Shun Kazakami is a veteran pixel artist (who worked in 90`s for consoles and Arcade) and Illustrator, with a lot of years of experience in creating art for videogames, Illustrations, and character design, and currently he is working as a mangaka artist.
Q: What was your first encounter with pixel art?
Kazakami-San: I think my first encounter was Taito's Space Invaders. Next was Namco's Galaxian, which went a step further by giving characters multiple colors.
”Space Invaders 1978 & Galaxian 1982”
Q: What games have you worked on as a pixel artist/character designer?
Kazakami-San: I´ve worked in:
Super R-TYPE (Super Famicom, Irem 1991)
Dinowars Ky?ry? ?koku e no DaibŨken/ Dinocity (Super Famicom, Irem 1992)
Mahjong Fantasia (PC 98, Active 1992)
Ganbare Daiku no Gen-san (Super Famicom, Irem 1993)
Mahjong Fantasia II (PC 98, Active 1993)
If 2 (PC 98, Active 1993)
Sol Moonarge (SUPER CD-ROM2, Irem 1994)
Seiya Monogatari - AnEarth Fantasy Stories (SUPER CD-ROM2, Hudson, MediaWorks 1995)
Emerald Dragon (SFC. Mediaworks 1995)
VS Block Breaker (Arcade, Kaneko / Mediaworks 1997)
High School of Blitz (PlayStation 1, Mediaworks 1999)
Q: While Asprite and Photoshop are commonly used as sprite editing software today, what software did you primarily use to create pixel art in your early days?
Kazakami-San: The very first tool was a proprietary tool developed by my company (Irem Corporation).
”Image shared by Beep in its X account”
[Technical Note:] In the early 1990s, Irem Corporation created its own pixel editor during the development of R-Type II and The Last Ninja for Arcade, called Tetsujin, which provided artists with 15 colours.
According to Mr Akio Okada on his X account, the interface for Tetsujin was controlled using two joysticks, and the name was inspired by the control panel of Tetsujin 28 (a manga by Osamu Tezuka)
Kazakami-San: Later, when I moved to another company (MediaWorks), I used Hudson's graphic tool for the PC Engine.
”Image from PC-Engine/Hudson Soft Video & Hudson Office Bomberman 3 Development for SFC in youtube”
[Technical Note] Hudson Soft made its own The Development kit: Hu7, using as port a PC 98 with monitor for work and a CRT for testing the result of the final sprite in TV.
A lot of developers for PC Engine used Hudson's “PE” graphic tool for development for SFC and PCE!
Q: You were responsible for background creation in ‘Super R-TYPE’, and some stages drew inspiration from ‘R-TYPE II’. What were the differences between creating tile maps for arcade games versus those for the Super Famicom?
Kazakami-San: The Super Famicom had less memory available for graphics compared to arcade systems, so it wasn't possible to reproduce every single image. Therefore, we had to make choices about what to cut. I focused on creating art that preserved the original atmosphere as much as possible without exceeding the memory constraints.
”R-Type II (Arcade) BG by Sr Akio Okada and Super R-Type BG by Sr Shun Kazakami”
”Weekly Famitsu 1990”
[Technical Note] In 1990, the project was known as an adaptation of R Type II (in Weekly Famitsu between July-Sept. 1990), but the team decided to make some changes to elements such as the level design (levels 1 and 5 are completely new, while the rest are inspired by R-Type II, but with changes in level design), so it was renamed Super R-Type to make it clear that it was not a direct port of the arcade game and commercially aligned with the SNES releases.
For Super R-Type, Irem used an 8-megabyte EPROM (possibly because the production cost per unit was more affordable than what Nintendo had on the market for developers, as 16 megabytes increased production costs) and the JAMMA M82 board has more capacity in memory for graphics.
Q: What were the challenges in creating pixel art for the Super Famicom/PC Engine?
Kazakami-San: I love game graphics, but I love the games themselves even more. Game memory is limited, so programming, graphics, music, and other elements all compete for that space. My stance was that if it improved gameplay, it was okay for the graphics team's share to be reduced. The game's fun factor comes first; an artist shouldn't impose their ego there. We considered it our mission to create graphics that didn't look cheap, even within those constraints.
”Ganbare Daiku no Gen-san,SFC 1993”
[SNES Technical Note]
Resolution Screen: 256 x 224 px
Color Library: Color spectrum of 32, 768 but in a screen at most 256 colors can be used
Maximum colors per Sprite: 16
Sprite/ Tilemaps in Memory Bank: in a grid of 8x8 px or of 16 x 16 px (depending on of its use on screen)
Total of Sprites on Screen: 32 sprites per line
”Seiya Monogatari AnEarth Fantasy Stories,PC Engine 1995”
[PC Engine Technical Note]
Resolution Screen: 256 x 239 px but some games can use 320 x 239 px
Color Library: 512 colors
Maximum colors per Sprite: 16
Sprite/ Tilemaps in Memory Bank: in a grid of 8x8 px
Total of Sprites on Screen: 64 sprites per line
Q: You also have experience creating game art for the PC-98. What were the constraints in sprite creation back then? (Incidentally, the visual aesthetics of PC-98 games are just now starting to be appreciated.)
Mahjong Fantasia (1992) Gameplay for PC 98”
Kazakami-San: Color reproduction was a major challenge on the PC-98. We worked hard to achieve complex color expressions using tile patterns.
