Koji Igarashi (五十嵐 孝司) is a Japanese video game producer, programmer, writer, and creative director.
1968
Koji Igarashi was born in the Fukushima Prefecture on March 17, 1968.
His father was a lumberjack.
Igarashi had an interest in becoming a carpenter and later to be an artist.
As a teenager, he would explore the nearby Komine Castle with a camcorder.
His first experience with video games was Atari's tennis game Pong at age 10, and an arcade game Crazy Climber two years later led him to want to design games.
He taught himself the computer program languages BASIC and assembly language, and designed amateur games.
While attending university, he received a job offer from the company Grafika, which he had to turn down as he did not wish to work there.
He accepted the next job offer, which was at Konami.
After graduating from college, Igarashi began working at Konami.
His first project was working as a programmer for a simulation game for the Educational Software department.
The game would be a business simulation, and the team took inspiration from the Fire Emblem series, but after 12 months the game was cancelled.
He moved to the Consumer division and worked on enemy programming for the PC Engine version of Detana!! Twinbee.
He worked as a programmer and was tasked with writing the story for Tokimeki Memorial, a dating sim for the PC Engine's Super CD-ROM² System.
His girlfriend at the time, later wife, was an employee at Konami working on Castlevania: Rondo of Blood.
She gave him advice on how to write the story to Tokimeki Memorial, and he would play Rondo of Blood during breaks.
Igarashi informed his boss that he had no desire to work on a sequel to Tokimeki Memorial, and requested a departmental transfer.
The strong sales of the game prompted his boss to agree, and Igarashi asked to join the Castlevania development team.
Igarashi began working on a Castlevania game set for the Sega 32X.
However, the game was cancelled as Konami shifted its focus away from the unsuccessful 32X and towards the PlayStation.
Igarashi's next project was the PlayStation game Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, where he worked on scenario writing and programming.
Halfway through the game's production, director Toru Hagihara received a company promotion, which promoted Igarashi to assistant director to complete the game.
The game was well received critically, later serving as an influence on the "Metroidvania" genre, though it did not translate into strong sales.
1990
Often credited as IGA, he began his career by joining Konami in 1990 as a programmer.
Over the next ten years, he moved into a senior role within the company, working on Castlevania: Symphony of the Night as a programmer, writer, and assistant director.
1993
Following that, Igarashi served as the producer for Castlevania Chronicles, which was a PlayStation port of a 1993 Sharp X68000 game.
From there, he was the producer and writer for Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance, the second Castlevania title for the Game Boy Advance.
The goal was to attempt to create a game similar to Symphony of the Night.
This included bringing back artist Ayami Kojima as character designer, who had previously worked on Symphony of the Night.
Igarashi felt that the previous title, Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, was too dark on the Game Boy Advance's screen, so he felt the need to make the game brighter.
During his time at Konami, Igarashi is often seen wearing a cowboy hat and brandishing a leather whip which he brings along with him to media events such as the Electronic Entertainment Expo.
1999
He later served as the lead producer on the Castlevania series, starting with Castlevania Chronicles in 1999 and ending with Castlevania: Harmony of Despair in 2011.
During his time with Konami, he was also involved in other titles, such as Nano Breaker and Tokimeki Memorial.
2000
After the release of Symphony of the Night, Igarashi was director for the 2000 PlayStation role-playing game Elder Gate.
Igarashi says that he was motivated to create the game because he had played other heavy story driven games and after a long break had lost motivation to continue.
He says he wanted to make a game that could be played at any time, and could feel fresh every time you played it.
He wanted each player to have their own unique experience when playing the game.
The game received a 22 out of 40 score from the magazine Famitsu.
2009
In 2009, he was chosen by IGN as one of the top 100 game creators of all time.
2014
In 2014, Igarashi left Konami to later become the co-founder of Artplay who in June 2019 released Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, a spiritual successor to the Castlevania series.
