(Translated from the Famitsu article)

(Producer and director interview | Eater designer interview | Sub-quest writer interview | BGM composer and sound effect producer interview)

[An opportunity to gain new fans]

The PlayStation Vita game Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth will be released on March 12, 2015. Touted as “Digimon for adults”, it’s an impressive work with designs that give off a very different image from previous entries in the series. Playing a part in this sudden change of image is the game’s character designer, Suzuhito Yasuda. This time, Famitsu.com has taken the initiative to interview this illustrator for works such as the Yozakura Quartet manga and Durarara!!. We asked him what he thought while creating the character designs for his work. Producer Kazumasa Habu (written below as Habu) also participated in the interview.

Suzuhito Yasuda (written below as Yasuda)

Illustrator and manga creator of the manga Yozakura Quartet and Durarara!!. After Digimon World Re:Digitize, he now designs characters for the Digimon series.

[A combination of Digimon and Yasuda’s illustrations]

Habu: I introduce Yasuda-san, whom we asked to have as the character designer for Digimon World: Re:Digitize with the purpose of having the Digimon series target adults. Continuing on from there, we asked Yasuda-san to do the character designs for this work. It’s already been about three or four years since you became involved with Digimon, hasn’t it?

Yasuda: It has.

–That’s a long time to be involved.

Habu: I think it’s been around four years since we started making Digimon World: Re:Digitize.

Yasuda: About right after the Durarara!! anime had ended, I had my first meeting with Habu-san, and he told me about how he liked Durarara!!. (laughs)

–(laughs) When you initially got the offer to do the character designs for Digimon, how did you feel?

Yasuda: Because it historically had been a long work after all, there are a lot of deep-seated fans. It’s not an easy thing to deal with, since there are a lot of times I’ve been vilified for things like this, and I wondered if there were anyone else who might be able to draw something like “a likeable drawing”, but when I heard what Habu-san had to say, since all the fans I have right now are important to me, and because I really felt that I wanted to find new fans like that, I took on the job.



–What do you think is the kind of “likeable drawing” you just mentioned?

Yasuda: My drawings don’t have a lot to them, but for some reason there are a lot of them that people dislike. (wry laugh) But a lot of people have what they definitively consider to be a “likeable drawing”. For instance, I think the old-time Digimon drawings would be “likeable drawings”. They wouldn’t look disagreeable to anyone who sees them. Because I tend to force in a bit of showy taste, there are a lot of people who find it disagreeable. So I thought, “people are going to either love it or hate it, so is that okay?” Of course, I try to bring it closer to the work’s image, but I’m told that I don’t have to make a drawing that’s likeable to everyone, that it’s fine if some people are touchy about it, etc.

Habu: Yasuda-san chose some pretty extreme words, so I’ll add onto it so there aren’t any misunderstandings (laughs), but what Yasuda-san means by a “likeable drawing” is like trying to make a national drawing so that it won’t give off a harsh impression and everyone won’t dislike it. On the other hand, since Yasuda-san’s drawings are somewhat fanservicey and showy, the fact it’s a very strong quirk of his work makes people divided on whether they like it or not.

Yasuda: It’s really something that’s been called out on over and over again since the very beginning…But I’d rather people talk about it than be indifferent about it (laughs wryly).

–I see. (laughs) But personally, I feel that it’s perfect for this work that’s “aimed at adults”.

Yasuda: Thank you. (laughs)

–Incidentally, did you know of the Digimon franchise itself from the beginning?

Yasuda: I knew it ever since the first toys came out. So my strongest image of them came from the pixel sprites. After that, I took a look at the anime…

–So you got to see the anime, too. Did you feel any pressure along the lines of “I’m going to be involved in that Digimon franchise?”

Yasuda: Very much so. But in spite of that, it was something I’m very grateful for. It’s happened before and after this, but previously there were people saying things directly like “kick Yasuda out of Digimon!” on Twitter, etc., nowadays there are a lot of people more accustomed to it saying things like “it’s fine, isn’t it?”, so I’m really grateful for that.

–I suppose you could say that people are gradually getting used to your illustrations. Is there anything you have to pay particular attention to when you design Digimon characters?

