48 Facts About Keiji Inafune

Keiji Inafune is a Japanese video game producer, character designer, game designer, and businessman.

Keiji Inafune was then a character designer and planner of the Mega Man series during the NES and Super NES era.

Keiji Inafune left Capcom in late 2010, and later founded his own companies Comcept, and Intercept.

Keiji Inafune became Representative Director of DiNG, a mobile game studio.

In March 2025, it was revealed that Keiji Inafune left Level-5 after 7 years in the company.

Keiji Inafune received a degree in graphic design in 1987 from the Osaka Designers' College.

Keiji Inafune initially wanted to join Konami, but Capcom was much closer.

The first two titles Keiji Inafune worked on at Capcom was Mega Man for the Famicom and the original Street Fighter for arcades, both of which were released in 1987.

For Street Fighter, Keiji Inafune drew character portraits for the game.

For Mega Man, Keiji Inafune designed several minor enemy characters, and designed the boss character "Elec Man", who was the first original game character that Keiji Inafune designed.

Keiji Inafune had tried to design him as if he was a character an American comic series such as Spider-Man or X-Men.

Keiji Inafune drew the Japanese box art and promotional illustrations and worked on in-game animations and pixel art.

Keiji Inafune refers to this process as "like a reverse character design" as it is the opposite of what typically occurs, where artists create concept art which is then translated into game's graphics.

However, Keiji Inafune considers Mega Man 3 to be one of his least favorite Mega Man games.

Keiji Inafune designed the original boss characters for the Mega Man titles on the Game Boy.

Keiji Inafune designed the character Zero for the games as well as two of the bosses: Chill Penguin and Storm Eagle.

Keiji Inafune contributed some designs for Mega Man 7, which was released in 1995.

Keiji Inafune designed the character of Auto, as well as the initial sketches for two new characters named "Baroque" and "Crush".

Keiji Inafune was then made producer for the next Mega Man title, Mega Man 8 in 1996.

Keiji Inafune produced the three-dimensional Mega Man Legends series after receiving requests from Sony to develop a new 3D Mega Man series exclusively for the PlayStation.

Keiji Inafune says it was quite difficult to promote the game, as there was little media interest in yet another Mega Man title.

Keiji Inafune was a promotion producer for Resident Evil 2, which in contrast to Mega Man Legends, had huge interest and was an easy game to sell.

Keiji Inafune developed another series, the samurai-era Japanese themed Onimusha, which has spawned various sequels.

Keiji Inafune was producer for the Mega Man Battle Network series, which is set outside the continuity of the rest of the Mega Man story lines and introduced role-playing and strategic elements.

Keiji Inafune contributed the Battle Network redesign of Punk from Mega Man III, and he says it took quite a bit of convincing for the artists to let him do it, and even then they made additional changes to Keiji Inafune's redesign.

In 2006 Keiji Inafune was promoted from corporate officer to senior corporate officer.

Keiji Inafune became acquainted with Ben Judd when he was working on Dead Rising.

Keiji Inafune was a producer for Inti Creates' game Mega Man ZX, and the sequel title Mega Man ZX Advent.

Keiji Inafune had the idea of going back to the simple gameplay of the original Mega Man series, and was a producer for the game Mega Man 9.

The game was developed by Inti-Creates along with Capcom, and Keiji Inafune contributed two designs for the project: Splash Woman and Plug Man.

Keiji Inafune was a producer for the Dead Rising 2, and opted to hire Canadian developer Blue Castle Games as a developer rather than having it developed in-house at Capcom like the first game was.

Keiji Inafune approved the project, due to the positive reception to Street Fighter II' Hyper Fighting on Xbox Live Arcade and fans interest.

Keiji Inafune has voiced various negative views on modern Japanese game developers, stating that they are behind Western developers in innovation.

On October 29,2010, Keiji Inafune announced on his blog that he would be leaving Capcom with the intention of "starting his life over".

Keiji Inafune had been with the company for 23 years.

Keiji Inafune cited that job security creates complacency among staff, and big budgets with very large staff, as problems with current Japanese game companies.

On December 15,2010, Keiji Inafune launched a new company called Comcept, based in Osaka.

Keiji Inafune's guiding philosophy behind Comcept was to work on multiple games at once, work on ideas they themselves created, and to have flexibility of doing multiple genres.

Keiji Inafune cites the need for flexibility as being necessary for the company to survive.

In December 2011, Keiji Inafune became Representative Director of DiNg, a smartphone game developer.

Keiji Inafune appears in the game with his likeness and name, with his kidnapping serving as a plot device.

Keiji Inafune says poor timing is to blame for the sales, as players were transitioning to the PlayStation 4 console, and defends the title saying it had good gameplay.

Keiji Inafune is an advisor for Inflexion Point Capital, who announced in 2014 that they would be giving out seed investments of 100 to 500 thousand to Japanese mobile developers.

At Electronic Entertainment Expo 2015 it was announced the Keiji Inafune was working with Armature Studio to make a new video game for the Xbox One called ReCore.

On July 4,2015 Keiji Inafune announced that he was using Kickstarter to fund a Mega Man Legends spiritual successor along with an anime based on the game called Red Ash, which failed to reach its funding goal.

In June 2017, Comcept was purchased by Level-5 and became Level-5 Comcept, with Keiji Inafune becoming its chief communications officer.

In May 2022, Keiji Inafune announced an NFT project called Beastroid inspired by the Mega Man series.

In March 2025, Level-5 announced that Keiji Inafune left Level-5 Comcept in 2024 with the company being repurposed as the Level-5 Inc Osaka Office.