Artbook Data - Climax Inference
Content warning for fish gore, I guess.
The great stage where the whole crime is laid bare, the Climax Inference, has captivated players with its artworks by the famous Masaharu Shimizu.
Masaharu Shimizu’s introduction: Shimizu here as always. I’m considering making a snazzy as heck Instagram to post the best of gourmet, fashion and cute selfies. I hope you see it!
Masaharu Shimizu’s profile: Game creator and illustrator. Main character designer for Ginga Ninkyouden and Choujin Heiki Zeroigar. His timeless artstyle earned the support of the hardcore game fans and the works he was on are essential pieces of the gaming history.
General comments:
Original character expressions: As I already said before for every game, the drawings on the Climax Inference are images on the protagonist’s inner thoughts, so the character design here doesn’t need to perfectly true to the main story. These are the best work conditions I could ever wish for. On the other hand, since I have to base their expressions on how the protagonist is supposed to be imagining this situations, it takes me forever to decide what should I go with. Whenever people say “Doesn’t that means you can do whatever you want with the characters!?” when I bring up the “protagonist’s inner thoughts” point, I have no words to deny it (laughs).
Since the theme for V3 is Psychocool, V3′s facial expressions as a whole are more restrained than DanganRonpa 1 and DanganRonpa 2. I read some opinions that they were more plain that in the previous games, but I actually did them like that on purpose, because if I don’t, I can’t stop laughing at them... Anyways, everyone has their different opinion on what the perfect balance between serious and goofy is, so art is hard.
Tricks to show the murder gimmicks: Since V3 had many points where I can explain the murder gimmick with an overhead or a sidescroller perspective drawing, I think they all turned out pretty easy to understand. I guess chapter 2′s trick was the most complicated one...
Character distinction: The higher-ups told me to always draw the villain (culprit) as the gray man, but I thought that was overdone, so and gave them a bluer tone to match the Psychocool style. Blue colors lower appetite, so I think that with this our fans can enjoy the game without having to eat.
Adding scenes you don’t see in the main story: Here, like in the other games, the Climax Inference was produced alongside with the main story. I had to work without knowing anything about what the CGs the main story are using looked like. Every animation and composition was made trusting only my animalistic instincts. But otherwise, I guess Spike Chunsoft leaving me in the dark about the CGs gives me the good kind of pressure and anxiety.
Panelization and animation: The main thing to keep in mind is that the Climax Inference has to work as a quiz, so I always have to keep what’s going on easy to understand. The next thing on the priority list is to include lots of cute, crazy and bloodthristy scene to stir the player’s emotions.
Favorite part: Obviously, everything!
Comments by chapter:
Chapter 1: Amami-kun dying as early as chapter 1 really caught me by surprise. Since his character was a big ball of questions marks, I thought he was going to survive until the end. But not doing what I expect is the Dangan spirit. Chapter 1 is always the hardest to work on because I’m still not used to the new characters. It’s so full of people and I’m complaining “Ggggggggg... I can’t fit everyone in this panel” all the time... All... the... time...
Chapter 2: I couldn’t use a texture for Toujou-san’s tiara, so drawing it literally killed me. As someone who never misses a documentary about fishes eating people (most of them are disappointing though. At least show sparkly the bones looks when they get exposed, damn it!), the part where the piranhas, my personal heroes, were on the loose made my day. They even got a little video. The way the piranhas respond immediately to schedule change in the magic is so professional.
Chapter 3: When someone holds a katana, they do katana poses even if no one is watching, am I right? That’s a normal thing to do, right? Too bad I barely couldn’t draw Shinguuji-kun with his own appearance, I think he was one of my favorites from this game... When I first saw his nutty design, I immediately thought “This guy is killing somebody”, and look at that, I was right...
Chapter 4: Aside from the 8-bit sprites we have in the game, I had no drawing references for the avatars, so I decided just to draw little faces on their base models, resulting in what you saw. Since I decided to save chapter 4 for last in the production order, I ran out of time... Drawing this one was quite a rush job, but since I’m fond of the chibi artstyle, so it was fun.
Chapter 5: Never overwork yourself like I did drawing Ouma-kun all the time... He is so cute, can take a hit from his fighting partner like a champ, and died young. Ouma’s so damn metal! I know this may sound a little, just a little, a tiny bit ill-tasted, but don’t you want to see what a person squished by a hydraulic press looks like? I would love to see a video of a person turning into something like an Enoshima Jianbing...
Ah, I feel so good after a nice flush of the toilet. Huh? “Was this comment about Ouma being shirtless”? What, you can’t fool me... I know you’re thiking something dirty, huff, huff, (*´ Д `), aren’t you? I didn’t undress him because I wanted to! I was just doing my job!
Chapter 6: The unexpected chapter 6!? I had no idea we were going to have one until halfway through my work. I mean, it’s obvious we would have a chapter 6, we always have, but when I was asked about it, I said “Huh... What chapter 6?”. I immediately reread my contract in confusion and there said I was going to do chapter 6. I didn’t remember this at all. (My memory was sure that my job covered only chapters 1 to 5.) (;・ω・)
I was terrified at the thought that I had gone senile. It was not hard because it was pretty much a rehash of chapter 1, but until I read that to know, I was sweating and shaking at the idea that I would get the game delayed. My answer to the question of how is Shinguuji eating the spaghetti is magic.
