In Memory of Tomonobu Itagaki
The life and times of a game developer dedicated to his craftsmanship and his fixation on "winning"
Original article published on 4Gamer and translated by The Ninth Hour.

Video Game Storytellers, Part 44 looks back on the career of game developer Tomonobu Itagaki, who passed away in October 2025.
Ashes to ashes; dust to dust.
Some say that life is "borrowed" from God, while others say it's a "playground." One popular saying goes, "Life is just killing time until we die." Ancient Chinese philosophers argued life was a temporary dwelling before one returned to their own true home in death.
What was the journey of life like for Itagaki? I believe that it was one where "victory" was always paramount; perhaps the real battle was against himself.
— Fumio Kurokawa
This article features interviews with the following individuals, all of which worked closely with Itagaki, discussing his life:
• Yoshifuru Okamoto (President and CEO, Squad Stars)
• Satoshi Kanematsu (President and CEO, Rock Spirits / Executive Officer and CSO, Anchovy)
• Kengo Aoki (President and CEO, Soft Gear)
• Yosuke Hayashi (Executive Vice President, Koei Tecmo Games)
Yoshifuru Okamoto (President and CEO, Squad Stars)
My encounter with Itagaki, on my last day as a trainee

Yoshifuru Okamoto was friends with Itagaki since their days at Tecmo.
Originally he majored in archaeology in college (specifically, Etruscan Italy), but his father—an archaeologist—advised him to take a different career, arguing, "it's noble and grand, but it doesn't pay at all." On this advice, he aimed for the video game industry, having loved games since childhood.
This was in the late 1990s, when the game industry was still relatively new and not seen as a stable career. However, Okamoto found appeal in that, and applied to several game companies. He received job offers from several firms, including Tecmo—which he ultimately joined.
Okamoto first met Itagaki on the final day of Tecmo's new-employee training. Looking back, he felt he'd caught the eye of Tecmo's then-president Junji Nakamura.
“I dyed my hair blonde back then, because I was afraid of being looked down on. I was a big, flashy-looking guy, so maybe they thought I looked cocky, because President Nakamura went over and said, ‘Itagaki, give this guy a reality check.’ They gave me a real earful, telling me, ‘this is what working in the game industry is all about’ and all that. I feel bad looking back on it... (laughs) but deep down, I thought at the moment that [Itagaki] seemed kind of weak.”
After working on Unison: Rebels of Rhythm and Dance, a dancing game for the PlayStation 2, Okamoto officially joined Tecmo in his second year and participated in Rygar: The Legendary Adventure, under the supervision of Satoshi Kanematsu (featured later). He reportedly visited Kanematsu's home with a project proposal, highlighting the knowledge of ancient Greco-Roman history and Western art he'd acquired during his university years.
“After that project ended, when I was in my third year, Kanematsu-san said, ‘You're a really cocky guy, so go get Itagaki to whip you into shape.’ At the time, Tecmo's game development was split into three divisions, and when I transferred to Tecmo Creative #3, aka Team Ninja, the environment was so grueling that I was told I'd have to choose between quitting or shutting myself off. So I thought, ‘I can't let them mess with me again’; I went, and there was Itagaki with his shades, and I was like, ‘He wears sunglasses at work?!‘ (laughs) But Itagaki-san seemed to think, ‘Oh, this must be the cocky guy Kane-chan (Kanematsu) told me about.’
Anyway, Ita-san said, ‘I'm going to America for E3 tomorrow, so go do something with your time.' But the other staff hadn't been told I was joining. So I started by greeting everyone, one by one, and learning their faces and names.”
Okamoto's first assignment at Team Ninja was to manage bug testing for Ninja Gaiden during the day, and work on balance adjustments with Itagaki at night.

With James Mielke and Hiroaki Matsui, director of the first 3D Ninja Gaiden, (Los Angeles, May 16, 2003)
(He would later plan the online portion of Dead or Alive 4 and serve as a level designer and producer for Ninja Gaiden II.)
“When Ita-san came back from the USA, he told me we'd be working on balance adjustments from there. There was a setup in the conference room so the lead programmer would play the work-in-progress builds. He'd give feedback like, ‘put more enemies in this part’, ‘this part has too much screen clutter’, ‘fix the frame rate here’, so I'd write it all down and share it with the team. Sometimes he'd ask me to try boss fights and I'd get hands-on with the game, and there were parts where I went, ‘this attack is so unfair’.”
This work continued for almost a year, and Okamoto was only able to go home about once every three months. This was an extremely harsh working environment that would be unthinkable in the present day with Japanese labor reforms, but it wouldn't have happened if Itagaki had not put all his trust in Okamoto.
“I still don't know why he chose me. Maybe it's because I'm not the type to give up easily and I enjoy a little bit of everything, so he probably thought, ‘he's got nerves of steel. Maybe I can give him a little push.’.
Ita-san also had a preference for edgy, eccentric people. Once, during a welcoming party for new employees, he got really angry at me! He looked intimidating enough that nobody wanted to approach him, so I reluctantly went over and asked: ‘Do you know what a pimp is?’ So I brought up Dead or Alive, and I continued: ‘Since it's a fighting game that's like a hostess club... does that make DoA a pimping scheme?’ And he yelled at me, at the top of his lungs, something like: ‘YOU FUCKING IDIOT!’ It was the first time in my life someone had ever told me off like that! (laughs) Because of I impression he had at the time, I probably thought something like, ‘The weirdo that got angry back then came from Kane-chan's place... but he seems like a lively guy’.”
In fact, Okamoto became so close to Itagaki that he'd call him "my little brother" and "my son". Okamoto also played an important role in Valhalla Game Studios, which Itagaki founded after leaving Tecmo in 2008; and in Soleil, which was founded as a development partner for Valhalla.
“I think Ita-san was nine years my senior. There were other people in Team Ninja who were close with him, but I spent 25 years by his side, starting in my late twenties. For all my thirties—and this isn't an exaggeration—we went out for drinks after work, five days a week, every week. We'd go to this well-established curry joint at 2 or 3 AM, eat some mutton curry, and then finish the day with some whiskey.
In retrospect, it was pretty crazy, but Ita-san used to say things like, ‘You've got to be crazy if you want to make games.’ I respected him, so I went along with it. Maybe I was looking for excuses. (laughs)”

