Shigenori Soejima

Shigenori Soejima
Native name 副島 成記
Born (1974-02-24) February 24, 1974
Kanagawa Prefecture
Nationality Japanese
Occupation Video game artist
Notable work Persona series, Catherine

Shigenori Soejima (副島 成記 Soejima Shigenori, born February 24, 1974) is a Japanese video game artist working for Atlus. Inspired in his work as an artist from an early age, he initially worked in minor roles on several games after joining Atlus. His first major work as an artist was on the strategy role-playing game Stella Deus: The Gate of Eternity. He has most notably worked on the Persona series, taking over as main character designer from his mentor Kazuma Kaneko for Persona 3 onwards.

Biography and career

Soejima was born in Kanagawa Prefecture, though his family moved quite often during his childhood due to his father's office work: a month after his birth, his family moved to Machida, Tokyo, and in future moves relocated Fukuoka Prefecture, then back to Machida and then to Suginami. During his time in Fukuoka, Soejima attended kindergarten school. While there, he developed a taste for drawing and practiced his skills by copying the characters from Doraemon, a manga series of which he was fond. As his family went through further moves while he was attending first-grade elementary school, he found the frequent changes in his environment unsettling, and became slightly introverted due to not being able to make friends. His drawing became a conciliatory activity during this period. For these early drawings, Soejima used a notepad and ballpoint pens. Eventually, he made some friends in elementary school, who shared his enthusiasm for Doraemon and encouraged him in his pursuit of a career as a cartoonist.[1]

During junior high, Soejima developed a love of video games of the time: one of the games he saw was Shin Megami Tensei II, which was recommended to him by a friend. This, and seeing the detailed animation in Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, helped influence his future ambitions and character design. Upon recommendation, he entered Tama University after completing his junior high education, earning high marks. While there, he began experimenting with painting alongside his cartoons, now wanting to pursue a career as an animator and character designer. In his second year, he was working part-time and used his wages to buy his first PC to play games, which would prove a great influence for him. During his third year in high school, he began dedicated training in painting at Tokyo University of the Arts, then later gained a place at the Illustration Department of the Tokyo Design Academy after failing to qualify for a place at an arts college. It was at this point that he decided to pursue a professional career in illustration. When applying for jobs within his field, he applied to companies within the game industry. During his interview for a job with Atlus, he first encountered Kazuma Kaneko, the main artistic director at Atlus. After impressing Kaneko with his attitude and enthusiasm, Soejima got a job as one of the artists under Kaneko's supervision.[1][2]

His first job at Atlus was creating sprite stamps for Atlus and Sega's Purikura Photo Booth. The project was not a great success, and Soejima's next several projects involved minor work under Kaneko. In this capacity, he worked on Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner, Revelations: Persona and Kartia: The Word of Fate, alongside minor roles in overseeing the PlayStation ports of the first three Shin Megami Tensei games. He acted as sub-character designer for Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers, the Persona 2 games Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment, and was involved in graphics work on Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne. His first job as art director and character designer was on Atlus' PlayStation 2 strategy game Stella Deus: The Gate of Eternity. Having eagerly pursued the job after hearing about it from rumors within the company, he was initially overwhelmed as he had a large amount of work to do on the title and had yet to refine his drawing style. By looking back at the days when he drew for fun, he managed to establish his drawing style.[2]

For Persona 3, Kaneko put Soejima in charge of art direction for the Persona series, as Kaneko wanted Soejima to grow as a designer.[3] In a later interview, Soejima said that while he respected and admired Kaneko, he never consciously imitated the latter's work, and eventually settled into the role of pleasing the fans of the Persona series, approaching character designs with the idea of creating something new rather than referring back to Kaneko's work.[4] Soejima felt a degree of pressure when designing the characters as he did not want to disappoint the series' fanbase. The goal was to make Megami Tensei fans feel gratified that they had supported the Persona series. Soejima returned to design the character Metis for Persona 3 FES.[2] He returned in these roles for the future console and portable Persona games, as well as the 2011 video game Catherine.[5][6][7][8]

Design and influences

Several influences on Soejima's design and career were the work of Fujiko Fujio, the manga and anime franchise Patlabor, and video games such as Street Fighter II.[1] For his character designs, Soejima uses real people he has met or seen, looking at what their appearance says about their personality. If his designs come to close to the people he has seen, he does a rough sketch while keeping the personality of the person in mind.[9] For his work on Stella Deus, Soejima used brushes to achieve the right feel for the game's fantasy setting. While he started with brushes for Persona 3, he felt it did not work with the setting, so switched to cel-shading. He used cel-shading from the outset for Persona 4.[2]

His designs for Persona 3 and Persona 4 vary significantly: he thought of Persona 3 as being similar in aesthetic to a fantastical manga, citing its use of mecha-like Persona and Mitsuru's flamboyant styling, while the setting of Persona 4 meant its environment and character designs were a lot more grounded.[2] Persona 5 was, in Soejima's view, a natural evolution from the art style of Persona 4.[8] For his work on Persona Q, his first time working with a deformed Chibi style due to its links with the Etrian Odyssey series, Soejima took into account what fans felt about the characters. A crucial part of his design technique was looking at what made a character stand out, then adjusting those features so they remained recognizable even with the redesign.[6][9]

