Kazutaka Kodaka

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 College of Art, where he later majored and graduated, earning a degree in film studies.

Career

Spike / Spike Chunsoft While at Spike, Kodaka had an idea for a detective game; 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. The game hit 85,000 sold copies roughly three months after the release, which was enough for the CEO of Spike Chunsoft to call it a success. In the light of the success, the game received two sequels (Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony), a side story shooter game (Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls), an anime adaptation (Danganronpa: The Animation) and various novels and manga. Kodaka left the company in 2017.

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 indie games. 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. Death Come True, the first game released by Too Kyo Games in June 2020, is written and directed by Kodaka. In November 2021, Master Detective Archives: Rain Code 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.

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. Kodaka's characters tend to have amnesia as it allows them to easily connect with the player.

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, Another big influence on Kodaka is Kunihiko Ikuhara, whose writing Kodaka admires. He included one of Suda's games, Twilight Syndrome, in Danganronpa 2 as a homage.

Works

Video games

Literature Year Title 2006 Detective Saburō Jingūji: The Ghost of Shinjuku 2007 Detective Saburō Jingūji: Shining Mirai 2011 Danganronpa Zero 2017 Danganronpa Kodaka ～ 890 days for "Danganronpa" 2018 Gambler's Parade

Anime Year Title Role 2013 Danganronpa: The Animation Writer supervision 2015 Wooser's Hand-to-Mouth Life Script (Episode 11) 2016 Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School Original concept, writer supervision 2020 Akudama Drive Original story 2022 Tribe NineOriginal concept