Read on Twitter
a fascinating (ongoing) thread from comic translator & former Capcom artist Katsuya Akitomo on his lifelong relationship with American comics
for context, Akitomo has been publicly credited by Akiman & Akira Nishitani for familiarising the '90s Capcom team with Marvel's work https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1321742219775127552
for context, Akitomo has been publicly credited by Akiman & Akira Nishitani for familiarising the '90s Capcom team with Marvel's work https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1321742219775127552
"I didn't work on Darkstalkers outside of the pitch but I was asked for a chara for DS3 & suggested 'a man-eating bug disguised as a girl' who became Q-Bee; I was ripping off Uchuu Kazoku Carlvinson's Chika, but envisioned smtg more grotesque & less silly" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1321794968688746499
"Kingpin, the last boss of the Punisher arcade game, was originally so big that he filled half the screen, but Marvel told us 'he's a regular human, he can't be /that/ big' and made us change it" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1321817331811581953
"when St.Akiman told me that story, I said 'Kingpin's def been drawn as absurdly big in the comics' & showed him Daredevil: Love & War, which really bummed him out; that moment taught me the importance of arming yourself with knowledge when making IP games" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1321818273810313216
btw, Akira Nishitani mentioned this same story in an interview earlier this year—when he saw the Into the Spider-Verse depiction of Kingpin he was like "oh come on, that's way bigger than ours" https://igcc.jp/int-nishitani-03/
Akitomo's first un-loc'd comic: Amazing Spider-Man Vol1 230, in which Spidey struggles against the overwhelming power of Juggernaut X-Men COTA's charas mostly conform to their contemporary comic depictions but Juggs has many design elements from this era https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1321750498907693056
X-Men COTA's charas mostly conform to their contemporary comic depictions but Juggs has many design elements from this era https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1321750498907693056
(btw, I'm skipping around & skipping over a lot of Akitomo-san's posts, just because a lot of it is fairly personal and I imagine it's a little weird from his perspective to see people reposting it, but definitely read the thread yourself if you can)
"with regards to the impetus behind X-Men COTA & Marvel Super Heroes, my recollection differs from that of my colleagues: I recall being summoned by arcade division head Yoshiki Okamoto & asked, 'I can probably get the X-Men/Marvel license, whaddya think?" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322030753203384320
"...but according to director Nishitani, MSH's Tezuka & artist Akiman: 'Akitomo's evangelizing about X-Men's coolness & its popularity in NA inspired the arcade division to want to make an X-Men game, which motivated Okamoto to pursue the license'" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322031893882175488
"I recently asked Okamoto-san about those days but he says he doesn't remember—fair enough, he's a busy guy
"in short: I guess my mission to convert ppl to X-Men was more effective than I'd thought, & so Okamoto did the math & decided to get the rights?" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322032801714073600
"in short: I guess my mission to convert ppl to X-Men was more effective than I'd thought, & so Okamoto did the math & decided to get the rights?" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322032801714073600
"of course, the decision to make X-Men COTA & MSH was primarily business-motivated & not merely self-indulgence: firstly, Jim Lee's X-Men comic broke the US comic sales record, and secondly, Konami's X-Men arcade game was a massive hit, especially in NA" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322035751035445250
"Konami's X-Men was a shoddy game with way too many characters on screen at much & players immediately dying to friendly fire, but it was a good fit for those young players who wanted to get rowdy and make a bunch of noise while knocking back a few drinks" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322037315745665024
"however, Konami's X-Men was based on a cartoon pilot produced in the mid-'80s, which itself was based on an early-'80s comic, so the look & tone of the game was 10 years out of date; Capcom figured a game based on the '90s comic would be even bigger" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322038057877450752
"when work began on X-Men COTA, I was still working as an artist; I was responsible for things like the sketches of Juggernaut's walk & guard and Spiral's standing pose
as an advisor, I suggested characters & wrote docs on the appeal of each chara, but… " https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322039638584782848
as an advisor, I suggested characters & wrote docs on the appeal of each chara, but… " https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322039638584782848
"…the COTA/MSH teams were incomparably larger than the Punisher/AvP team: more & more ppl were joining who weren't familiar with the material or didn't grasp our outlines; that's when the flaws of relying on verbal explanations & spec docs became apparent" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322040351113113600
"the young planner behind Punisher's scenario asked about Nick Fury & I said 'even tho he's high-ranking, he's a loose cannon who routinely ignores orders'
the end result: a laid-back guy who says 'I wanna get this over with & hang with girls at the beach" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322041438557728768
the end result: a laid-back guy who says 'I wanna get this over with & hang with girls at the beach" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322041438557728768
"he may have understood my explanation & deliberately softened Fury's image in order to contrast with the stoic Punisher, but casually toying with a property as big as X-Men is risky—there's a core that must be maintained that mere documents won't convey" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322042436831506432
"so after talking it over with Nishitani, Tezuka & Akiman, I stopped working on graphics & started producing in-house translations of X-Men & other Marvel comics; later, Okamoto told me 'I'm surprised you were able to create that job for yourself in-house'" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322043891822993408
"my first in-house translation was parts 1-3 of Jim Lee's X-Men Vol.2, aka the 'Fatal Attractions' arc where Magneto challenges humankind, and next was 'Infinity Gauntlet' in which Thanos erases half the universe; btw, X-Men & MSH were made simultaneously " https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322045418440589313
"as an aside, when I visited Shogakukan, who were planning to translate/publish X-Men alongside the release of our game, I brought my X-Men 1-3 translation & said 'it's yours if you want it' but they told me 'we're good, stick to working on the game'" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322048472296562689
