Tomonobu Itagaki Latest News Thread
- Thread starter deathofaninja
- Start date
Well I do remember many other people did too... hell, it seems people still do. Hopefully that's all finally put to rest now.
Wow, everyone's suddenly talking about Itagaki lately, lmao. But I actually can't read more than what you've posted, looks like you actually have to have an account and log in too?
Wow, everyone's suddenly talking about Itagaki lately, lmao. But I actually can't read more than what you've posted, looks like you actually have to have an account and log in too?
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Yeah it's because Hideki Kamiya doesn't have that Twitter Blue to be able to wall of text it in one post, so he refuses to pay for it because he believes you shouldn't have to charge people for expanding word limits (he's right lol).
I'll copy and rush paste it, so it's pretty lengthy and won't be condensed:
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Translation: This is an old story, and my memory might be fuzzy—I could be misremembering things or unconsciously twisting them in my favor. So, please take this as just my personal recollection…
There’s a long-standing rumor among some old-school game fans that "Kamiya & Itagaki are at odds." I still see people mention it on social media from time to time, but it’s not exactly true…
It all goes back to the promotion period for Bayonetta 1. Around sometime in 2009, before the game’s release, I did an interview with a western media outlet alongside producer Hashimoto.
During the interview, the interviewer asked us to comment on certain games. If I remember correctly, the first one was about Bullet Witch—Hashimoto answered. Next, I think it was God of War—I hadn’t played it, but I’d seen people play, so I gave my thoughts.
Finally, they asked about Ninja Gaiden. Since I had never played it or even really watched it being played, I simply replied something like, "I haven’t played it, so I don’t have any comments." The interviewer seemed surprised & asked, "You haven’t played Ninja Gaiden? Why not!?"
I responded, "Not everyone plays every game. People play what interests them, and if they’re not interested, they don’t." Looking back, I feel like the interviewer was trying to get some kind of "spicy" comment out of me.
When the English version of the interview was published, it was written something like "Hideki Kamiya 'Not Interested' in Ninja Gaiden." I regret that I could have answered more thoughtfully. Maybe I was a bit too full of myself at the time, thinking "my game is the best."
Some time later, I was on a business trip to LA. When I arrived back in Japan, a colleague who was checking the news on his flip phone suddenly said, "Kamiya-san, you’re getting called out!"
I looked at the screen and saw an article where Itagaki-san, whom I barely knew at the time, was criticizing me.
He referred to something I had said during the Bayonetta promotion: "Action games haven’t evolved in the past eight years (since I made DMC). I will be the one to evolve them." Itagaki responded with something like: "Was Kamiya sleeping for eight years?"
When I saw that, my reaction was a mix of "Huh? I never meant to diss Ninja Gaiden… But yeah, maybe I was a bit careless in my response," and "Oh, this is getting interesting!"
My colleague was excited too, saying, "Are you going to fire back, Kamiya-san!?" But at that time, I wasn’t even on social media yet, and I didn’t feel the need to respond publicly.
Sure, we could have reached out to Tecmo through official channels to clarify, but I just thought, "Eh, whatever." To be honest, I was kind of enjoying the situation.
From here on, things are a bit blurry in my memory, but I believe Itagaki-san continued making provocative comments, saying things like, "Okami is a boring game," through media interviews.
Some parts of the internet hyped it up as a "Kamiya vs. Itagaki Battle," but here’s the truth: The only thing I ever said was my initial response to Ninja Gaiden in that interview. That’s it. From that point on, I never made any comments about Ninja Gaiden or Itagaki-san. (Well, that was the trigger for everything, though.) There was no "Twitter war" or back-and-forth.
Now, here’s the extra part of the story. After reviewing my old posts on Twitter, on September 17, 2010, at TGS, I think was sitting alone in the food court when an old acquaintance—who had since been promoted to an executive position at Tecmo, approached me. We caught up for a bit, and then he said, "Hey, our boss is over there. Want to go say hi?" I turned to look and saw Itagaki-san sitting alone at a table.
Honestly, I hesitated. I thought, "That’s the guy who’s been talking about me online..." But at the same time, refusing would have been rude, so I decided to go and introduce myself. Since I'm extremely shy, I don’t like talking to strangers, but given our 'history,' I felt I should at least say hello.
I walked up and said, "Nice to meet you. I’m Hideki Kamiya from PlatinumGames." (Though I don’t remember exactly how I phrased it.) Itagaki-san looked at me and seemed momentarily surprised—though since he was wearing sunglasses, I couldn’t say for sure. But probably. Then he said, 'Oh, sure! Have a seat,' and welcomed me."
Itagaki-san remained calm throughout our conversation. When I sat down, the first thing he said was, "Kamiya-kun, why did you say that?" It was clear that this was the main thing on his mind (which makes sense). Since I also wanted to clear up any misunderstandings, I briefly explained how everything started. After that, I honestly don’t remember what else we talked about, but I assume we discussed the game industry & made some small talk. The atmosphere remained pleasant the whole time.
Then, Kojima-san happened to walk by. He greeted us and said, "Let’s take a picture together!" This is just my speculation, but maybe Kojima-san was also enjoying the gossip about me and Itagaki-san. After returning to my hotel, I posted that photo on X (formerly Twitter).
I knew that people online had been speculating about my relationship with Itagaki-san, so I intentionally didn’t mention his name in the post, just to see how people would react. In hindsight, that was a bit mischievous of me. There’s one more extra detail to this story. Before we parted ways, Itagaki-san kindly said, "Come visit our studio sometime!"
However, after returning to my hotel, I realized that I had left the business card he gave me on the table. That was incredibly rude of me, and I still regret it to this day. Since then, I haven’t had the chance to meet Itagaki-san again. So, despite what some game fans like to speculate, there was never any real aggressive feud between us. However, looking back, maybe my cockiness back then was what led to all of this. That’s all from the scene.
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@DestructionBomb Thanks dude! Really appreciate it!
Tbh I either forgot or had no idea there was talk of beef between those two, but I guess it makes sense that Itagaki would have also said something about the creator of the other greatest Japanese action game series at the time like he did with Harada. But it's crazy that in this case it might have started over a misunderstanding.
Awesome pic of those three btw.
I wonder if Kamiya ever got around to actually playing NG... lol
Tbh I either forgot or had no idea there was talk of beef between those two, but I guess it makes sense that Itagaki would have also said something about the creator of the other greatest Japanese action game series at the time like he did with Harada. But it's crazy that in this case it might have started over a misunderstanding.
Awesome pic of those three btw.
I wonder if Kamiya ever got around to actually playing NG... lol
Dead or Alive: Tomonobu Itagaki's Dolls - a new book featuring the creator of Dead or Alive. I've reached out to the author of the book, Mathieu Lallart, and he accepted my friend request on social media so we could have a few potential front-page stories on that. It's over 250 pages; the book is available in a physical format, multiple languages and even has an exclusive Itagaki interview.
I'm not going to say a bunch yet because I want the story to have sincere purpose, but here is the link if you're interested in purchasing it:
I'm not going to say a bunch yet because I want the story to have sincere purpose, but here is the link if you're interested in purchasing it:
New Short Interview with Itagaki:
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