“Mahjong Fantasia (1992) for PC 98”
”Portrait Animation by K.Shun for Mahjong Fantasia (1992) for PC 98”
”Portrait Animation by K.Shun for Mahjong Fantasia II (1993) for PC 98”
[PC 98 Technical Note]
”90´s Pixel editor, Actor 88 and Maguro Paint PC 98”
Creating pixel art for the PC98 depended on the year and the software that artists used, as some had a colour limit of 16 using EGA, and some software in the mid-90s managed to display 16 colours using VGA. There were many tools that had new features added year after year!
”For If 2, Sr Kazakami Shun first made Illustrations for the scenes and digitise it in a pixel editor”
For a visual Novel/ Otome/ Eroge, the artists used a resolution of 640 x 400 px, and it was necessary to master the art of creating good dithering for backgrounds and characters, using the patterns.
In addition, artists had techniques for creating pixel art and generating large characters on screen. First, the character design was drawn on paper, then scanned and digitised in a pixel editor (Some PC Engine games that had cutscenes used this technique to make sprites for those events, and some arcade games had a similar way of creating good pixel art).
Q: How long were the development periods for Super R-Type and Dinocity, respectively?
Kazakami-San: I believe both took about 1 year of development.
”For Super R Type and Dinocity, Sr Kazakami made the background and tilemaps”
Q: What was the work environment like for you as an artist at Irem in the early 90s?
Kazakami-San: The work environment was excellent. As you know, Irem had many outstanding graphic designers, so I was fortunate to work constantly inspired by them.
”Irem Corporation Office in 1992 from Console Plus Magazine"
Q: You currently work as a character designer and manga artist. What was your first project where you handled character design?
Kazakami-San: I believe my first character design work was for Dyna Wars. While the in-game sprites were drawn first by a senior designer, I created the character designs for advertising materials based on those sprites. I also drew the double-page spread ad that follows it. I drew it with colored pencils. I don't own this illustration, but I think this image is the clearest one available.
”Illustration for Ad Super Famicom Release, for Manual & DragonFly Vol 7 (Irem Fan Club Magazine)"
Q: What are your thoughts on pixel art in current video games?
Kazakami-San: The indie scene is incredibly vibrant right now, and it's a joy to watch. I believe the essence of game creation lies in that pure passion: “I want to make my own game,” “I want people to play my finished work.” That enthusiasm is strikingly evident in many indie titles, making both their gameplay and artistry truly inspiring.
Q: Could you tell us about the manga version of your current project, ‘Ultra Kaiju’?
Kazakami-San: While the manga serialization itself has already concluded, I'm incredibly happy that it continues to be loved by everyone even after its end.
”Ultra Kaiju Humanization Project,is a Manga based in Ultraman & Kaijus by Tsuburaya Productions, the manga is written and drawn by Sr Shun Kazakami"
Curiosities
Before I finish the interview I will post some curiosities from the job of Sr. Shun Kazakami !
Super R-Type (SNES/SFC)
Q: The game has a background different according if is the SNES from America and Europe and Super Famicom in the level 1, Sr Kazakami Shun worked in both backgrounds, maybe by request of Irem of America.
”The original background in japanese version is more realistic than US version, maybe this change was a request from Irem of America "
DinoCity/Dinowars Ky?ry? ?koku e no DaibŨken (SNES/SFC)
Kazakami-San: Fun fact, I included the forest background from Dynawars in the opening of Sol Moonarge (for PC Engine).
”Interesting that the same tiles for background used in SFC/SNES were used in the intro in PC Engine "
Q: Incredible! Good fact! I think a lot peoples only played the game, but few people knew (include me) that the game was based in a movie for TV produced by Smart Egg, but if you no watch at its moment, you can watch in Youtube here
Sol Moonarge (PC Engine)
Q: Sr Kazakami Shun worked as Chief Designer (Illustrations, character design and creation of assets) for Sol Moonarge (the first and unique JRPG development by Irem), and according in the game manual, in the Dragonfly ( Club of Fans Magazine of Irem) was created a section called: "Let's Create Together RPG and the development team want to create the game in 1 year half, but the game took 3 year of development (same years that Nintendo took development The Legend of Zelda Link to the Past), the game release was in January of 1994).
”Some materials in the manual and Artwork from Gekkan PC Engine Magazine by Sr Shun Kazakami"
The team wanted to put a lot of dialogues from the actors, but it was impossible and the team only could add 593 tracks of audio for some events like dialogues between characters in special moments or before a fight with a boss!
”Voice Actors recording for Sol Moonarge "
Q: In the game there is hidden content with art by Sr Kazakami Shun for example of Mia, BGM Test and some humoristic animations, for access to this special menu in Main Title press: Up, Left,Down, Right, II, I, II, I.
”Incluse you can watch the game ending or funny animations"
Emerald Dragon (SFC)
Q: Sr Kazakami Shun worked producing assets for the Mini-Game of the "Casino" for Emerald Dragon of the SFC version (a JRPG only sold in Japan), very different seen in its version PC Engine and PC-88
”To difference of the PC98 and PC Engine, Casino is very different in Super Famicom port with the gal bunnies"
Q: I want to thank you for your time in answering the question for the interview, Sr Shun Kazakami, his work in sprites & Tilemaps in pixel art are very inspired!
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