"I felt like it was out of my hands...later, Capcom was visited by Hiroto Ishikawa; he saw my Infinity Gauntlet translation & said 'this is fit to be published', and it was later serialised from #1 of Marvel Cross; when god closes a door, he opens a window" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322051098367025152
"incidentally, the '90s X-Men cartoon was aired in Japan & allegedly funded & pushed by Capcom in order to promote the game (I wasn't involved); the 'X-FIGHT' segment at the end of the show, which showed fights from the game, was part of that initiative" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322055683097858048
"X-Men: Children of the Atom hit the market in 1994, but sales in Japan were so bad that describing them as 'poor' would be an understatement; apparently, all the US comic games prior to ours were so unprofitable that arcade operators hesitated to invest " https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322058602085974016
"the response from those who actually got to play COTA was fine, but the skittishness of the arcade operators outweighed the game's positive reception—no matter how much players like a game, if operators don't buy the PCBs, arcades can't take their money" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322059339436183552
"the game did well in North America but still fell well short of expectations; I was given two reasons for this:
3D & digitised-actor games were all the rage, so operators balked at paying for a new dot-art game
business disputes with the NA wholesaler" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322060295473295360
3D & digitised-actor games were all the rage, so operators balked at paying for a new dot-art game
business disputes with the NA wholesaler" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322060295473295360
"once again, sales were affected by outside factors that had nothing to do with the will of the players, so as a dev member whose work was in service of those players putting their money into the machine, it was a frustration position to be in" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322061157612412928
"North American comic fans & gamers were certainly pumped about COTA—the comic magazine Wizard heaped praise upon the game, saying we nailed the look & movement of the characters, particularly Wolverine, and that they wanted the dev team to draw comics" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322061660505341952
(that'll do for now, whew)
"let's back up a little: as an artist, I was in charge of Juggernaut and I drew him as relatively 'human-esque' in accordance with his depiction in the then-current Thunderstrike series, but his design was altered after Akiman told me he was 'too vanilla'" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322066923220205568
"sure enough, he was set to go toe-to-toe with Smart Hulk in Marvel Super Heroes, so Juggernaut required a more exaggerated design in order to visually convey his near-equal strength & superior defense, so Akiman came up with this graphic" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322068838117117952
"X-Men COTA's main visual was illustrated wonderfully by Akiman, but collages from the comics were also used for the flyers. Due to scheduling conflicts, Marvel Super Heroes' main visual was also a collage, assembled by design dept director SHOEI (Okano)" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322075653190025222
"u'd use Photoshop roday but img processing software wasn't commonplace; Okano manipulated the 4-color separation process on Capcom's color copier to, f.ex, use blank pages for the non-black steps in the scan in order to isolate the blacks for the grey BG" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322077076564832257
"the rest of the collage was made by manually overlaying each of the 4 scanned colors; Shuma-Gorath's green in the comic but due to clashing with Hulk, he was changed to pink in the game; I think his color in the collage was altered via similar scan tricks" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322078048481472512
"1995 saw the release of Marvel Super Heroes, but I wasn't told specifics on how it sold; I'm sure the money brought in by COTA must have softened up some of the Japanese arcade operators, but I wasn't told it was a big hit, so I guess it merely did okay" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322084727587655683
"I handled the text for this flyer. I think I could do a little better within those character limits nowadays; at the time, I was trying to catch the eye of JP fans who weren't familiar with Marvel, so I worked hard to come up with cool, succinct phrases" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322078048481472512
"after COTA, there was a visible shift in attitude from Marvel's copyright check staff—I think they came to understand that Capcom produced high-quality work, and that proposed game-related changes would be informed by a deep familiarity with the comics " https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322087232170176513
"I was particularly happy that they acknowledged Spider-Man as the character best visualised by Capcom—IMO he remains to this day the best adaptation of "slightly creepy, bug-like Spidey" pioneered by Todd MacFarlane & refined by Erik Larsen & Mark Bagley " https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322089540505329666
"the most visible example of Marvel's relaxed attitude is the increased freedom to assign character palettes—for COTA, we could basically only alter shades, so it was like Silver Samurai vs White Samurai, but after MSH we were able to include bolder colors" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322092769721024513
(oh & here's my obligatory daily "sorry for the typos" post)
"when I was deciding on Spiral's standing pose, my first consideration was about differentiating her from Silver Samurai—both wore similar helmets, fought with swords & were of similar color, but Spiral has three sets of arms & her skin tone really pops" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322198735674249217
"I came up with this 'on one leg, back turned' pose referencing this Indian Shiva statue
Akiman asked 'could she attack quickly from such a pose?' so I sketched out some light punches/kicks; Akiman revised my sketches & dot art but the pose is identical" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322199755179454465
Akiman asked 'could she attack quickly from such a pose?' so I sketched out some light punches/kicks; Akiman revised my sketches & dot art but the pose is identical" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322199755179454465
"I wasn't involved with Spiral's movements or attacks, but fwiw, I do remember suggesting that it'd be neat to have her swaying her arms from the wrists & wiggling her fingers a la an Indian dancer—as you know, the final animation looks really cool" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322199755179454465
"MSH director Tezuka was the one who decided to add Shuma-Gorath, after looking over the character files & picking the chara with the most weird, eyecatching appearance—ppl were used to superhumans from X-Men, so they wanted someone unmistakably inhuman" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322205535526006784
"when Tezuka-san asked Marvel about adding Shuma-Gorath, they famously replied with '...who?'