James Mielke playing Dead or Alive 4 at his home, after the game went gold. (San Francisco, 2005)
Tomonobu Itagaki, according to Yoshifuru Okamoto
Okamoto recalls that Team Ninja, under Itagaki's leadership, was like a military unit, completely different from Tecmo's other development divisions.
“Ita-san was deep into military history, so he'd often bring up George S. Patton and Napoleon as examples of ‘what it means to be a leader’... not everyone can replicate Ita-san's methods, but he emphasized some essential points that might have been very important. The Japanese game industry isn't doing very well right now, but Ita-san said, ‘the point isn't to make something that sells or something fun—the point is to win.’ He believed you couldn't have a future without a victory. So, when you think about what you need to do to win, you realize you have to create something interesting that stands out on its own while needing to increase sales. You have to crush your competition, but having competition increases your odds of winning.
I feel that Ita-san was clever in choosing the word ‘win’. Sure you still have to deal with the business aspect, but his clients were creators, and if you talked about business too much, they'd walk away. He used the word ‘win’ to convince them.”
In 2008, Itagaki filed a lawsuit against Tecmo for unpaid wages and damages for defamation. As a result of this lawsuit, Itagaki left the company.
Translator's note
When Itagaki originally announced his departure from and lawsuit against Tecmo, he announced he would leave on July 1, 2008, a month after the release of Ninja Gaiden II. However, per the lawsuit he filed against Tecmo, he was fired on June 18 as retaliation for the suit.
Additional reading on the suit:
• Dozens follow Itagaki in Tecmo walk-out
• Here's the documented evidence Itagaki submitted against Tecmo
• Secret Tecmo tapes reveal number of the beast, insulting Tecmo president
“At the time, the game industry was made up of people who worked in the shadows, but when Tecmo went public and started getting involved with finance, I think Ita-san felt something was wrong, as in, ‘why is someone from a bank the new company president?’
Sure, he filed a lawsuit, but I personally doubt Ita-san would do anything money-grubbing. He'd get angry if his pride was hurt or if someone tried to cheat him over money. He wasn't all about money. He wasn't the type to live beyond his means.”
“He viewed game development as a gritty, mentally exhausting job, so maybe Ita-san thought, ‘we risk our lives for what we do, and someone who's never done that wouldn't get how hard our work really is’.”
On the other hand, during his tenure at Tecmo, Itagaki was sued by a former employee for sexual harassment.
“I don't know if that was true, I never actually witnessed Ita-san sexually harassing anyone. But he had a deep sense of compassion for people, regardless of gender. He'd frequently give hugs to men, as a matter of course. If those actions were directed towards women, it might have caused some problems.
It was clear that he had a lot of respect for women, so much that he practically deified them—which is very evident in Dead or Alive. Because he admired women so much, he was quite particular about Kasumi and Ayane's character designs. I recall he really liked Maetel from Galaxy Express 999.
During Ita-san's memorial service, we played songs by his favorite singers and musicians, like Kenji Sawada and Kiyoshiro Imawano. Those songs had lyrics that greatly represented Ita-san. Some macho fighting words like ‘I will win’, but also sentimental subjects like love and holding someone close. I think that's the kind of person Ita-san was.”