Yasuda: It’s very difficult to get used to drawing Digimon. The Digimon characters are quite abundant in variety, like hard, scrape-y Digimon being cute and fluffy or mechanical-looking Digimon that are like rigid robots, you know. (laughs) But I think it’s a good job to do. In other series, when there are characters like robots, they usually stop at designs like Hagurumon’s. That’s a form you can say for sure is sublimated from a “robot”, but I think it’s also got a sort of Digimon-esque air to it. Also, with characters like Angewomon or other humanoid Digimon, it’s difficult to design them in the lineup with everyone else. I have to be diligent when designing the Digimon and I can’t give up. Keeping them consistent with cute Digimon throws me off even further. Knowing that, the Digimon anime really made a lot of unique character forms.

–Ah, I see. The character forms really were unique.

Yasuda: Even though the humanoid Digimon have a fairly normal shape, the main characters themselves didn’t have normal human body forms. I thought that part was pretty clever.

–While struggling to design all eight types of Digimon, was it tough for you?

Yasuda: Even while being displayed in a game, seeing humans and Digimon together could lead to a sense of discomfort, so it was very difficult.

–But the promotional video’s already been published, so how was the reception to it?

Yasuda: As I thought, there were a lot of people who said “I’m already used to it.” (laughs)

Everyone: (laughs)

Yasuda: I thought I might give up at a lot of times, but I feel there are a lot of very kind Digimon fans.

Habu: We’ve had too many different kinds of things happen so far, so they’re probably used to it already…(laughs)

Yasuda: I feel the kind of pressure along the lines of “So in exchange, make it properly.”

–For this work, what in particular do you think was personally demanded of you?

Yasuda: I think they wanted designs made in a precisely thought-out way, even for people who weren’t Digimon fans from the start. In terms of promoting the game, of course the game system takes priority, but I think the illustrations are also getting more and more exposure, and so because of this I feel something along the lines of "we need you to make something catchy that’ll grab people”. And even for people who have never come into contact with Digimon before, to do this to allow them to experience this franchise was the biggest element from me.

–I see. Habu-san, what’s your response for how the designs worked out in practicals?

Habu: That’s a pretty convenient lead-up into something. It may be a little rude to say something like this, but it was very difficult to convert Yasuda-san’s illustrations to 3D.

Yasuda: I see. (laughs)

Habu: Because he always draws the most showy stuff, every time Yasuda-san drew something, I ended up saying something like “huh? Isn’t this part a little different from before?” (laughs) Actually, in the key visual, the places where the protagonists are wearing their gloves are different, their T-shirt designs are slightly different, etc.

–So that happened. (laughs)…You’re right.

Yasuda: In this composition, if I had the girl put out her right hand, it looked sloppy, so I changed it.

Habu: In terms of this case, while we were supervising, maybe we should have told the illustrator “please change it”, but…

Yasuda: But it went through anyway. Let’s just go with this.

Everyone: (laughs)

“You’re right.”



Mirei Mikagura. Observe Yasuda-san’s fixation with the legs.



Habu: When you make strange changes to Yasuda-san’s showy style, I think it kills the charm point of the picture, so I didn’t dare touch it. There might be parts when the players say something like “this is off!”, but I think the priority is the coolness factor. Also…for instance, this Mirei character.

Yasuda: Ah. You mean her legs?

Habu: In the proper character design, Mirei was originally wearing boots, so normally she should be wearing boots in this illustration. But by all means Yasuda-san drew her toes protruding in black tights, and I think he wanted to capture that feeling of stretching tights in the illustration.

Yasuda: Exactly.

Habu: In the sense of using this illustration to introduce the character, it’s incorrect to have her not wear the boots. But if you kill this fanservice element, then you might as well have not asked Yasuda-san to have drawn this at all, and so we decided it’s okay to not have the boots.

Yasuda: Of course, there’s the fanservice factor, but the white boots would have overlapped the white numbers on the bottom and it would have made the picture look sloppy, so I did think through this. (laughs) Well, most of all, I really did feel that I wanted to show off the tights properly.

–So that was it, after all. (laughs)

Yasuda: To be frank, that actually managed to get through. (laughs)

Everyone: (laughs)

[The cyber feeling coming from tights]

–How did the production process feel?

Habu: First, our company sends the character configuration and profile in words. We usually do this at the start of game production, and since we make this request before the plot has been fully fleshed out, so when Yasuda-san prods “what will this character do in the end?” we can’t say anything but “we’re working on it little by little…” (laughs wryly) But Yasuda-san says he wants to design them while properly thinking about what kind of character they are, and we have to sort of vaguely dodge him and ask him to draw it anyway.

–The protagonist’s clothing has changed considerably from its initial version.

