wrestling and Twilight Syndrome series. At Grasshopper Manufacture, he worked on their debut title The Silver Case as writer and director. The Silver Case helped establish both Suda and his company in Japan, but Suda and Grasshopper gained international attention with the release of Killer7, Suda's first title to be released outside Japan. He has contributed to most of the company's projects, taking on a more managerial role following No More Heroes in 2007.
Suda's work is characterized by a focus on themes of crime, and the clash of people with different ideals. While his early works adopted a serious tone, his later projects incorporated elements of humor. Sexual elements have also made appearances in his work to the point where he became worried they would become too heavily associated with him. Aspects of his work have been influenced by film and literature, with one of his favorite authors being Franz Kafka. He frequently incorporates references to pop culture in his games.
The Silver Case was a success in Japan and helped establish Grasshopper Manufacture, although had limited critical success due to the proliferation of its visual novel style at the time. Suda's next game at Grasshopper Manufacture was Flower, Sun, and Rain, developed for the PlayStation 2. As with The Silver Case, Suda directed, wrote and designed for the game. Flower, Sun, and Rain was almost cancelled when ASCII Entertainment changed its policies and withdrew funding. Suda pitched to other publishers, eventually gaining the support of Victor Interactive Software. This would begin a trend for Grasshopper Manufacture of picking new publishers for each projects so as to remain an independent company. Suda next acted as a producer and designer for . Suda also created the initial concept around the idea of mist, but then created the camera-based and monstrous aspects to evoke terror.
His next title, Killer7, was his breakout title in the West and garnered mainstream public attention for both Suda and his studio. Suda acted as scenario writer, designer and director. Development began in 2002 as part of a pentalogy of video games dubbed the Capcom Five, a set of games overseen by Shinji Mikami and intended to be exclusive to the GameCube. Suda was given high creative freedom by Mikami, allowing Suda to create an experimental game for an international audience. His next major title was No More Heroes for the Wii, which further established Suda's international reputation. Suda developed the title for the Wii as he had been one of the first to see the hardware first-hand, and saw the possibilities of the Wii controls for sword-based action. While sharing elements with Killer7, Suda adopted a lighter tone and style to suit his vision for the characters and story. Following No More Heroes, Suda took on a supervisory role for the majority of future Grasshopper projects including the No More Heroes sequel . He continued to be involved with writing and planning for Shadows of the Damned, Lollipop Chainsaw, Black Knight Sword and Killer is Dead. Suda returned as a director for the next two titles in the No More Heroes series; the spin-off (2019), and the third and intended final mainline entry No More Heroes III (2021).
Suda was one of four major Japanese developers to contribute to the compilation video game Guild01 alongside Yoot Saito, Yasumi Matsuno and Yoshiyuki Hirai: Suda's contribution, Liberation Maiden, later released as a standalone title and spawning a visual novel sequel written by Suda. Suda worked as a designer, co-director and co-writer on , the fourth entry in the Fatal Frame series. The project was a collaboration between Koei Tecmo, Grasshopper Manufacture and Nintendo SPD. Suda and Grasshopper also collaborated on Short Peace, a media project involving four anime shorts and a video game titled Ranko Tsukigime's Longest Day: all properties within Short Peace shared a common theme of representing different periods of Japanese history and culture. Suda created the initial concept, then gave the project to Tokyo Jungle producer Yohei Kataoka, having been impressed by Tokyo Jungle and wanting someone who could do "crazy" work. Outside gaming, Suda collaborated with Hideo Kojima as scenario writer for Sdatcher, a radio drama based on Kojima's early video game Snatcher.
| Director, writer | ||
| Contact | Producer | |
| Director, writer | ||
| Shadows of the Damned | Executive director, writer | |
| Creative producer | ||
| Sdatcher (Radio Drama) | Writer, voice actor | |
| Diabolical Pitch | ||
| Liberation Maiden | Creative director | |
| Lollipop Chainsaw | ||
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| Black Knight Sword | Executive producer, writer | |
| Liberation Maiden SIN | Writer | |
| Kurayami Dance | ||
Multiple sources have influenced Suda's work, from literature to games to foreign and domestic films and television. His favorite author is Franz Kafka, a German language author who focused on a combination of mundane and surreal scenarios. Suda's liking of Kafka was originally expressed in Kurayami, an in-development title based on The Castle, with a focus on nighttime combat and survival. Kurayami would eventually evolve into Shadows of the Damned. Numerous films have inspired elements of Suda's work on The Silver Case, Killer7 and the No More Heroes series. When creating Lollipop Chainsaw, Suda used the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer to flesh out his initial concept. Popular culture has also played a part in Suda's work, with several characters in his games being named after or being homages to sports people or pop singers. He also draws inspiration from and references a number of rock bands including The Stranglers and The Smiths.
A defining part of Suda's original work has been its balance of humor, dark or mature themes, violence and sexuality. His focus on death is because he feels it needs a rationale behind it, and so he focuses on those closely tied with death such as assassins. In his action titles, he considered the reasons behind each character's wish to fight and the reason for their deaths. His portrayal of death in his games was influenced by his time as an undertaker. Sexuality, while a big part of many of Suda's works, is not an important element from his perspective, and when used he is attempting to express a core part of the overall story and theme; some elements of his later work had him worried that Grasshopper and himself would become associated with erotic content. Another recurring theme in his work from The Silver Case onwards is the focus on the criminal elements in society, in addition to people with equally valid views coming into conflict with each other. Following the serious tone of The Silver Case, Flower, Sun, and Rain saw a stylistic shift to a more light and casual tone. This approach of switching styles for each successive original project would be repeated by Suda throughout his career: when talking about the contrast between Lollipop Chainsaw and Killer is Dead he described it as a yin-yang effect.
During the early part of his career, Suda worked on adventure games without an emphasis on action. This was due to his previous work at Human Entertainment being in the adventure game and visual novel genres. Due to having a larger staff, Flower, Sun, and Rain shifted away from the text-drive style of The Silver Case, beginning the company's and Suda's shift towards more action-based gameplay. Beginning with Killer7, Suda incorporated further action elements at Mikami's insistence. This shift in style continued following the anime tie-ins, with the gameplay of Sidetracked and One Night Kiss directly inspiring him when designing the action gameplay of No More Heroes. Michigan: Report from Hell and Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse are the only titles Suda directly worked on to focus on horror, a genre Suda generally dislikes.
Some of his work has seen outside interference from publishers. His original scenario for Blood+, where the protagonist would be a monster clone killed at the end of the story, was vetoed. The overtly sexual elements in Lollipop Chainsaw and Killer Is Dead were likewise not his decision, but rather included at the insistence of the Japanese publisher Kadokawa Games. Shadows of the Damned in particular suffered from creative clashes with the publisher Electronic Arts, who requested changes catering to the Western market such as incorporating guns, and required five redrafts of the scenario before they approved it. Suda and Mikami both disliked the end product due to the publisher's creative interference, with Mikami in particular saying that Shadows of the Damneds final form broke Suda's heart.
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