From Air Duel and Last Resort to The King of Fighters '94 and Daraku Tenshi: the early years of Mitsuo Kodama
In 1987, Irem released the first episode of the R-Type series to much acclaim. With Capcom and SNK, it was one of the major video game companies based in Osaka and it wasn’t rare that their future employees met each other while still in school. Such was the case with Mitsuo Kodama, a designer who studied in a vocational school with people such as Hitoshi Nishio and Ikuo Nakayama who later animated Guile and Zangief from Street Fighter II.
Kodama didn’t follow the path his classmates chose after the exams and decided to join a design company, but changed his mind after a few months there. When he entered Irem in late 1989, he was tasked to work on an arcade shmup with a team composed mostly of newcomers, including one person who joined around the same time as him. His name: Kazuma Kujo, a planner who started working at Irem in April 1989, when R-Type II was still playtested. His experience on R-Type II was pretty short since he was too bad at shooting games according to his colleagues, but that didn’t prevent him to direct many shmups during his career at Irem. After the completion of the Game Boy game Shisenshou, he was asked to join Kodama and his team to replace the former planner who had left due to his physical condition. The game they were working on –Air Duel– was made by a team composed of one programmer (R.Shobu / 菖蒲), two graphic designers (including Kodama), one composer (Takushi Hiyamuta) and one planner (Kujo).
Backgrounds from Air Duel designed by Mitsuo Kodama (stages 4 and 5)
During the development, Kodama sat behind Akio, the man who designed the first boss from R-Type and who would later work on Metal Slug alongside with Kazuma Kujo. Kodama and Akio only worked together briefly -prior to his departure from Irem, Kodama designed one of the backgrounds from Undercover Cops, a beat’em up eventually released in 1992- but the second one made a big impression on the newcomer and, although he didn’t stay long at Irem, he tried to match Akio’s level during his first years in the video game industry.
Blast off and strike the evil Bydo empire!
Air Duel was first location tested in the West at the time of the Final Fight release, one of the best selling arcade games of its era. The income wasn’t very good and the game didn’t sell well.
Kodama left Irem to join SNK where he worked on 2 shmups as a graphic designer: Ghost Pilots and Last Resort. The second one is notable for its aesthetic which might be reminiscent of some Irem games in its use of colors and dithering. In fact, Kodama wasn’t the only former Irem employee to work on this game; Yoshio Shimizo who worked on Mr. Heli in 1987, designed at least one of the backgrounds from Last Resort.
Left: Last Resort, stage 5 by Yoshio Shimizo ; Right: Last Resort, stage 2 by Mitsuo Kodama
After the completion of Last Resort, Kodama worked a year and a half as art director on The King of Fighters ‘94, a game born from a scraped beat'em up called Survivor. Last Resort had a distinctive style and adapting this style to a fighting game wasn’t an obvious choice. Before its release, the game wasn’t highly regarded internally according to Kodama. It was very different from the other fighting games produced by the company and didn’t look like any other game of its kind. The development team had many graphic designers who worked on Last Resort (Eri Kohjitani, Hajime Itō, Sahori Etoh, Khozoh Nagashima, Tatsuya Shinkai, Mitsuo Kodama) and it shows in many ways:
A flame effect from Last Resort reused in KOF 94
Backgrounds from Last Resort and KOF 94 traced from or inspired by the movie Akira.
On a related note, when he was still known as Syo, Kyo had a similar design to Kaneda. Years later, when Syo appeared in KOF 2000, his voice actor was non other than Mitsuo Iwata, Kaneda’s voice actor.
Kyo was one of the many characters designed by Shinichi Morioka who later designed Iori from KOF'95 as well as the characters from Skies of Arcadia. Although Morioka also worked as a graphic designer on the game -he animated Heavy D! from the sports team-, the person in charge of Kyo was a newcomer called Yuichirow Hiraki. The character made a big impression when he first appeared, helped by the flame effect designed by Kodama.
Morioka and Hiraki also worked together on KOF 95; Morioka designed Iori while Hiraki animated him. As many of his colleagues, Hiraki later joined Capcom where he modeled Dante from Devil May Cry and worked as a motion designer on Street Fighter V. But before that, they both worked together on a certain fighting game directed by Kodama and produced by Psikyo.
Regarding the backgrounds, Kodama designed the Italy stage, inspired by Miyazaki’s 1992 movie Porco Rosso. He also had to ensure that the characters detach from the backgrounds, which may imply color adjustment.