Yasuda: The game concept itself was not quite as cyber-filled as it is now. It felt a little closer to reality, so I thought it’d be better to dress him in normal clothes. But Habu-san requested me to give it more of a cyber feeling. There was a bit of a dispute on what we were going to do about the sweater.

Habu: Did I ask you to give him a T-shirt?

Yasuda: No, I decided the sweater was a bit unfashionable.

Habu: Ah, right. Because other characters were long-sleeved, there was some talk how a parka or a jersey wouldn’t give a proper sense of season, so we wanted him to wear a sweater. The protagonist originally had a fairly Japanese-style design, but I asked Yasuda-san if he could change it to a more cyber-like one. Yasuda-san was the one who gave us the ○ and × on the shirt. If you asked “why is the ○× there?”, you’d get the feeling of “there’s no particular meaning”.

Yasuda: Considering all that, it’s being used on things like the logo, and I’m grateful for that. You would usually use 0 and 1 to give things a digital feel, but I consciously used ○ and ×, because I think it sticks out more as a design.

Habu: In this sense, I think this is the kind of thing you’d call Yasuda-san’s “showy design taking priority over conformity”. (laughs)

–Which character’s design changed the most?

Yasuda: The one that caused the most dispute was Kuremi.

Habu: Indeed.

Yasuda: It was a dispute about color.

Habu: The color of her tights. In the first rough draft Yasuda-san drew, she was wearing full-length tights. Here’s the rough draft, but…



–Ah! You’re right.

Yasuda: I think wearing the tights gives off a cyber feeling.

–It gives off a very snug feeling.

Habu: At first, she was wearing pink tights, but because we thought there were too many characters wearing tights, the hero’s hair was red, and the heroine’s hair was also red, we didn’t want Kuremi to blend in with everything else when she wore red-tinted tights, so we asked him to change it.

Kyouko Kuremi, who originally had pink tights and red hair.



Here is the finished illustration.



Rina Shinomiya. Yasuda says that she’s his favorite character.



–Other than that, Yasuda-san, was there a character you had a particular attachment to, or was easy to draw?

Yasuda: With the characters from the previous work, I had fun with them, feeling like I was saying something like “hey, you all, are you all here again?” I understand Mirei, but why is Rina appearing here?

Habu: Well…I can’t tell you that easily. (laughs)

Yasuda: Perhaps Mirei’s gotten involved in the main story, but Rina hasn’t gotten involved in this work, has she?

Habu: She has, a little.

Yasuda: She has!? I love Rina. I thought she was an amazingly good character in the last work. She’s a really obnoxious character, but that obnoxiousness is a defining trait of hers. So when I draw her, I end up thinking that I have to draw her standing pictures as obnoxiously cute as possible. (laughs)

Everyone: (laughs)

Yasuda: After all, the older characters are easier to draw.

Habu: When Rina’s initial design came up, because the bikini left her exposed, people within the company were saying things like “is this okay?” Because the CERO rating of the series has always been “A” so far, there was anxiety over whether she’d cause it to become a “B”. In the end, the company decided that it was okay even if we got a “B”, and so we asked Yasuda-san to only modify it a little bit.

Yasuda: Because Rina was an additional character for Digimon World: Re:Digitize Decode, I thought I’d have to make her grab the audience as much as possible. As a result, I gave her the design she has now. Because I was partially assuming that it’d be modified, I was shocked. “They let it through!”

Everyone: (laughs)

Yasuda: That’s why, sometimes I’ll say things like “I’ll change it a little more” by my own will. (laughs)

Rina Shinomiya’s concept art.



[Matching the realistic cityscape and Yasuda-san’s illustrations]

–What kind of image did you want to draw in regards to the boxart?

Yasuda: Actually, this picture wasn’t originally intended for the boxart. Originally, it was supposed to be the key visual for the time being, so at the time I drew it consciously thinking of a catchy and bustling feeling, and in the long run it ended up settling into something like a boxart design.

Habu: When I saw the design, the impression I got was “it’ll be fine if we used this for the boxart”.

Yasuda: I’m glad the PlayStation Vita box shape is vertically oriented.

–Which means?

Yasuda: For instance, when the box is square, and you say you want to use the same art for the posters and the box, you need to draw it thinking about how you’ll be cutting off the top and bottom from the beginning, and it’s difficult. But I did my best while drawing it, worrying about what we were going to do if we couldn’t find a place for the logo on it in the end. (laughs)

Everyone: (laughs)

–Certainly, if you look at the illustration, there’s a convenient place to put the logo.

