Level-5 CEO says the Inazuma Eleven JRPG series is successful because it never tried to look “cool” to adults

Commemorating the success of Level-5’s recent titles Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time and Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road, the company’s president and CEO Akihiro Hino was recently interviewed by sports journalist and manga artist Naohiko Ueno (published via Yahoo News Japan). Notably, Hino talked about the “real” origins of Inazuma Eleven and what he considers the reasons for the franchise’s enduring popularity.

Riding out over ten delay announcements since its initial reveal nine years prior, the Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road project was inevitably subject to accumulated criticism and disappointment from fans, who grew frustrated with every extra year of development added to the long wait. However, Hino considers that the criticism came precisely from the high expectations fans have for the series, and this certainly doesn’t seem off the mark considering Victory Road debuted at the top of Steam’s global top sellers (for a symbolic eleven consecutive days, no less) and went on to sell over 800,000 copies worldwide.

As for why Inazuma Eleven has retained so much passion from its fanbase since the franchise’s inception 17 years ago, Hino explains using a rather unusual Santa Claus analogy. “When you’re a child, you possess the power to truly believe that Santa Claus exists. You don’t question why Santa exists or where he comes from. You just believe in the sole fact that Santa comes to your house, leaves you the loveliest of presents, and returns home.”

According to Hino, Inazuma Eleven is designed to offer players something similar. “You have soccer players flying through the air, performing tricks, and charging right at you, but you don’t stop to question whether that’s physically possible or not. In typical works, the more outlandish elements are dialed down so they don’t look tacky to adults. But since Inazuma Eleven is aimed squarely at kids, at precisely that moment in their lives, there are plenty of things that seem completely crazy to adults.” Naohiko Ueno describes this as Level-5’s “unwavering belief in the sensibilities of children.”

In this vein, Hino also mentions that Inazuma Victory didn’t originate from the idea of creating a soccer game, but from the idea of recreating the thrill of shonen manga through the video game medium. “For me, it wasn’t so much about sports as it was about boys clashing with their respective convictions. Whether it was soccer or basketball or something else, the medium didn’t really matter to me. Even while working on Inazuma Eleven, rather than pursuing the realism of soccer, I thought ‘let’s go for a Dragon Ball approach.’ There are groups of friends, opponents with different ways of thinking, and a clash of passions. We set that dynamic against the backdrop of soccer. From an adult’s perspective, the flashy presentation and show-like effects might seem ridiculous, but that’s exactly what captured the hearts of children.”