The Mexican Pao Pao Café, before and after color adjustment. Designed by Eri Kohjitani who now works as an illustrator
Sahori Etoh took charge of the China stage. She sometimes works as a calligrapher.
Brazil, made by a former Irem designer who also designed backgrounds from Vigilante.
Korea, another background designed by a former Irem employee (he/she also worked on Cross Blades!)
According to Kodama, the development team was mostly composed of rookies. The game didn’t get a very high income during the location test ─according to Yujirou Hayami (who animated Rugal and Kim), this was due to the fact that the play time was too long─ and there were some skepticism even within SNK. The balancing phase lasted only 2 weeks and the game eventually became successful, pushing other companies to develop their own “team battle action game” (© SNK).
Apart from the title logo and the select screen, one of Kodama’s last contributions to the game was a statue of Guile standing in front of Rugal, as a wink to one of his former classmates. One year later, Capcom answered by introducing Dan in the Street Fighter universe.
6 years after KOF 94, Capcom gave another answer to SNK in Capcom Vs SNK.
In March 1994, after the release of Irem’s then ultimate game (GunForce II), the team behind In the Hunt left the company to found Nazca, an enterprise funded by SNK. This was around that time that Kodama decided to join Konami, shortly after the completion of KOF ‘94. He worked on Dragoon Might, a little known fighting game which let the player choose between 2 modes: 1 vs 1 and 3 vs 3 (the consumer version of KOF '94 featured the same choice). The hardware used by Konami for this game allowed graphics designers to use transparency effects in the backgrounds.
A background from Dragoon Might designed by Kodama
Kodama then joined Psikyo where he worked on Sol Divide, a shmup illustrated by Katsuya Terada, Sengoku Blade, a shmup illustrated by Tsukasa Jun, and Daraku Tenshi: The Fallen Angels. Daraku Tenshi is a fighting game released in 1998 that sold about 300 units but gained some popularity in the early 2000s, when people discovered it through emulation. Since the game sold poorly and featured unused content, it wasn’t rare to read that it was a prototype of an unreleased game.
Mitsuo Kodama worked with many people from the KOF '94 development team on this game: Hajime Itō designed the backgrounds, Shinichi Morioka created the illustrations and Yuichirow Hiraki animated Haiji. Kodama directed the game, designed 3 of the characters (Taro, Cool and Carlos) and adjusted the colors of the characters for each stage, a rare feature for a 2D game –Art of Fighting 3 (1996) did something vaguely similar with a shade effect in one of its stage.
He also added a light effect to the characters in one stage, something Capcom Vs SNK (2000) reproduced 2 years later.
Daraku Tenshi, Art of Fighting 3 and Capcom VS SNK
While the game sold poorly, its designs “influenced” other companies.
Daraku Tenshi (1998) and Street Fighters Ex 3 (2001), the obvious one
Daraku Tenshi and The King of Fighters '99 (1999)
As you may guess, Kodama wasn’t very pleased to discover that some of the characters from KOF 99 shared more than a few similarities with some of its own creation (including Cool). However, he didn’t burn the bridge with SNK and worked on another fighting game with his former company about 10 years later. After a brief appearance at Square, he founded his own company -K2- in 2000. K2 is credited on series such as Tenchu and Valhalla Knights and became one of Capcom’s subsidiaries in 2008. Its last game as an independant company was the arcade game Samurai Shodown: Edge of Destiny, AKA Samurai Spirits Sen.
Capcom choose to keep Kodama at the head of his company which has since worked on the Resident Evil series.
Kazuma Kujo left Nazca in April 96, shortly before the release of Metal Slug, and took a few months off before joining Irem where he stayed until the company decided to leave the video game industry (again). He then founded his own company: Granzella.
Akio stayed at SNK until 2010 or so then became a freelance illustrator working mostly on trading card games. He recently created an illustration for Street Fighter V Arcade Edition.
