{"id":49370,"date":"2025-06-24T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-24T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=49370"},"modified":"2025-06-25T10:07:17","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T01:07:17","slug":"shin-megami-tensei-artist-kazuma-kaneko-reveals-he-left-atlus-10-years-ago-to-pursue-mobile-game-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/shin-megami-tensei-artist-kazuma-kaneko-reveals-he-left-atlus-10-years-ago-to-pursue-mobile-game-development\/","title":{"rendered":"Shin Megami Tensei artist Kazuma Kaneko reveals he left Atlus 10 years ago to pursue mobile game development\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Last year, Japanese mobile game developer COLOPL announced that Atlus veteran Kazuma Kaneko had joined their ranks as of 2023. However, it wasn\u2019t clear at what point Kaneko officially left Atlus or why he\u2019d suddenly decided to step into the mobile game industry instead. In a recent interview with <a href=\"https:\/\/cgworld.jp\/article\/202506-tsukuyomi.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">CGworld<\/a>, the Shin Megami Tensei and Persona artist shed some light on his activities in the past few years.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to Kaneko, it\u2019s been almost 10 years since he left Atlus. Before joining Colopl, he initially joined another game company he doesn\u2019t name. Apparently, Kaneko struggled to get any projects off the ground while he was there.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1482\" height=\"838\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1482px) 100vw, 1482px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/20250624-49370-001JPG.jpg\" alt=\"Shin Megami Tensei art by Kazuma Kaneko\" class=\"wp-image-49380\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/20250624-49370-001JPG.jpg 1482w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/20250624-49370-001JPG-380x215.jpg 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/20250624-49370-001JPG-768x434.jpg 768w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cTo begin with, I don\u2019t know much about other game companies. I was familiar with some of the major ones, but going to one of them was not an option I considered. That\u2019s why I decided to use a job-hunting agency. Then, a few hours after I registered, I got a bunch of offers at once, and one of them was from Colopl.\u201d Kaneko doesn\u2019t explain why switching to another big game company wasn\u2019t on his list, but he implies that he needed an environment where he could freely pursue his interest in mobile game development.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s already been around 20 years since then, but when I first saw the iPhone, I thought, \u2018This is crazy\u2019. It felt less like a phone and more like a portable PC. In fact, many PC games ended up being ported to it. It felt fundamentally different from the flip-phone games of the time.\u201d Apparently, Kaneko had already formed an interest in mobile games at that point, but as he was working in the console game industry, he found it difficult to push his ideas.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Moving to development for handheld consoles wasn\u2019t \u201cit\u201d for Kaneko either, as he was eager to make games that use network connectivity and the latest technology of smartphones. \u201cMy previous company had titles that incorporated online features and tech, but I never got the chance to work on those projects. That\u2019s part of why I was looking for an environment where I could actually do the kind of work I wanted to do.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1201\" height=\"663\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1201px) 100vw, 1201px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/20250501-47673-002.webp\" alt=\"Tsukuyomi: The Divine Hunter\" class=\"wp-image-49381\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/20250501-47673-002.webp 1201w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/20250501-47673-002-380x210.webp 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/20250501-47673-002-768x424.webp 768w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>After joining Colopl, Kaneko immediately got the opportunity to launch his own project, and he pitched Tsukuyomi: The Divine Hunter. The game (now out for PC, iOS and Android) started out as an RPG \u2013a genre Kaneko is used to, but gradually evolved into a roguelike deckbuilder<a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/shin-megami-tensei-artist-kazuma-kaneko-says-teaching-ai-to-draw-like-him-was-more-time-consuming-than-making-art-from-scratch\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"> with generative AI elements<\/a> as the rest of Colopl\u2019s staff got involved.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kazuma Kaneko shares deeper insight about why he left Atlus, what he&#8217;s been doing for the past decade, and why he&#8217;s chosen mobile games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":49379,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-49370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - 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Currently devoted to growing Automaton West to the size of its Japanese sister-site, while making sure to keep news concise and developer stories deep and stimulating.","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/author\/amber-vjestica\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49370"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49401,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49370\/revisions\/49401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}