this video goes into (exhaustive) detail about the background of this obscure character https://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm35150219" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322207880016134144
this video goes into (exhaustive) detail about the background of this obscure character https://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm35150219
" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322207880016134144
"bc Shuma-Gorath was thought to have no commercial value, we were able to give him any ol weird moves, without receiving a single correction
his EN dialog has a tone befitting a chaos god but in JP he ends his lines with 'deshu' so ppl were like, 'kawaii'" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322209582605692928
his EN dialog has a tone befitting a chaos god but in JP he ends his lines with 'deshu' so ppl were like, 'kawaii'" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322209582605692928
"in Shuma-Gorath's Marvel Super Heroes ending, he lived up to his status as a god of chaos and destruction by using the power of the Infinity Gems to destroy and reshape the universe" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322210399761039360
"ppl sometimes ask why Thor wasn't in MSH, & there are 2 reasons: firstly, his abilities are the same as Storm's & she was by far the more popular character at the time—sure, Thor's vastly more powerful, but charas that powerful are hard to adapt for games" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322214804593889280
"secondly,'90s-era comics Thor was all over the place—the Infinity Gauntlet comic's Thor, on which MSH is based, has the traditional look but is a human who inherited Thor's power, not the real deal, & the actual real Thor had a new, unrecognisable costume" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322215898875260929
"in the end, Thor only showed up as an assist character in 1998's Marvel vs. Capcom—in this instance, we used his traditional costume so that he'd be easily recognisable to players
Thor became a player-chara from 2011's MvC3 onwards, but I wasn't involved" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322220956757053446
Thor became a player-chara from 2011's MvC3 onwards, but I wasn't involved" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322220956757053446
"Capcom's X-Men: Children of the Atom & Marvel Super Heroes were both games borne from a ton of time, effort, money & passion, but sadly, they didn't really make waves in Japan
I think the tide started to turn with X-Men vs. Street Fighter in 1996" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322223042265714688
I think the tide started to turn with X-Men vs. Street Fighter in 1996" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322223042265714688
"the basic system was taken from the Marvel series, with the inclusion of characters from the Street Fighter Alpha series, whose moves had been enhanced to the level of Marvel's stable; crossovers weren't common in Japan back then, so it was well received" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322223042265714688
"on the X-Men side, we added Gambit & Rouge, who were popular in the comics & major characters in the cartoon, as well as Wolverine's rival Sabertooth; as you'd expect, the inclusion of such stylish men & women really brought the hype" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322227444393275403
"furthermore, the inclusion of Cammy, the popular Super SFII character who was re-appearing with a new look, had a big impact; COTA & MSH may not have reached many ppl, but I think a lot of JP players became familiar with Marvel charas via the Vs. series" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322227444393275403
"XvSF's success can be attributed to the staff throwing their all into giving the game a celebratory all-star atmosphere—for example, I wrote/supervised the COTA/MSH endings but for XvSF, I left it entirely to the team bc I trusted their love of Marvel" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322242526082867200
"the character depictions seen in Capcom's Marvel games have been adopted back into the source material, with one example being Sentinel: the Marvel design was akin to a giant android, but Capcom's version was more mechanical with lots of transformations" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322242526082867200
"Marvel's copyright officer was furious at our Sentinel & director Nishitani even had to fly to their New York HQ to apologise
otoh, Marvel's artists liked it, & nowadays you'll see a lot of Sentinel art that blends his humanoid look with mecha elements" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322267270362484736
otoh, Marvel's artists liked it, & nowadays you'll see a lot of Sentinel art that blends his humanoid look with mecha elements" https://twitter.com/sjxqr393/status/1322267270362484736
(I can't dig up a link atm but this is something Nishitani's also talked about recently: basically, Marvel hated everything about Capcom's Sentinel—the colors, the moves, the "anime robot nonsense", even just the idea of shrinking it down to fighting-game-friendly size)
