I was really careful in making monsters faint rather than die. I think that young people playing games have an abnormal concept about dying. They start to lose and say, ‘I’m dying.’ It’s not right for kids to think about a concept of death that way. They need to treat death with more respect.

The more I learned about games, the more frustrated I became because the games weren't very good. I could tell a good game from a bad game. My conclusion was: let's make our own games.

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.

When I was 18 I already had a business going.

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