lead=yes is a Japanese video game designer, writer, and manga artist. His work is known for recurring themes of contrasting hope and despair, luck and talent, truth and lies, and mixing tragedy with dark humor, as well as using numerous plot twists. He was an employee of Spike Chunsoft (formerly Spike) and is widely known as the creator and writer of the Danganronpa franchise. He left the company in 2017 and founded Too Kyo Games with other ex-employees.
Biography
Early life
Kodaka was born at July 8, 1978, and has lived in Tokyo his entire life. He was educated at a private boys' junior high school.
He described his childhood saying that he had very few friends and spent his free time after school watching
anime, though he would have wanted to be popular among his peers. Still, he studied diligently as it was the only way he could get results, but eventually he grew tired and only regained his enthusiasm when he became aware of a chance to study film at
Nihon University, where he later majored and graduated, earning a degree in film studies.
The first video games Kodaka played were Wrecking Crew, Clu Clu Land, and Pac-Man.
Career
Spike / Spike Chunsoft
While at Spike, Kodaka had an idea for a detective game;
so he proposed an idea to the company that was known as
Distrust.
The concept was similar to that of
Danganronpa, a battle royale style death game in a closed environment between high school students, but the idea was too gruesome and was consequently scrapped. After tweaking the concept, Kodaka successfully pitched it to the company and the game went into production, becoming
Danganronpa.
released for PlayStation Portable on November 25, 2010. Selling 25,564 copies within the first week.
Too Kyo Games
After having left Spike Chunsoft, Kodaka and other six developers who had left the company simultaneously founded Too Kyo Games. The company's goal, according to Kodaka, was to create new intellectual properties and for the staff to make their own
.
Also by the words of Kodaka, the company is for them as much a club activity as a business. He also mentioned that he would still like to go back to the
Danganronpa franchise at some point in the future.
, the first game released by Too Kyo Games in June 2020, is written and directed by Kodaka.
In November 2021,
was announced as a collaboration with Spike Chunsoft, with Kodaka writing alongside Takekuni Kitayama.
Creative philosophy and influences
Philosophy
By his own words, Kodaka centralizes on writing characters, and he has stated that he cannot write characters whom he does not like.
As a result, he does not begin the process of creating a story by thinking of characters first, as he feels doing so would restrict him, but instead first crafts a compelling scenario, on top of which he can build characters. Kodaka operates under the belief that a game requires more investment from the audience and therefore the scenario is the key to hook them. His desire is to create stories people find fresh, although he has noted that he sees a structure in his works and he admires writers whose stories go against structure. He also keeps in mind why the story is being written and gives the story a meaning.
A display of that is the apparent statement by Kodaka that everything he has ever wanted to tell can be found inside
Danganronpa.
Stories Kodaka writes often revolve around acts of human monstrosities, primarily murder. Further, he says he finds the lightness of killing in a story something that he likes and compares it to a black joke taken to the extreme.
Influences
Kodaka's works feature many references which signifies the influence of other authors on his creative process. Furthermore, Kodaka has specified on how he refreshes his mind when he is stuck with his writing, saying he does it by watching movies, anime, and reading manga, while paying attention to what interests him in those stories. Kodaka named
David Lynch,
Quentin Tarantino, and the
Coen brothers as his primary influences.
Another big influence on Kodaka is
Kunihiko Ikuhara, whose writing Kodaka admires.
Kodaka is also a fan of
Goichi Suda's games, and told in an interview with Suda that they inspired him and his colleagues.
He included one of Suda's games,
Twilight Syndrome, in
Danganronpa 2 as a homage.
Works
Video games
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| Bakusou Dekotora Legend Black | Writer | |
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| World's End Club | Creative director | |
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| Director, writer, original concept, designer | |
| Shuten Order | Story | |
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Literature
Anime
External links