Yasuda: Even back when I was making the rough draft, I indicated where the logo should be. I didn’t think about it too hard in the past, but when I began to do things like draw for game packages and other things, I would be told things like “at this rate, it’ll be hard to put the logo on it”, and I realized that it might be better for me to be more aware of this during composition.

–Now that Yasuda-san’s illustrations are in full 3D this time, in what way will we able to get a proper look at them?

Yasuda: You can pay close attention to the characters, but in terms of the background, I feel “they really did make this realistic”. Because my characters have little density and not a lot of distinct components, and there’s nothing particularly iconic that sticks out about them, if the background looks cheap, the whole screen looks cheap. But because the background is rendered properly here, it’s really helpful for the image. I’m grateful for that.

Habu: Because I like Durarara!! in the first place, I wanted the image to really match Yasuda-san’s illustrations. In the sense that a realistic Tokyo matches Yasuda-san’s characters, I thought it would really fit, so this time we put a lot of focus into making the backgrounds.

The realistically drawn-up cityscape.



The Omegamon from Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth.



–I see. Incidentally, does Ikebukuro appear in this game?

Habu: Ikebukuro does not appear. (laughs)

Everyone: (laughs)

Habu: It was a candidate. Also, in regards to the models, I’d often heard Yasuda say, “My illustrations don’t really match Digimon, do they?” This time, we decided to use full 3D models for this reason. In Digimon World: Re:Digitize, we used Yasuda-san’s standing pictures, but there was still a sense of discomfort when they were put next to the Digimon.

–Ah, I see.

Habu: Since the Digimon were originally drawn with thick lines like those in American comics, there was a strong disparity between them and Yasuda-san’s thin lines. Therefore, to create a sense of unity on the screen, we decided to make all of the characters full 3D.

Yasuda: But things like the new Omegamon illustration are really cool. It doesn’t feel like something out of an American comic. Actually, it’s difficult to draw Digimon in a way that makes them look cool. Even though cute Digimon are easy to draw. Because the presence of a humanoid Digimon is strong, if you focus on them, they’ll stand out too much. Omegamon, in particular, has different colors on his left and right hands, and because their shapes are different, I think he was drawn with a very good balance.

Habu: Fundamentally, WiZ Co., Ltd. designs the Digimon for the franchise, and so this time we put the drawings for them in the hands of WiZ. To match this entry of Digimon Story, we asked someone named Haito Nakano-san to draw the Digimon in the key visuals.

Yasuda: With mechanical-looking Digimon, balance is important. The balance on these legs is the best. It’s amazing.

–This Omegamon certainly gives off a new impression of a modern style.

Habu: It does. It’s deeply coated with the taste of American comics at its base, and things like the shadows and the solid color paint are the things that assert itself with that feeling of an official picture. But even with the illustrations now, Kenji Watanabe from WiZ, who supervises everything Digimon, has everything run through him.

[Wanting people to enjoy Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth as a new series]

–Yasuda-san, you’ve become involved in various things in the game industry, but did you like games since the beginning?

Yasuda: I’ve always been playing games. I’ve always been playing RPGs, and recently I’ve been playing FPS as well. Because I don’t really get to go out a lot, games are like stress relief to me.

–So, are there any games you’ve speedrun?

Yasuda: When I decide to speedrun a game, I speedrun all the way. I play things like 3D dungeon games, too. I like Wizardry and Dungeon Master, and, more recently, Dungeon Travelers. I think more people should know about Dungeon Travelers. It’s a really amazing, well-balanced game. 3D dungeon games are the type where you try and play them when they first come out, the balance will turn out to be difficult-ended after all, and even a solid work gives off an insufficient impression. I think games like Etrian Odyssey are built really well.

–After hearing about Yasuda-san’s gaming life, please leave a final message for our readers.

Yasuda: I only know a little about this game, but it’s a really well-made game. If you sit down in your spare time and decide to have some fun, this game will give you your fun. In terms of entertainment, that part about deciding to have fun is very important. If you decide from the start that you’re going to be bored anyway, no matter how great something is, you’re not going to have fun with it. So if you go in without bias in your feelings, with the new Digimon Story series, I’ll be happy if you enjoy it. Please, by all means, send your impressions to Bandai Namco. Everything, whether you liked or disliked it. After all, responses are very important.

TL notes: