Preface: I’ve written extensively on both Hiroki Azuma and Faust. A collection of those articles can be found here. I’ve also covered Hiroyuki Kanno’s games. That collection is available to read here. It includes my review of Xenon (C’s Ware, 1994) which can be read on the main site here. I strongly recommend reading the linked articles in order to gain the proper historical and cultural context for the interview below.
This interview comes from the second volume of Faust, a literary magazine established by Katsushi Ōta and Hiroki Azuma. Now then, why would a literary magazine interview a director and writer of video games? First, although this was only the second issue of Faust, this wasn’t new territory for the editorial team. The first volume of Faust featured the beginnings of Azuma’s Game-like Realism and an interview between Kiyoshi Kasai (笠井 潔) and Kinoko Nasu and Takashi Takeuchi. By this point in time, Nasu and Takeuchi had already established Type-Moon, organizing under the company their collective work which included The Garden of Sinners (1998 – 1999) novel and the visual novel Tsukihime (2000). Azuma’s writing and the production of Faust explicitly brought together the worlds of light novels and video games. To fully explain Azuma’s argument runs beyond the scope of this preface, but for our purposes here, it’s enough to understand that Azuma suggests that the logic which light novel characters operate by, wherein they can be moved around stories and mediums, recalls the structure of video games.
As for Faust itself, the first issue had already been advertising Type-Moon’s Fate/Stay Night (2004) so Ōta clearly felt that there was an established audience of light novel readers who would buy visual novels. Furthermore, the third issue of Faust saw the publication of Ōta’s manifesto-like essay, “The shindenki movement starts now” (新伝奇ムーブメントがたった今始まる) in which Ōta puts forth that the denki literature of the 1980s influenced the manga, anime, and games of the 1990s. In turn, these movements shaped “shindenki,” Ōta’s proposal for a new genre of literature that could grapple with the new and tumultuous reality of the millennium. Accordingly, leading this vanguard was not only Kinoko Nasu but also Udaru Harada, and Masaki Motonaga, three writers that had worked across literature and video games who were all commissioned to write novels to be published in Faust: DDD J the E, Beneath the Southberry (サウスベリィの下で), and World meets World (ワールドミーツワールド). In other words, we can easily locate Hiroyuki Kanno as being part of the coterie of influences on shindenki which Ōta hints towards in the opening of the interview when he says that Kanno undoubtedly influenced the writers appearing in Faust.
The interview broadly focuses on Kanno’s career, the circumstances behind YU-NO‘s development, Kanno’s stance on game design, and Kanno’s current work on the Mystereet series. More specifically, Kanno reveals that he’s quite adamant in designing the narrative of a game around gameplay. Considering the “zapping”-like mechanics behind games, such as Eve Burst Error, YU-NO, and Exodus Guilty, this is hardly surprising, and when pressed on whether he’d be interested in writing a novel, Kanno keeps drawing the topic back to interactivity. I’m not convinced this means that Kanno was under the belief that games aren’t suited to tell stories, but rather that for Kanno, the mechanics of a game should suit a game’s story.
In any case, in the Anglosphere, Hiroyuki Kanno seems to be well understood to be a pioneering influence within the Japanese video game industry, but despite there being official and fan translations of his various work, the extent of that influence remains undocumented. How were his games actually received? What shape did the discussions around Kanno’s designs take? It’s my hope that this interview, alongside the other material I’ve worked on, helps shed light on these questions.
The end notes included are part of the original article. It’s interesting to see what gets a note and what doesn’t. For example, the references to Doraemon and Dragon Ball aren’t explained as they’re seemingly cultural markers that everyone would be familiar with. In contrast, Wizardry, Chunsoft’s sound novel trilogy, and Kanno’s past games all receive thorough explanations. Yet, the author Baku Yumemakura (夢枕 獏) and the “denki” genre (伝奇) do not. If we consider that Faust was, first and foremost, a literary magazine with strong roots in fantasy, mystery, and sci-fi, then presumably, readers might be more familiar with Yumemakura and denki then they would Wizardry and other video games. But, this is only speculation. I have foregone adding my own end notes so as to not bloat an already long article.
The original article features black and white photographs of Azuma and Kanno in conversation. In lieu of their absence, I have included images of some of the discussed topics. The dates enclosed in the captions refer to original publication dates.
Throughout, you’ll also find portions of the text in quotations.
Like this
These are part of the article and serve as something like footnotes. In the original article, these texts are housed within black boxes and appear at the end of the page.
Finally, I have included page numbers for easier referencing.
The scans I worked with were obtained from the National Diet Library and cost ¥3,236 to obtain, roughly $20. The NDL’s listing for the second volume of Faust can be found here. The title and page number are as follows:
Title: 菅野ひろゆきスーパートーク・セッション 今こそ語る90年代美少女ゲームの到達点『YU-NO』
Page Number: pp.483-502
Thank you to my patrons who made this scanning request possible. If you enjoy my work, consider subscribing to not only help my research endeavors but also gain exclusive access to a growing backlog of articles.
Finally, this interview contains spoilers for YU-NO.
Page 483
SUPER TALK SESSION
Hiroyuki Kanno
with
Hiroki Azuma + Editorial Department Planning Composition Shin Satō / Katsushi Ōta
Page 484 – 485
Now is the time to discuss the pinnacle of 1990s Beautiful Girl Games: YU-NO: A Girl Who Chants Love at the Bound of this World
The legendary, YU-NO: A Girl Who Chants Love at the Bound of this World, a work which brilliantly distills the best parts of SF and mystery into a game, anticipating the style of the new millennium and emerging as the brilliantly shining crown achievement of 1990s bishōjo games.
Page 486
The origins and secrets behind YU-NO
Editorial Department: This time, my deepest wish came true, and Faust was able to invite Hiroyuki Kanno. Kanno is one of the pioneers who carved a pathway for bishōjo game culture which greatly flourished between the 1990s and 2000s. It’s no exaggeration to say that he laid the foundation for the current writers at Faust. Today, our discussion will focus on what I believe to be Kanno’s magnum opus, YU-NO, the peak of 1990s bishōjo games.
Azuma: First, could you discuss the origins behind YU-NO?
Kanno: Actually, I was able to make YU-NO due to working within such a large environment. Back then, the President of ELF [1] virtually entrusted me to do everything. Until YU-NO was completed, ELF didn’t interfere at all, and the head of publicity also listened to everything I said. This type of atmosphere was certainly necessary for YU-NO to be born. Before I came to ELF, at my previous company, I only had four months to develop a game, but with YU-NO, I instead had 7 to 8 months. I was surprised by the freedom at ELF and so I worked with enthusiasm.
Azuma: Are you saying that your previous work, EVE Burst Error [2], was done in only four months?
Kanno: That’s correct.
Azuma: You did everything from scenario writing to graphic ordering?
Kanno: Yeah. First, I made a storyboard, followed by drafting the text. Then, I placed the graphics and music in order. Finally, I banged out the scenario script. I worked with what you’d call an adventure game engine. It sequentially executed the scenario script and image display command, however, it was running on an engine I programmed myself. I thought that was normal…
Azuma: I see. That’s extraordinary. Around the time of YU-NO, how many staff members were there?
Continue reading the full article on Patreon, here.