Sources:
Picture of Mitsuo Kodama:
https://www.famitsu.com/news/201604/28102220.html
Nishio, Nakayama and Kodama were classmates:
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/819520623751770112
Kodama worked as a designer before joining Irem:
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/1026477524644069377
Akio and R-Type:
http://shmuplations.com/rtype1/
Last Resort and Akio
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/859012420919939072
Undercover Cops
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/1049276762452971526
Air Duel - stage 4 by Kodama
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/1025746592945459200
Air Duel - stage 5 by Kodama:
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/1042832485304823809
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/1042832492837855232
Air Duel - location test
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/1007482830866141184
Air Duel development team
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/1009102775358066689
Air Duel didn’t sell well:
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/1009104596642304000
Kazuma Kujo: Irem from April 89 to March 1994. Nazca from April 94 to April 96.
https://www.facebook.com/kazumakujo/about?lst=805134629%3A100002300604575%3A1529758534§ion=education
Kazuma Kujo - test play on R-Type II
https://web.archive.org/web/20080330075000/http://forums.insertcredit.com/viewtopic.php?p=281726
Shisenshou: The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers, Vol.2 p321
Air Duel planner:
https://web.archive.org/web/20070819205310/http://www.gpara.com/contents/creator/bn_271.php
Kodama and Akio at Irem:
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/1009429117949759488
Ghost Pilots: in-game credits
Last Resort, Yoshio Shimizo:
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/1042842696170102784
Last Resort, how to play + logo by Kodama:
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/1042829426193424384
Last Resort Stage 2 by Kodama:
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/1042832485304823809
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/1042832492837855232
KOF ‘94 concept art: The King of Fighters 94-97 Orochi Hen Perfect Art Collection
Mitsuo Iwata:
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=1045
Shinichi Morioka / もりおか しんいち
http://www.flickr.com/photos/44726285@N04/sets//
https://twitter.com/hayamiu/status/580705747199266816
http://www.mmcafe.com/cgi-bin/forums/bbs/messages/13643.shtml#78890
Yuichirow Hiraki / 平木 雄一郎:
https://www13.atwiki.jp/game_staff/pages/335.html
https://game.capcom.com/cfn/sfv/column/112606
http://impatiens.blog123.fc2.com/blog-entry-3998.html?sp
https://twitter.com/takaNakayama/status/732537309321519104
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/1042693147367661568
http://www.mmcafe.com/cgi-bin/forums/bbs/messages/13594.shtml#74143
Flame effect in KOF 94:
http://news.denfaminicogamer.jp/kikakuthetower/dotter-taidan
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/1063319785113452544
KOF 94, Italy, Porco Rosso, Kodama:
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/1042258265999007745
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/1042013154517995520
KOF 94 Mexico color adjustment:
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/859010803118231552
KOF 94, Japan, Hajime Itō / Hajime Itoh
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/1019156206944858112
http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,405525/
KOF 94, China
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/1042262237837111297
KOF 94, Brazil + Vigilante
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/1043852059789783041
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/1043857097673269250
KOF 94, Korea + Cross Blades!
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/996409711095234560
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/996408632919998464
KOF 94 developed by a team of rookies
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/812164162960773120
KOF ‘94 wasn’t highly regarded at SNK:
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/848859514648444928
KOF 94 location test:
https://twitter.com/hayamiu/status/957508284629467136
Yujirou Hayami / 速水融次郎:
https://twitter.com/hayamiu/status/590175475084828672
https://twitter.com/hayamiu/status/422039616581955584
KOF 94 developed in 1 year and a half, balancing phase in 2 weeks:
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/1010881676518436865
KOF 94, Kodama, title logo, how to play, etc.
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/1042016871820681216
KOF 94 statue:
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/993865480870838272
Nazca funded by SNK:
https://web.archive.org/web/20070819205310/http://www.gpara.com/contents/creator/bn_271.php
Nazca:
http://gaminghell.co.uk/NazcaStaff.html
Dragoon Might:
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/987876123324309504
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/1044713563607060480
Dragoon Might - transparency effect
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/1044720333767421952
Sol Divide: in-game credits
Sengoku Blade:
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/922409372721889280
Daraku Tenshi sold 300 units
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/823926066481795072
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/930376895866183681
Daraku Tenshi: Taro, Cool and Carlos designed (animated?) by Kodama
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/824494834693976064
Daraku Tenshi - Kodama adjusted the colors of the characters for each stage
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/1010916997494857731
Daraku Tenshi: Cool and Haiji VS KOF 99
https://twitter.com/mitsumame1212/status/824492478115885056
Samurai Spirits Sen
https://web.archive.org/web/20070815212154/http://www.gpara.com/contents/creator/bn_270.php
Bio Hazard: Umbrella Corps
https://www.famitsu.com/news/201604/28102220.html
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