Kotaku
In gaming, they don't get much bigger than Tetsuya Mizuguchi. The producer fills out my personal holy trinity of gaming gods that also includes Miyamoto and Kojima. Like those other two, Mizuguchi is one of gaming's foremost auteurs. He has brought his own, very personal vision to games such as Rez, Space Channel Five, Lumines and Meteos. While lesser game designers focus on the coolest way to blow up a space ship, Mizuguchi focuses on how to connect with the human soul.
Across the hotel cafe, Mizuguchi-san spotted me and gave a wave. When he stood up to shake my hand, I was taken aback. The man is huge.
The following is Part 1 of our exculsive one-on-one interview with Tetsuya Mizuguchi.
KOTAKU: "How is having your own company?"
MIZUGUCHI: "I left Sega two, three years ago. So much has changed dramatically. When I left Sega, there was no PSP, no DS, no next generation games. And back then, I couldn't imagine Lumines would make good sales in the United States. There was no market for music games. There was no reaction to Space Channel Five. But now, Lumines has sold 500,000 units in Europe and the United States. That's surprising.
I think something is changing. It's like a trend. A music trend also. From CD culture to hard disc culture, like the iPod. Something is changing."
K: "It seems that you are one of the people that is causing the change."
M: "Maybe, maybe. Today, people don't just listen to music. People are getting bored just listening to music. They want to customize it, like Podcasting. They want to make it their own. This kind of form will be expanding."
K: "Are you interested in exploring these new forms?"
M: "Possibly, yes."
K: "Is this desire to customize an essential part of human expression?"
M: "I think so."
K: "What kind of music do you like?"
M: "Digital music that uses analog sound. The Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim. I also like orchestral music. And primitive music, like Bali's music. They just use voices."
K: "Bjork did that for her last album."
M: "That was great. The emotion. Of course, I like the Beatles."
K: "I read something online that said you were interested in putting Fatboy Slim or the Beatles on Lumines 2."
M: "Yeah, yeah."
K: "Is that possible?"
M: "I don't know the future, but maybe possible. I don't know about the Beatles, but it is getting easier to use music."
K: "It seems as though you do have an 'in' for the Beatles' music after working with Michael Jackson. How did that happen?"
M: "At the time, the executive producer went to the US. He met Michael Jackson and showed a work-in-progress to Michael Jackson. And Mike, Michael, said, 'This is lovely. I want to be in it.' The producer asked me if we could make a role for Michael Jackson in two weeks. We, the team, really respected Michael Jackson, but we couldn't do it.
I called Michael Jackson and told him. He said, 'Okay, how about a really small role?' I said, 'Okay.' I thought about how we could get him in the game. It's kind of a joke, but that's why we have him captured by the aliens and Ulala has to help him. For the next Space Channel Five, we had more time. That's why he's like the chief director of Space Channel Five."
K: "What was it like working with him?"
M: "Fortunately, because he really loved the game, and he often visited Sega. We had the motion capture data, so we used that. We also used his voice. [Going into a high pitched voice] 'Help me Ulala.' I got a tape from him. So I listened to it, and I thought it was really bad. I emailed him and said, 'Do it like this, this, this.' And soon, I got a package from him. Wow. I recorded his voice in his own studio. You know? By himself. [Makes several Michael Jacksonesque screams] Like this."
K: "Just imagining him doing that is very funny."
M: [Laughs]
K: "I guess, while we're still talking about Space Channel Five, when I first came to Japan, Ulala was doing cell phone commercials. She was the spokesperson for J-Phone."
M: "MTV wanted to do something with Ulala. We did a test, but it didn't realize. But, the MTV people gave us another offer. That was the MTV music awards. So, they wanted us to make a TV promotion using Ulala. So we made that. Some guy at J-Phone saw this, and I got a call saying they wanted to use Ulala. Okay, let's do that.
There was a program in J-Phone's handsets that when you got a call, Ulala would dance or appear and ask you how the call was. You could press 'very good' or 'bad.' Then it would put the call in some sort of ranking, and that call would get a rating. But, this was only J-Phone West [Osaka] and not Tokyo. So, I never saw the commercial. Did you see the commercial in Osaka?"
K: "I didn't see the commercial, but I remember seeing huge cardboard cut-outs of Ulala. What did you think of the Ulala porno?"
M: [smiles] "Yeah, we found that on the internet. We then watched the video in the company. We were like, 'wow, let's see that. Wow.'"
K: "Were you upset?"
M: "No. We were, 'yeah!' We don't care about that. Because, I don't know, maybe Sega called them. I don't know."
K: "But, you personally?"
M: "I don't care. This is a porno video. Ulala is not Sonic. She's cute and a little bit sexy. So that's okay."
K: "Sonic would be..."
M: "A bad idea."
K: "You might get sick watching that."
