![]() It's directly influenced his work on the Gravity Rush series and the upcoming Slitterhead. Even after all this time, he finds Noge exciting. Toyama moved to Yokohama – the second largest city in the country by population and part of the Greater Tokyo Area – after Silent Hill came out in 1999. It's more about the atmosphere of these places." ![]() I'm not a big alcohol lover in terms of I don't really care about the taste. It is, put bluntly, a perfect place to come and get drunk with friends, filling your stomach with as much alcohol and grease as your body can handle. ![]() Customers laugh drunkenly, and the staff runs around frantically yelling to the cooks in the back while running out orders. The restaurant is loud but in a friendly way. A mix of beef, lamb, and cooked vegetables comes out for us all to share. We huddle around our tiny table while older men chain-smoke cigarettes and drink beers. Toyama takes me to Pio City to visit an izakaya – or an all-you-can-eat-and-drink bar. It's like we’ve been transported back to the 1990s, as if time stopped below the modern streets above our heads. The yellowed walls and slick tile floors feel familiar, if a little dirty. It feels spat out of a different era – mainly because it is. And now he truly seems in his element.Īn hour earlier, we were talking in the smoky, boozy halls of Sakuragicho Pio City, an underground shopping mall right next to Sakuragicho Station. Toyama is darting – somewhat carelessly – across the streets of Noge, Yokohama, taking pictures of whatever he finds interesting while Bokeh PR and business development manager and translator William Yohei Hart and myself try to keep up. Running Through The Streets With Keiichiro Toyama RUNNING THROUGH THE STREETS WITH KEIICHIRO TOYAMA For three days, I spend time with Toyama, concept artist Miki Takahashi, and renowned composer Akira Yamaoka in vastly different parts of Tokyo, learning about the city's ever-changing face, what they love and what they miss, and how decades of living here have influenced their works all the way up to Slitterhead.įirst stop: a former black-market and well-known place to drink the night away. This time, it's through the lens of one single developer: Bokeh. I'm in Japan to learn about just that how where you live affects what you make. Something like Gravity Rush – with its unforgettable, topsy-turvy, boozy, and somewhat seedy world – makes a lot more sense to me now. He's been living in Yokohama for decades, he tells me. Tucked within the immensely larger Tokyo surrounding them, these areas have their own distinct senses of space, much like the worlds of Toyama's games. ![]() In an hour or two, we'll walk a few blocks over and hit the nightlife and drinking alleys. It's also distinct compared to the more modern, formulaic streets immediately above our heads. Mixed with pounds of nicotine, the air in the bar is communal and light. I'm here with Keiichiro Toyama, most well-known for creating the Silent Hill series, but also the creator of the Siren and Gravity Rush series, and most recently, the founder of Bokeh Game Studio, making the upcoming Slitterhead.Ī cramped, old, smoky bar in a shopping mall deep beneath a Yokohama train station might not immediately appear conducive to game development, but things are starting to click in my head. I'm two floors below ground, surrounded by screaming drunks and breathing in enough secondhand smoke to take at least a decade off my life. ![]()
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