Kazutaka Kodaka is a Japanese video game designer, writer, and manga artist.
22 Facts About Kazutaka Kodaka
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Kazutaka Kodaka's work is known for recurring themes of contrasting hope and despair, luck and talent, truth and lies, and mixing tragedy with dark humor, as well as using numerous plot twists.
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Kazutaka Kodaka was an employee of Spike Chunsoft and is widely known as the creator and writer of the Danganronpa franchise.
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Kazutaka Kodaka left the company in 2017 and founded Too Kyo Games with other ex-employees.
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Kazutaka Kodaka was educated at a private boys' junior high school.
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Kazutaka Kodaka described his childhood saying that he had very few friends and spent his free time after school watching anime, though he would have wanted to be popular among his peers.
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The first video games Kazutaka Kodaka played were Wrecking Crew, Clu Clu Land, and Pac-Man.
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Kazutaka Kodaka enjoyed playing games a lot, holding a part-time job at a video game store while studying at university.
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Kazutaka Kodaka applied for jobs at both Atlus and Spike.
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At the time, Atlus had a bigger lineup of games with stories, so Kazutaka Kodaka pursued Spike, as he thought he would have a better chance at making an original game there.
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The company's goal, according to Kazutaka Kodaka, was to create new intellectual properties and for the staff to make their own indie games.
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Kazutaka Kodaka mentioned that he would still like to go back to the Danganronpa franchise at some point in the future.
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In November 2021, Master Detective Archives: Rain Code was announced as a collaboration with Spike Chunsoft, with Kazutaka Kodaka writing alongside Takekuni Kitayama.
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Kazutaka Kodaka operates under the belief that a game requires more investment from the audience and therefore the scenario is the key to hook them.
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Kazutaka Kodaka's desire is to create stories people find fresh, although he has noted that he sees a structure in his works and he admires writers whose stories go against structure.
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Kazutaka Kodaka keeps in mind why the story is being written and gives the story a meaning.
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Stories Kazutaka Kodaka writes often revolve around acts of human monstrosities, primarily murder.
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Kazutaka Kodaka's characters tend to have amnesia as it allows them to easily connect with the player.
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Furthermore, Kazutaka Kodaka has specified on how he refreshes his mind when he is stuck with his writing, saying he does it by watching movies, anime, and reading manga, while paying attention to what interests him in those stories.
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Kazutaka Kodaka named David Lynch, Quentin Tarantino, and the Coen brothers as his primary influences.
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Kazutaka Kodaka is a fan of Goichi Suda's games, and told in an interview with Suda that they inspired him and his colleagues.
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Kazutaka Kodaka included one of Suda's games, Twilight Syndrome, in Danganronpa 2 as a homage.