36 Facts About Rieko Kodama

Rieko Kodama, known as Phoenix Rie, was a Japanese video game artist, director, and producer employed by Sega from 1984 until her death.

Rieko Kodama is primarily known for her work on role-playing video games including the original Phantasy Star series, the 7th Dragon series, and Skies of Arcadia.

Rieko Kodama is often recognized as one of the first successful women in the video game industry.

Rieko Kodama did artwork for other Genesis games, including Altered Beast and Sonic the Hedgehog.

Rieko Kodama received the Pioneer Award at the 2018 Game Developers Choice Awards in recognition of her lifelong contributions to video games.

Rieko Kodama was born in Yokosuka, Kanagawa, Japan, in May 1963.

In high school, Rieko Kodama was interested in designing advertising materials.

Rieko Kodama remembered her original interest in advertising and decided to dedicate herself fully to her art passion, enrolling in an advertising design program at a trade school.

Rieko Kodama grew an interest in graphic design and wanted to pursue doing her own work rather than trumpeting works of others as in the advertising business.

Rieko Kodama was hired by Sega in 1984 through one of her colleagues who was already employed there.

Rieko Kodama originally thought she was going to be working on advertising and graphic design, but after seeing the game development department, she felt that would be fun as well.

Rieko Kodama learned how to create graphics from Yoshiki Kawasaki, the sprite artist behind Flicky.

Rieko Kodama continued to work on other arcade games such as Sega Ninja.

Rieko Kodama designed the art for Alex Kidd in Miracle World for the Master System, was "deeply involved" with the arcade and Master System versions of Quartet, and created art for the Master System port of Fantasy Zone II: The Tears of Opa-Opa.

Rieko Kodama received small requests to design assets for other projects on a daily basis, such as the dragon from Miracle Warriors: Seal of the Dark Lord and an enemy for the SG-1000 port for The Black Onyx.

Rieko Kodama served as editor for the Japanese Sega newsletter Sega Players Enjoy Club.

Rieko Kodama served as the main artist for the game, designing the characters, the 2D environments, the battle screen backgrounds, non-playable characters, and other details.

Star Wars was one of Rieko Kodama's favorite film series and was a significant inspiration for her when designing artwork for Phantasy Star.

Rieko Kodama enjoyed the way Star Wars took elements from Japanese and Asian culture and infused it with a science fiction setting.

Rieko Kodama thought this was interesting, so chose to give Lutz an androgynous appearance in the final game.

In later years, Rieko Kodama continued her work on the Phantasy Star series.

Rieko Kodama again led the graphic design for Phantasy Star II and later directed Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium.

Rieko Kodama helped during the planning stages of Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom.

Rieko Kodama supervised the development of two Phantasy Star Collection compilations as well as remakes of Phantasy Star and Phantasy Star II for the PlayStation 2.

Beyond working on the Phantasy Star series during the Sega Genesis years, Rieko Kodama created artwork for other Sega games including Mega Drive versions of Sorcerian, SpellCaster, Altered Beast, Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle, Mystic Defender, Shadow Dancer: The Secret of Shinobi, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

Rieko Kodama was involved in all aspects of the game including sales and marketing.

Rieko Kodama soon became a producer at the Sega Wow division and led the development of Skies of Arcadia, which released for the Dreamcast in 2000.

Rieko Kodama has stated that Skies of Arcadia along with the Phantasy Star series were her favorite projects she worked on.

Rieko Kodama has garnered recognition as one of the first female video game developers.

Rieko Kodama believed that women are gradually taking a greater interest in gaming.

Rieko Kodama has observed that more girls are growing up around games, and thus are more willing to purchase them or enter the industry when older.

Rieko Kodama thought it's more common for Japanese women to enter the field than other women because young girls enjoy games there more than in other countries.

Rieko Kodama claimed that many games glorify violence and war which attracts male players overwhelmingly, so companies should be mindful and include elements that appeal to both genders if they want a larger female player base.

Rieko Kodama received the Pioneer Award for the 2018 Game Developers Choice Awards for her long career as a graphic artist, director and producer on numerous Sega titles.

Rieko Kodama enjoyed the way dragons are portrayed with different personalities in western fantasy, which is different from dragons in Japanese culture.

Rieko Kodama said that her favorite video game was Final Fantasy IV.