A commemorative picture with renowned manga author Leiji Matsumoto.
Okamoto also describes Itagaki as a very sensitive kind of person.
“He was incredibly sensitive. One moment he'd be really angry, and the next, he'd suddenly burst into laughter. He had those mood swings all the time, but he never held grudges.
He had like a sixth sense, he'd pick up on all sorts of things around him. Even while I talked to him, he'd say something like, ‘what's that guy's deal?’ or ‘what was that sound?’ You could say he was overly sensitive—or, more positively, that he had some incredibly sharp senses. That sounds great for gathering information, but I imagine it could get exhausting for some people. He spent 58 years gathering much more information than most people out there, so I feel like he lived his life to the absolute fullest.”
Itagaki was known for his distinctive rockstar-like look: sunglasses, long hair, and slim, flashy clothes.
However, while developing Dead or Alive on Sega’s Model 2 arcade board, he looked like an average game developer. As his looks changed, so did his behavior—for example, he began making incendiary remarks toward the Tekken series, a rival in the fighting game genre, and its producer, Katsuhiro Harada.
“He often said that he changed his looks and attitude ‘to win.’ To draw attention to a game, the best approach is for the creator to take the front line and deal with the media and fans himself, so he adopted a distinctive look and made some outlandish statements—but I doubt he enjoyed doing that at first.
He started standing out as part of his job, and once the team’s image and brand were established, I think he got more comfortable. We've never discussed this specifically, but I imagine he didn't have anything to worry about.
He was more conscious of how it would be received in the West—especially in Europe and the United States—than in Japan. It's another reason he used the word ‘Ninja’ in the team’s name.”
In fact, when news of Itagaki's death spread around the world, many fans posted about it on social media, and many of them came from overseas.
“He treasured his fans so much, you'd wonder if he really needed to go so far for them.
For example, if someone messaged him on Facebook like, ‘I've been a fan since Tecmo's early days and I'd love to meet you’, he'd take that person out drinking. One time, he spotted a veteran player who helped balance Dead or Alive at an arcade, and he invited him out for drinks too.
For better or worse, he had this calculated mindset, an attitude of seeking victory at all costs. That's just the kind of person he was.”
The ethos of Itagaki's craftsmanship changed as it prioritized the “ideal image of Tomonobu Itagaki”
After leaving Tecmo, Itagaki established a new development studio called Tokyo Vikings. This team merged with a company founded by Satoshi Kanematsu, who'd left Tecmo a year before Itagaki did, and in 2010, its name was changed to Valhalla Game Studios. In today's terms, it could be described as an indie game studio with well-known independent game creators as its flagship talent.
“At first, we still had that publisher mindset, so we acted like we were on a high horse. Looking back now, I realize that Kanematsu-san must have gone through a lot to support us, with funding and networking. I didn't realize it while working at Tecmo, but making games while trying to turn a profit is a Herculean task. Even at the time, you couldn't just make a game with just a few hundred-million yen.”
Through all this, Valhalla Game Studios pressed on with developing Devil's Third, but it seemed that Itagaki's ideal situation of “victory”—or, more precisely, the “Itagaki world”—was becoming harder to realize every day.
“On the subject of funding, Devil's Third went through two different publishers. Ita-san was a bit of a neat-freak, so he found discussions about money to be distasteful—but when we went independent, we all realized we'd have to do that to get somewhere. There was more than one moment where we thought, ‘We could only do that before because we worked at Tecmo...’
At the end of the day, Valhalla Game Studios was ‘Tomonobu Itagaki Game Studios’, so Ita-san had to be the face of the company and handle everything by himself. He was the face of Team Ninja as well, but in that team, he had plenty of dedicated staff helping him with publicity and sales. And then Ita-san started doing all of that himself, so his workload went up by a lot. Although Kanematsu-san did his best to manage finances, I think it put a lot of pressure on Ita-san to have to handle so much, including maintaining the studio’s image—while the game took so long to come out.”
Okamoto also suggests that the management logic that Itagaki had upheld at Team Ninja was different from his ethos at Valhalla Game Studios.
“Ita-san used to say, ‘you can't just take everything that interests you and put it in a game’. He believed that what really mattered was what you'd choose to get the job done. But once he went independent, people started expecting him to bring his own unique style to the table. I believe he planned Devil’s Third by focusing on his favorite interests—by putting his love for military themes into a Ninja Gaiden-like sword-fighting game—to meet those expectations. I think that was a different rationale from the ‘victory at all costs’ mentality from his time at Team Ninja.
Looking back, I think we were too fixated on that idea—like, ‘we have to put out at least one game and make it the best of the best!’—and it caused us to fall behind the market. At the time, smartphone games were having great success, so we considered going dark for a bit and making a proper game, but as time went on, the way people played games changed, and what players expected of Ita-san changed too. So when we finally stopped hiding, we might have noticed that the atmosphere wasn't the same...”
On the other hand, Itagaki never accepted defeat with Devil's Third, and always said he wanted to make a sequel.
“I suppose he wanted to keep going until got that hard-earned ‘victory’. When he worked on the sequels to Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden, his stance was that he was making them because they were in demand, not because he personally wanted to. But you could say Devil's Third was like, his creation and his pride and joy, so maybe he was more attached to it. He wasn't exactly like that, but that was a game packed with things he loved.”

In 2010, while at the Planes of Fame Air Museum in Chino, California, Itagaki boarded and even flew his favorite plane, a P-51 Mustang.
We also asked Okamoto what he would have wanted Itagaki to do, if he were still alive.
“I would've like to see him write a novel. He wanted to be a novelist at first—I thought it'd be interesting to read a book about Ita-san himself. But I feel like he lived his life to the fullest, so I don't think there's anything else I would have liked to see him do.
He was an extremely radiant man, so I imagine he cast some equally large shadows. He was as human as one could get.
Nowadays, anyone can shut themselves in, speak their mind on social networks, and stay in their own comfort zone without mingling with others, but that can only be sustainable for so long. You can't make a river out of one drop—but even in times of uncertainty, I think Ita-san was trying to make a river.
He used to say, ‘You can’t create anything interesting unless you go extra hard’. That's the kind of passion he valued, and it might be why he hated remote work. We'd meet face-to-face, drink together, speak our minds—sometimes that caused arguments and strained relationships, but unless we were close enough to fight, we couldn’t create anything. At least, that’s how he felt.”
I decided to ask Okamoto, once again, what kind of person Itagaki was.

“He was my mentor when I joined the workforce. On one hand, he was strict—in fact, ruthless—when it came to work, but he loved his daughter deeply and he made sure everyone knew. And when he wasn’t in ‘work mode’, he enjoyed all kinds of silly things. He hated when someone praised him for being smart. He’d reply like, ‘yeah, everyone knows that.’ (laughs)
Also, when we went drinking at an izakaya, he’d often chat with the people around us. If there was a group of college students sitting next to us, we'd overhear them naturally, and at just the right moment, Ita-san would cut in like he was Tora-san, saying, ‘Heeeeeeeey, guys…’ He really liked Tora-san! (laughs) I think he chose Kanematsu-san as his partner was because he sensed a vibe similar to Tora-san's in him.”
Translator's note
Otoko wa Tsurai yo (男はツライよ, “It Ain't Easy Being a Man”) is a Japanese comedy film series about the hijinks of traveling salesman Torajirō “Tora-san” Kuruma.
The full franchise spanned a TV series (1968-1969) and forty-nine movies (1969-1995), all starring Kiyoshi Atsumi as Tora-san. A 50th movie celebrating the series's 50th anniversary (Tora-san, Wish You Were Here) was released in 2019, featuring several legacy characters recalling Tora-san's presence in their lives; Atsumi appeared in flashbacks through archive footage.
“All I am is an empty shell.”
Even though Okamoto knew Itagaki well on a personal level, there are some remarks that still left him puzzled.
“One day, we were out for drinks, and he said: ‘All I am is an empty shell’, more than once. He wasn’t the kind of person who lived for his own desires, but when I heard that, I began to wonder if the ‘victory’ he fought so hard for meant something like ‘feeling the thrill of winning a battle.’ There’s a boss in Ninja Gaiden II based on a skeleton, and he used to say, ‘That’s me.’ ‘That empty husk is me.’ I still don’t know what he meant by that.
He had an incredible drive to accomplish his goals, so he had no real material desires, no greed for money, and no thirst for fame. Maybe he was just saying that he had ‘no desires’. Maybe he meant, ‘I’ve fought so much, but having fun and going drinking is enough for me’. In any case, he wanted to leave everyone fulfilled and happy.”
Satoshi Kanematsu (President and CEO, Rock Spirits / Executive Officer and CSO, Anchovy)
Meeting and parting ways with Itagaki

Satoshi Kanematsu graduated from the College of Commerce at Nihon University and spent seven years working for a Mitsubishi subsidiary. However, in 1993, then aged 30, while looking for a job that suited him better, he pursued a career in the game industry. Having been deeply influenced by British rock band Wishbone Ash's third album Argus while in the fifth grade of elementary school, Kanematsu—a big fan of rock music who played in his own band at the time—hoped to work in the sound department of a game developer, but instead, he received job offers from several companies for sales positions.
Of the many options he received, he chose a position at Tecmo, in part because of its game Rygar.
Translator's note
Rygar's Japanese title translates to The Warrior of Argus (アルゴスの戦士 Arugosu no Senshi). "Warrior" is the title of a song from Argus, the third album by Wishbone Ash and Satoshi Kanematsu's favorite album.
Kanematsu was initially assigned to the Restructuring Supervision Office, which took charge of Tecmo's internal restructuring efforts, but was eventually transferred to the arcade game sales department, where he met Tomonobu Itagaki.
“It was in that period of time with Dead or Alive, DoA++, Dead or Alive 2 and DoA 2: Millennium—although I don't think anyone remembers that last one. It felt like Itagaki was making the games and I was selling them.
Right after I joined the company, Itagaki was having this heated argument with a senior colleague, saying, ‘That's not gonna work!’ I found him to be a young, energetic guy, and we got along pretty well from there. He’d often call me over and show me games that were still in development.”
Soon, Kanematsu was appointed head of development at Tecmo. Incidentally, it was his decision to remake Rygar, a game previously mentioned by Yoshifuru Okamoto.
“I asked Chairman [Akihito] Kakikara, ‘The current head of development isn't getting the job done. Why not promote Itagaki to his position?’ And he answered, ‘he's a bit of a piece of work, so you're going to supervise him’. My duties were to oversee the divisions in charge of Monster Rancher and Tecmo's Deception.”
While Itagaki became known for his striking appearance, his style was largely curated by Kanematsu.
“The thing is, Itagaki couldn't have cared less about fashion. So I took him to a Marui and gave him a bunch of clothes to wear, and even gave him some of mine. I remember at his funeral, I heard someone talk about giving away ‘Itagaki-san's clothes’, but most of them used to be mine! (laughs) I had him wear those flashy outfits, with shades and long hair, in public.
At the time, other game companies had their own big-name creators, and Tecmo was also trying to promote Itagaki. He had a sharp wit, could make compelling arguments, and could make some intentionally provocative statements—everyone thought he was interesting, and I put a visual flair on that. The style was mine, but the substance was all his.”

Living like brothers, bickering like an old couple
Itagaki’s defining characteristic as a game creator was, above all else, his sheer dedication to creation.
“The best thing about him was his tenacity—that drive to ‘win’ at all costs. He spent eight years in college, and maybe because he’d always loved mahjong, he had a strong aversion to losing.
Itagaki would go the distance to ‘win.’ He felt like achieving victory meant discarding anyone who couldn't keep up with him—and because of that, he caused all kinds of trouble, and it wasn't easy having to clean up after him! (laughs)”
Following Kakihara's death in 2006, Kanematsu left Tecmo in 2007. From his experience establishing the company's pachinko division to outstanding results, he initially founded a pachinko development company before reuniting with Itagaki to establish Valhalla Game Studios.
“My personal motto has always been, ‘Made in Japan, to the world’. I want products ‘made in Japan’ to bring as many smiles to people around the world as possible. That was true whether I was working in sales or in development at Tecmo, and Itagaki shared that same vision when he aimed to be the best in the world.
And I'm more the type to work behind the scenes—I raise funds, hire staff, and organize everything so I can go ahead and say, ‘now go ahead and make what you want to make’. I don't actually make things myself. Itagaki had the talent to create, so I just told him, ‘together, we'll win all over the world!’”

Valhalla Game Studios started working on its first title, Devil's Third', but as previously mentioned, it faced difficulties due to several issues, including changes in publishers. As a result, Kanematsu's efforts to obtain funding were an uphill battle.
“I managed to raise about 3.5 billion yen, but it was tough. So I figured we had no choice but to go public—but that would have been a hassle in Japan, and I wanted to add some prestige to the company, so I looked for a country where no Japanese companies were listed. So our headquarters was moved to Vancouver, Canada, I raised some funds with the goal of going public, and invested that capital into our business.
Nintendo ultimately agreed to publish Devil's Third, and that was because President Iwata (Satoru Iwata, former President and CEO of Nintendo) asked to do it. Then he suddenly passed away, and a lot of things changed.”
At the same time, Kanematsu had become tired of Itagaki's behavior.
“Sometimes when I walked into the office, I'd see Itagaki drunk and he'd say, ‘Back already, Kane-chan?’ I didn't usually comment on the stuff he was making, but I was strict about his approach to work—he probably didn't want me around.”
In 2016, Itagaki left Valhalla Game Studios, causing him to become estranged from Kanematsu.
I asked Kanematsu to reflect, once again, on Itagaki's character.
“To put it nicely: he was a maverick, like Osamu Dazai. Maybe even self-destructive. I think everyone around him knew that. But I hope his dedication to his craft and his obsession with ‘winning’ become a legacy to be passed down to everyone who worked with him.
Itagaki started out like a younger brother, but by the end of our time together, we were arguing all the time. Some people around us thought we bickered like a married couple. Okamoto always hoped we could work things out somehow, even though, deep down, he thought we were through.
In fact, between 2016 and 2024, I didn't see Itagaki even once. And I hardly even saw him for the last two or three years before he quit."
How did Kanematsu feel when he learned of Itagaki's passing?
“I remember Okamoto setting us up to meet, even saying ‘it's about time.’ So, for the first time in eight years, I agreed to meet with him. Itagaki looked pretty frail at the time, so I asked him if he was okay, if he was going to stop drinking... but right after that, he was hospitalized.
And he blocked me from all social media. So I had absolutely no idea about the Facebook post, the day of his passing. Everyone kept asking, ‘what's going on?’ And I was completely out of the loop.
I think (he left us) a little too soon. He was very talented, recognized worldwide... it's a shame, but I think he lived exactly as he wanted. Maybe after I cross over, we'll play mahjong together over some pints!”

Kanematsu and Itagaki, pictured at an event held by the former.
Kengo Aoki (President and CEO, Soft Gear)
Kengo Aoki has had an unusual career: he founded his current company, Soft Gear, just by directly followed his interests.
After graduating, his first jobs were in the semiconductor and automotive industries. There, he became acquainted with Multiterm (※) president Masahito Kazama, who asked him to help with sales, which led him to change jobs.
※ Multiterm Co., Ltd. was a developer of online games and other related products. It was absorbed and merged into NHN Japan (currently LINE Yahoo!) in 2007.

Aoki gave his interview while wearing a black dress shirt often worn by Itagaki during his lifetime.
Multiterm developed systems for virtual space development programs using grants from the Information-Technology Promotion Agency, Japan (IPA), an organization affiliated with the former Ministry of International Trade and Industry.
Since Aoki was originally a game enthusiast, he pitched his services to numerous game companies. In 1998, at the commercial peak of such games as Ultima Online and Diablo, he pitched the creation of an online game, which led to the development of Shutokō Battle Online, a game co-developed by Genki and Multiterm.
He also submitted proposals to Enix, predecessor of the current Square Enix, of which Fantasy Earth: The Ring of Dominion (later renamed Fantasy Earth Zero) was approved. In the development of Fantasy Earth, he was tasked not only with the planning process, but also building the team, which allowed him to gain know-how in game development processes and organizational structures.
With the experience he gained, Aoki founded his own game development company, Soft Gear.
“When the company was founded, it was named Fenix Soft. That name was chosen for a reason: it was a combination of the letters FE, as in Fantasy Earth, and Enix, the company that had been so helpful to us. We didn't just want to restrict ourselves to Fantasy Earth, so the company was renamed around three years after its founding.”
The first thing he said was, “you've probably heard of me”
Aoki formed a connection with Itagaki during his sales activities.
“It was around the time Fenix Soft changed its name to Soft Gear. I got a message from a staff member at THQ Japan, asking if I could help with the server infrastructure for Devil's Third. That's where my ‘Itagaki story’ began: I was asked to meet Itagaki at least once.”
For extra context: THQ was initially set to publish Devil's Third in the United States. However, Devil's Third's development became increasingly fraught with difficulties, the first of which was THQ going bankrupt in 2012 due to financial difficulties.
Now, back to the story of Aoki's meeting with Itagaki.
“THQ Japan had told me beforehand that ‘Valhalla Game Studios were people who valued passion’, so I went to meet Itagaki-san. When I walked into the office, Itagaki-san and Okamoto-san were inside. We exchanged business cards, and the atmosphere was incredible. The conference room was all black, and there was a big display of a traditional Japanese sword and a pirate flag (Valhalla's company flag); I couldn't believe my eyes.
Then, Itagaki-san started introducing himself and telling some anecdotes about past mishaps. The first thing he said was, ‘you've probably heard of me.’
I hadn't even asked him anything, but he just kept repeating, ‘We're going to win with this project!’ I was so overwhelmed that all I could do was follow along and say, ‘I see’...
After that, Itagaki-san and his team talked about the project and their goals with it. They all said they wanted to make this a huge hit, something that over 10 million people would play. Surprisingly, it only took a few meetings to finalize a development contract.
But there was a bit of a snafu before the deal was inked. We got a project proposal for Devil's Third that spanned several hundred pages, and I read through the whole thing and wrote some notes in red ink.
For example, there were instances where the same noun referred to different things within the proposal, or the text was not consistent. So I wrote some notes on the document, with rather harsh language. It was just a memo for my own reference, that I didn't want to send to Itagaki-san's crew. But our liaison made a mistake somewhere and sent the full document, with all those aggressive words, to Itagaki-san.
Then, at our next meeting, Itagaki-san said to me, ‘You really give a shit about how people speak Japanese, don't you?’ I apologized, but Itagaki-san actually appreciated that I'd had read the document all the way through. He said there was some merit to what I'd written, and he immediately declared, ‘Okamoto, let’s take this guy out drinking. Book it!’ And just like that, we had a drinking party arranged on the spot.”
The following account of the drinking party was included in Kengo Aoki's eulogy at the farewell gathering held in November 2025, titled “Tomonobu Itagaki Goes to Valhalla.”
“I was drinking sweet potato shochu on the rocks, but Itagaki-san wasn't happy about it. He said I had bad drinking manners, and lectured me with such words as: ‘You're bothering the staff. In times like these, you should order two or three on the rocks at once!’
Some minutes later, Itagaki-san's long hair was soaked in his kiritanpo bowl. All I could think of was, ‘he's hammered’. Okamoto-san was laughing and saying, ‘Itagaki-san's been drinking a lot, hasn't he?’ And when we were leaving, he asked me if I was okay and offered to drive me home. That was all for that day, but after that, we kept going out for drinks every day at Kinshichō.
We'd go out for drinks every meeting, and one time, Okamoto-san and I happened to agree to go together, just the two of us, to a snack bar in Kinshichō. Another day, Okamoto and I were talking about how nice that place was, when Itagaki-san overheard us. He got jealous and demanded that we take him with us. I played along, saying things like, ‘I didn't know you liked going to snack bars!’
He got all excited, like, ‘Let's drink! Let's sing!’, and even though he usually only drinks shochu, he started demanding the best wine they had, so he ended up ordering three or four bottles of Opus One. And then the bill came, and it made him really angry.
Later, I heard from Okamoto-san that Itagaki-san must have loved the place so much that he went back there to drink by himself, but after paying the bill, he lost his wallet. Then apparently, his credit card company billed him for a charge in Kinshichō that he didn't remember, and he protested. ‘I don't recognize that charge, it's not mine.’
So I asked Itagaki-san if he hadn't actually been out drinking, and he answered, ‘No, dumbass, there's no way I'd be out drinking like that! I don't remember spending that’, but I figured he really didn't remember after all.
Ultimately, he was in high spirits, going, ‘I fought the credit card company and I won.’ It's hard to tell what exactly he had to gain from that, but that's kind of stuff he was always getting himself into. In any case, once Itagaki-san walked into an izakaya, he'd stay there drinking for hours. That was the ‘Itagaki Style’.”

Katsuhiro Harada and Itagaki at Spain Club, where the November 2025 farewell gathering was held. (approx. 2013)
Like a wild animal
Despite his overwhelming strength and momentum and his intimidating air, what kind of person was Itagaki to Aoki?
“To put it simply, he was like a ‘funny older brother’.
The company I joined right out of college was a pretty messy place, so Itagaki-san's behavior wasn't new to me. But in the first company I worked, wild behavior was mostly limited to office workers in suits, so I was really caught off-guard by Itagaki-san and Kanematsu-san's unique looks.
I saw Itagaki-san as a very kind person, who still wanted to show the world his ‘real man's man’ side. He asked me to watch a movie called Farewell, My Beloved Yakuza (※), which he called ‘his bible’—so I watched it. The protagonist dies at the end, but I still could sense Itagaki-san wanted to convey a sense of humanity. Even his alma mater is in the movie.
Itagaki-san came across as sensitive and considerate. His public image was the fruits of a great effort to establish his own ‘brand’, so I imagine that image was quite difficult for him to maintain.
And I think that became a dilemma, between the gentle, mild-mannered Itagaki-san and the ‘Itagaki brand’. A part of him didn't want to show any vulnerabilities, just wanted to look strong for everyone. The way I'm talking about him, I make him sound like a wild animal. (grimace)”
※ Saraba, Itoshi no Yakuza (さらば愛しのやくざ, “Farewell, My Beloved Yakuza”) is a 1990 film starring Takanori Jinnai and Toshirō Yanagiba. Jinnai portrays Gorō Fujishima, a man destined to die, and Yanagiba portrays Tatsuya Nakama, a graduate of Waseda University.

Itagaki and former Sega director Yu Suzuki, with whom he was close.
Although he only met Itagaki a few times, Aoki remembers him as a shy and polite person.
“Maybe Itagaki-san liked drinking alcohol to relieve some pressure. Something that really stuck with me was when he went on a business trip to China early on.
He got completely drunk, causing all sorts of ruckus, shouting loudly in the streets and picking fights with taxi drivers passing by. And then, we were in the hotel room talking about his game's development, and my opinions on the matter at hand were so different from Itagaki-san's that we got into a huge argument. Okamoto-san was shocked to see me arguing so fiercely with Itagaki-san, and he started yelling, basically, ‘The hell's your problem?!’ Like he'd never met anyone like me before.
On the return flight, the next day, I was just about ready to get out of that job. At the time, Itagaki-san and Okamoto-san were in business class, and I was sitting economy. Then Itagaki-san asked Okamoto-san to switch seats with me; I ended up sitting next to Itagaki-san in business class.
Then Itagaki-san asked me about my childhood, where I was born, what was it like growing up, et cetera. Maybe it was because of the alcohol he'd been drinking on the flight—while hungover from the night before—he started crying and pouring his heart out. ‘We're brothers.’ ‘Okamoto and you—you're my brothers’, and he finished, ‘This is why I absolutely have to do this project with you.’
He was the kind of person who refused to break any agreements or promises he made, and had a strong desire to put his trust in others. He took the matter of trust very seriously, sometimes to an unreasonable degree.
Itagaki-san would reprimand me more often than he'd yell at me. For example, he often corrected the way I spoke. I had a habit of starting in the negative, like, ‘No, actually it's X’, and he'd say, ‘Wait, what was that? Your speaking manners are awful’. He would criticize me more for that particular habit than for any foul language.
Itagaki-san also told me we were alike in many ways. I remember him telling me to be careful with what I say to my employees. Even if I think it's an expression of affection, whoever I'm talking to might not take it that way, and they might even get angry over it. And he added, ‘On top of all that: don’t make small enemies. The big enemies, you can see coming, but you never know when a small enemy comes at you.’ I suppose he learned that lesson from his own experience. When I replied, ‘I’ve already made quite a few enemies’, he laughed and said, ‘Well, what can you do? That’s just how you are!’”
What Itagaki wanted to do in his later years
In his later years, Itagaki seemed troubled by the fact that, without a large company backing him, he had to handle everything on his own. To put it simply, that meant accepting both the pros and cons of leaving Tecmo to start his own business.

“I didn’t know Itagaki-san from his Tecmo days, but I imagine he faced his share of hardships after going independent. We didn't get many chances to meet in his laters, and I truly regretted not being able to sit down and talk with him face-to-face while he was still in good health.
When Itagaki-san left Valhalla and became fully independent, he mentioned during a planning interview that he was ‘going to Kure to see the Yamato’. I was born in Hiroshima, and the day before, he called me all excited, saying, ’I’m going to your hometown! I’m gonna see the Yamato in Kure!’ Then a day or two later, I got a call from Okamoto-san, saying that Itagaki-san had been hospitalized in Kure, so I went to visit him.
He was on dialysis, saying things like, ‘The nurses here are so kind.’ It was a former Imperial Navy hospital, so he seemed really happy about it. He brought up all kinds of trivia, like ‘did you know the crew of the Yamato used to get treated here?’ But I had no idea what he was talking about.”
Itagaki had to be hospitalized several times, pushing himself further to the limit every time and at the cost of his health.
“He even had to be hospitalized this one time in Los Angeles, where he was scheduled to speak at E3. The first night after arriving, we were at a pre-E3 party at the hotel when Itagaki-san stepped out onto the terrace and, for some reason, he shouted, ‘I'm going to conquer the world! You with me, Okamoto?! You with me, Aoki?!’ Immediately, I saw about ten patrol cars from the LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department) come out. The cops pointed their guns at him. It was a real ‘dead or alive’ situation!
I was off work the next day, so I was at Universal Studios with a few others when I got a call informing me that Itagaki-san had been urgently admitted to the ICU. He remained hospitalized for 40 to 50 days.
Itagaki-san fully believed in the game design and concepts of Devil's Third and that it'd sell well eventually, so he said he'd make a sequel someday. He even said, ‘When Okamoto and Aoki get their chance for revenge, we can do it.' He probably intended to do it himself, though. I got the feeling he just didn't like that creating things takes up so much time and energy.”
However, in his later years, Itagaki-san apparently spoke to Aoki-san about the joy of mentoring the next generation.
“Around the time he turned 50, he said, ‘it's my mission to nurture the next generation.’
“He also mentioned, ‘It’s fun to take on an educational role—to pass on my values and my love for content to the next generation. Maybe this is what I should do.’ I think there was this duality to him: on one hand, he couldn’t just end his career as a creator, and on the other, he wanted to become an educator for the next generation.”
He also said, 'It's fun to be an educator, passing on my morals and love for content to the next generation. Maybe this is what I should be doing.' I think he had a dual nature: a desire to not end his career as a creator, and a desire to be an educator of games for the next generation."

Itagaki at the Colosseum in Italy
“Itagaki-san also served as a metal advisor for Soft Gear, but I hadn't seen him for about two years before he passed away. The last time we went out for drinks together, he only had about two drinks and water, ate a little food, we spent about two hours talking, and then he left.
I even got a screenshot of our LINE conversation from a mutual acquaintance—something like, ‘This is what I talked about with Aoki’, and... it just brought me to tears.
I had hoped to help with at least the initial stages of the project that Itagaki-san had said he wanted to do before he passed away. I treasure him fondly as a mentor, in many ways beyond just game development. His philosophy, that ‘Itagaki-ism’, is firmly rooted within me."
Yosuke Hayashi (Executive Vice President, Koei Tecmo Games)
Remembering Itagaki's days at Tecmo

Hayashi was born in 1979 and has been familiar with games since his childhood.
He started with Nintendo's Family Computer in the first grade, played the Super Famicom in middle school, the PlayStation in high school, and the PlayStation 2 in college... Hayashi has always been surrounded by games. His interest in games gave him a drive to create his own games, so he enrolled in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Tokyo Metropolitan University, aiming to work for a game company.
At that time, many game companies were starting to be listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. While many IT and engineering graduates were recommended to join electronics manufacturers, Hayashi managed to join Tecmo.
“After I graduated, I joined the company as a development staff member, and I was immediately assigned to Tomonobu Itagaki-san's department. That's how we met.
My first project was Dead or Alive 3, which would coincide with Microsoft launching the Xbox in Japan. Everyone around me said that this game would change Tecmo's history, and there were even stories of Bill Gates giving a title presentation, so there was a lot of momentum within the company. I think Microsoft practically treated us like a first-party developer for the Xbox.”
Around that time, the team began to feel that Itagaki was about to make his mark on the world, and they pushed forward at full speed.
“The game industry was different back then; you'd be at the company, developing and developing, all the time. Tecmo was a mid-sized game company, and I think Itagaki-san's actions were a little self-promoting to help get eyes on his work. I feel that, at the time, he was thinking about how to present himself to reach as many customers as possible, and that became part of his personality.”
“There is no work here for you”, to a new graduate
Itagaki was a decade older than Hayashi—perhaps because of that, he wasn't the type to show any vulnerability. He always seemed to wear some kind of mask, but Hayashi thought that was just how he was.
During his eulogy at Itagaki's funeral, Hayashi recalled that, when he'd just joined the company and had been assigned as a planner, Itagaki told him, “There is no work here for you.” It's possible the projects planned by Itagaki himself had aspects that did not allow for external intervention—and Hayashi, to some extent, intuitively understood that.
“Fighting games don't really need game planners in the first place. If programmers, graphics designers, and motion designers put it all together, a game can work fine.
Itagaki-san believed that the only planner needed for his team was himself. Which meant I could've asked to not be assigned there... (grimace)
He was the type of leader to take the reins by force. Especially at the time, he was always harsh with his subordinates, and everyone on the team was scared of him. In that environment, I always felt like I was getting yelled at on behalf of the team. Whenever someone was getting yelled at on the development floor, everyone on the team went, ‘There goes Hayashi again’.”

Itagaki's public image summarized in one photo
However, Hayashi says that he felt his relationship with Itagaki grow closer after that.
“Itagaki-san told me we didn't need a game planner, but I insisted I could do planning and programming—so I was allowed to do everything, from menial tasks to more specialized work.
I think that actually led to positive results for the title. At the time, the team had no one you could call a leader but Itagaki-san, with his overwhelming presence—so the team developed an atmosphere started developing where things would run smoothly as the team grew, so long as they ‘left some things to Hayashi’.
Then in my third year, I worked on Ninja Gaiden, but that game's development was so difficult that even my superiors were taken aback. So Itagaki-san and I led the journey to put the game together for release.”
“The development process was a total mess”, recalls Hayashi on the difficult creation of 2004's Ninja Gaiden, but these challenges did not deter him or Itagaki.
“The developers at Tecmo had only ever made fighting games, and now they were tackling an action game like NINJA GAIDEN. On paper, using a fighting game engine to create a 3D game with free movement should result in something interesting, but in practice, it wasn't that simple.
To make an analogy: it was like Sega going from Virtua Fighter to Shenmue. Everyone created what they thought was good individually, but there was barely a planner to bring it all together, so it was impossible to bring everything together. It was pure chaos. The company needed a title for the fiscal year, and we were desperate, wondering if we could really finish it with six months to go.”
Amidst these challenges, Itagaki and Hayashi built a rapport as they fought through those ordeals together.
“When development hit a roadblock, Itagaki-san's determination and tenacity resonated with me. It impressed me to see him refuse to give up, and seeing him complete the project with an unbreakable determination made me realize that difficult projects get accomplished because of people like him.”
The torch-bearer of “Itagaki-ism”
“From that point, he started putting his trust in me for more projects.”
Tecmo's development policy changed before and after the making of Itagaki's fighting and action games. As one of the few witnesses to that era, Hayashi describes Itagaki as someone who made his life enjoyable.
“I don't recall being directly taught by Itagaki-san instructing me directly, but I consider myself fortunate that my first job was on Dead or Alive 3. It was Tecmo's best-selling title ever, a game made in a corner of Tokyo that was enjoyed by many people around the world.
I'm truly blessed that I have the experience of creating something so beloved, with a high-level perspective that had the world in mind from the very beginning. I often hear that people who haven't worked on a ‘best-selling game’ can't make a ‘best-seller’ on their own.”

