In Japan, violence in games is pretty much self-regulated.There's more violence in games in the U.S., in things like Mortal Kombat, where they rip out hearts and cut off heads.

I had a cat, though. I wanted to name the frogs, because I watched them grow, but there were too many.

I'm part of the first generation who grew up with manga [comics] and anime [animation], you know, after 'Godzilla.' I was absorbed with Ultraman on TV and in manga. The profession of game designer was created really recently. If it didn't exist, I'd probably be making anime.

I'm very careful about violence in games. I'm not interested in creating violent effects.

I was really into Space Invaders in about 1978. It got me more and more interested in video games. There wasn't any media to get information about games, so I came up with Game Freak magazine.

When I was 18 I already had a business going.

Pikachu. 'Pika' is the sound Japanese say an electric spark makes. And 'chu' is the sound a mouse makes. So Pikachu is like an electric mouse.