Hmm, Im not sure how you perceive my relationship with Mr. Itagaki, but I can tell you its likely different from what you imagine.
Let me provide a general overview and some key topics regarding my history with Mr. Itagaki.
However, consider this a warning.
What follows is content that would normally be covered in media interview articles, and Id strongly advise any impatient fighting game fans out there to stop reading now. No, scratch thatthis is a serious warning. If you have a typical level of patience and common sense, youre better off not reading further.
If you do, theres a high chance youll either give up midway, fall asleep, or subject yourself to the pain of endless scrollingeven on a 100-inch tall vertical smartphone screen.
Even then, Ive omitted most of the events and focused only on the major incidents. Let me make this clear: Ive warned you ahead of time. If anyone dares to respond with too long after this, theyll be sent straight to their ancestors graves and permanently muted. Why? Because I specifically said, Dont read this.
Now, what Im about to discuss happened during the old Namco era and has almost nothing to do with the post-merger Bandai Namco era. So, younger generations and employees who joined after the Bandai Namco merger, consider yourselves exempt from this context.
Also, please forgive any translation errors or nuances that I might have misinterpretedIm still stuck at the English level of my university days.
Yes, Ive warned you about everything. You should not read further. Youll regret it if you do.
[[ 1. First Contact ]]--
It was during the 1990s when the first Dead or Alive (DOA) was announced. On the way back from a game show, I happened to run into SEGAs Virtua Fighter (VF) team (who would later become the heads of SEGA-AM2) at a station. Coincidentally, Mr. Itagaki also appeared. The key people behind VF, Tekken, and DOA were all there by chance, so we decided to take advantage of the opportunity and went out for drinks at an izakaya in Shinjuku. At the izakaya, I and two members of SEGA-AM2 got into an animated discussion about shared technical topics. At the time, Namco shared some animation control techniques with SEGA through engineers we had headhunted from SEGA. Of course, just a few years later, the Tekkenproject independently developed its own animation control technology from scratch. (The knowledge and foundational technologies developed by the Tekkenproject at that time would become the very origins of Bandai Namcos human action development technologies today. Surprisingly, many Bandai Namco employees are unaware of this fact: Tekken is the ancestor of Bandai Namcos polygon-era animation and action control technologies. Without this foundation, its self-evident we wouldnt have been able to co-develop Super Smash Bros.with Mr. Sakurai).
Mr. Itagaki listened with great interest as I and the SEGA executives discussed these topics. Later, we all bonded over casual, non-work-related chatter about games. One moment stands out even after nearly 30 years: Mr. Itagaki said to me, Mr. Harada, youre a really approachable and funny person. At that time, Mr. Itagaki still addressed me using polite language (and of course, I did the same for him). In other words, we didnt know much about each other yet, and our relationship was very professional and gentlemanly at the time.
[[ 2. What Itagaki Discovered ]]--
A few months after the VF, Tekken, and DOA drinking session, I happened to run into Mr. Itagaki again at another gaming event. He approached me and said, Harada, youre from Waseda University, arent you? I also went to Waseda, and our time there overlapped. That makes you my junior. I responded, I might be your junior, but I dont think we were there at the same time. However, he said, No, I was so busy with mahjong every day that it took me seven years to graduate. Im sure we were there at the same time. In fact, I remember seeing you during our university days. You were the captain of the yacht racing team, werent you? Yes, Mr. Itagaki had thoroughly researched my background and discovered that I was his junior. From then on, he started referring to me as his junior and speaking to me in the casual tone of a senior addressing a junior, dropping the polite language entirely.
[[ 3. The Beginning of Itagakis Media Strategy ]]-
Mr. Itagaki wasnt just a game designer or director; more than anything, he was starting to show his prowess as a producer.
This became clear to me after he left Tecmo when he explicitly told me as much. Back then, he began seriously thinking about how to elevate DOA to surpass Tekken in terms of marketing and branding. Lets rewind a bit to the past.
During that time, the arcade gaming market was still thriving. SEGA and Namco were the two giants dominating the Japanese arcade market. Not only did they develop games, but they also operated their own arcade chains domestically and internationally, managing a significant share of game distribution and publishing as well.
Mr. Itagaki recognized that Tecmo couldnt compete against this level of marketing and publishing power. As a result, he explored media strategies using not only print magazines but also the emerging internet media of the time. Despite his outwardly emotional demeanor, Mr. Itagaki had a very cool and calculated eye for analyzing resources and strategy.
Among his various strategies, one was to deliberately bite at Tekken to draw media attention. In doing so, he even called me out by name and criticized Tekkens game design and other aspects. Let me emphasize: this was just one of the many strategies he employed, not his only approach.
[[ 4. An Uneven Relationship ]]--
Due to the media strategy I just described, the Tekken project team was initially baffled. In one magazine, for instance, Mr. Itagaki used a two-page spread to openly criticize Tekken and my name, delivering a highly aggressive interview. In overseas magazines and internet media, especially in Western gaming outlets, the attacks escalated further, with harsher criticism of both Tekken and myself. Meanwhile, I was ordered by my superiors at Namco to remain completely silent. In other words, I was strictly forbidden to respond in any way to Mr. Itagakis attacks. This dynamic of Harada remains silent while Itagaki attacks lasted for about ten years, roughly from the late 1990s until around 2007, after the release of DOA4at the end of 2005.
Looking back, its clear that under these circumstances, there was absolutely no chance for Mr. Itagaki and me to develop a friendly relationship. In fact, during those ten years, I spent much of my time wondering, Why is Mr. Itagaki so fixated on targeting and attacking me?