“However, Itagaki-san later left Tecmo. Even while we worked together, there were certainly parts of his methods I couldn't fully agree with.
I spoke with Okamoto-san the other day, and we agreed that Itagaki-san was both my very first mentor and my worst influence. I don't know if it's correct to call it ‘Itagaki-ism’, but I think I've been greatly influenced by his core principles.
While I want to carry those ideas into my method of development, my own personality is different, and I don't think it'd be right to superficially imitate Itagaki-san. So instead of that, I decided to do things in a way that I believe is right. However, when I chose that approach, I vowed that my games should absolutely reach many more people than any of the previous games by Itagaki-san. If that didn't happen, then it'd mean his methods were correct. So I was conscious that I needed to achieve results that'd surpass Itagaki-san's best selling games—in the sense of the pupil surpassing his mentor.”
Learning about Itagaki's days of anguish
Although Itagaki left Tecmo to pursue what he believed in, I can't imagine the road was easy. Doing everything himself must have been exhausting, especially for someone who always aimed to “win”.
How did Hayashi feel when Itagaki left Tecmo?
“I'd been worried for a while that, if Itagaki-san kept working the way he did, people would start distancing themselves from him. Even before I joined Koei Tecmo, I used to read a lot of history books, and many of them described how people with similar lifestyles had their own rise and fall. You could say history repeats itself; I think Itagaki-san had been mentally exhausted to a considerable extent in his later years.”

Itagaki in Tokyo, while aiming for a stock listing in Canada. (2015)
When Itagaki left, Hayashi says, he was invited to follow him and start something new.
“I understand why Itagaki-san left Tecmo, but that didn't give me a reason to leave. Whether I leave or not is my own decision. I didn't want to leave just because Itagaki-san said, ‘come on over’. It's as simple as that.”
Also, during his eulogy at the farewell gathering, Hayashi mentioned that he was struck by how the tone in which Itagaki began his emails had changed in later years, when they exchanged messages for the first time since parting ways.
“I noticed that, in text chats, Itagaki-san always used a commanding tone—but in his later years, he started using more polite language. One day, I received a formal message from Itagaki-san—but it was in polite language, so I wondered if something was wrong.
I didn't have the chance to meet with Itagaki-san in his last years, but I heard through some acquaintances that he had been in poor health. Looking back now, I don't know if he felt his time was running out. Maybe he just wanted to have one last chat.”

Itagaki in Seattle. He was an excellent billiards player, and “winning” came naturally for someone with such precise shots.
I asked Hayashi, the bearer of Itagaki's DNA, about what he achieved at Koei Tecmo.
“With Nioh, we aimed to create something in the spirit of both Koei and Tecmo. It has Tecmo's pedigree in action games, like Ninja Gaiden, and Koei's historical specialty, including games set in Japan's Sengoku period.
Based on a concept by Kou Shibusawa, the game features a blonde, blue-eyed samurai at the Battle of Sekigahara, with appearances by Tokugawa Ieyasu and Oda Nobunaga, incorporating elements from both precedessor companies. This game represented the significance of the Koei Tecmo merger, and we believed the game would be a hit by leveraging both predecessor companies' strengths.
Of course, the customer probably wouldn't think about those circumstances—all that counts is if the game is fun. But Nioh, as a game, was made possible by what Tecmo had cultivated.”

Some of Itagaki's works and personal belongings on display at his farewell gathering.
The entire game industry has been facing tough times lately. Finally, when asked about current trends in game creation, Hayashi shared an example of Itagaki's philosophy.
“The games market continues to grow on a worldwide scale. That's exactly why I want to move even further into the heart of the games market—it's where the market is growing the most. Though everyone says it's tough, everyone who's produced results is still doing so. I think it's becoming very competitive, with all of our capabilities—from development to production—put to the test.
Finally, I'd like to give one more example of Itagaki-san's DNA.
When Nioh's development was restarted with its current concept, FromSoftware had just released Dark Souls. The term ‘Souls-like’ had not yet been established, but seeing that game's uniqueness and the enthusiasm around it, I was convinced there was a genre with great potential brewing. At Tecmo, we believed in ‘making lightning strike twice’, which meant targeting markets without a ‘second-place’ competitor and offering a new way to play.
You could say I tried to emulate the approach that Dead or Alive took against Virtua Fighter in 3D fighting games. Maybe that's part of what defines ‘Itagaki-ism’. I've talked about him like a cautionary tale, but my decisions are inextricably linked to everything I learned from Itagaki-san.
I hope that, through what I've said today, many more people will learn about a man who never gave up on his fight: Tomonobu Itagaki-san.
Thank you very much.”

Parting Words

The flame of my life is burning out.
The fact that this message has been posted means the time has finally come, and I am longer in this world.
(This last post was entrusted to someone important to me.)
The life I lived was a long series of battles, and I kept on winning.
I've caused a great deal of trouble, too.
I am proud to say that I fought to the very last breath, following my own beliefs, with no regrets.
However, I am extremely sorry that I was not able to deliver a new work to all of my fans.
That's just the way it is.
So it goes.
— Tomonobu Itagaki