I was really interested in collecting insects.

When I was 18 I already had a business going.

I sleep 12 hours and then work 24 hours. I've worked those irregular hours for the past three years. It's better to stay up day and night to come up with ideas. I usually get inspiration for game designing by working this schedule.

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.

When you're a kid and get your first bike, you want to go somewhere you've never been before. That's like Pokémon. Everybody shares the same experience, but everybody wants to take it someplace else. And you can do that.

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.