During his work on the Persona series, Soejima has used key colors to help illustrate the games' aesthetics and themes. For example, Persona 3 had a dark atmosphere and serious characters, so the primary color was chosen as blue to reflect these and the urban setting. In contrast, Persona 4 had a lighter tone and characters while also sporting a murder-mystery plot, so the color yellow was chosen to represent both the lighter tones and to evoke a "warning" signal. Persona 5 used the color red to convey a harsh feeling in contrast to the previous Persona titles and tie in with the game's story themes.[9][10] In his time working on the Persona series, Soejima has come to think of Persona 3 as his favorite entry in the series, with one of its main characters Aigis being his favorite character overall.[9]

Works

Title Release System or media Credit(s)
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner 1995 Sega Saturn Sprite designer[2]
Revelations: Persona 1996 PlayStation Movie editor, colorist[2]
Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers 1997 Sega Saturn Sub-character and main character portrait designer, item graphics[2]
Kartia: The Word of Fate 1998 PlayStation Item graphics[2]
Persona 2: Innocent Sin 1999 PlayStation Sub-character and main character portrait designer, environment graphics designer, character model (Garcon Soejima)[2][11]
Persona 2: Eternal Punishment 2000 PlayStation Sub-character and main character portrait designer, environment graphics designer, character model (Garcon Soejima)[2][11]
Shin Megami Tensei 2001 PlayStation Quality control[2]
Shin Megami Tensei II 2002 PlayStation Quality control[2]
Shin Megami Tensei If... 2002 PlayStation Quality control[2]
Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne 2003 PlayStation 2 World concept, event production, looping editor[2]
Stella Deus: The Gate of Eternity 2004 PlayStation 2 Art director, character designer[2]
Haisenjyou no Aria 2004 Novel Illustrator[2]
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 2006 PlayStation 2 Art director, character designer[2]
Persona 3 FES 2007 PlayStation 2 Art director, character designer[2]
Another Century's Episode 3: The Final 2007 PlayStation 2 Original character designer[2]
Persona: Trinity Soul 2008 Anime Character designer (with Yuriko Ishii)[12][13]
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 2009 PlayStation 2 Art director, character designer[2]
Persona 3 Portable 2009 PlayStation Portable Main character designer[2]
Momoiro Taisen Pairon 2009 Browser Character designer[2]
Catherine 2011 PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 Art director, character designer[14]
Persona 4 Golden 2012 PlayStation Vita Character designer[15]
Persona 4 Arena 2012 Arcade, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 Art director, character designer[5]
Persona 4 Arena Ultimax 2013 Arcade, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 Art director, character designer[5]
Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth 2014 Nintendo 3DS Art director, character designer[6]
Persona 4: Dancing All Night 2015 PlayStation Vita Art director, character designer[7]
Persona 5 2016 PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 Character designer[8]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Abe, Mika (2008). PlayStation.com(Japan)/PS World/インタビュー 副島成記さん (in Japanese). PlayStation Japan. Archived from the original on 2008-07-24. Retrieved 2015-06-06.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 "Shigenori Soejima Interview". Shigenori Soejima Art Works 2004-2010. Udon Entertainment. 2010-07-01. pp. 145–153. ISBN 978-1926778327. Transcript
  3. ↑ Kemps, Heidi (August 2008). "Game King: An Interview with Kazuma Kaneko". Otaku USA. Sovereign Media (Vol. 2, Issue 1): 120–123. Scans
  4. ↑ Patterson, Eric L.; Kohama, Dai (2008). "The horrors of reality TV... Persona 4". Play. Fusion Publishing (December 2008). Scans
  5. 1 2 3 副島成記氏描き下ろしの鳴上悠（主人公）＆足立透が目印！　4月2日発売の『P4U』＆『P4U2』公式設定資料集のカバーイラスト大公開!!. Famitsu. 2015-03-14. Archived from the original on 2015-05-21. Retrieved 2015-08-15.
  6. 1 2 3 Parish, Jeremy (2014-10-17). "How You Helped Design Persona Q". USGamer. Archived from the original on 2015-04-16. Retrieved 2015-06-06.
  7. 1 2 「P4D」 本日発売！スペシャルに「オープニングムービー」＆「P4D発売記念イラスト　副島成記」追加！. Persona Website. 2015-06-25. Archived from the original on 2015-08-15. Retrieved 2015-08-15.
  8. 1 2 3 James, Thomas (2015-03-06). "Japanese Persona Magazine interviews Atlus staff on Persona 5, Dancing All Night [Update]". Gematsu. Archived from the original on 2015-03-17. Retrieved 2015-03-17.
  9. 1 2 3 4 Wallace, Kimberley (2014-07-18). "A Glimpse Into The Mind of Persona's Art Director". Game Informer. Archived from the original on 2014-11-10. Retrieved 2015-06-06.
  10. ↑ Romano, Sal (2011-02-05). "Persona 5 is a game about attaining freedom". Gematsu. Archived from the original on 2015-03-19. Retrieved 2014-09-05.
  11. 1 2 ペルソナ2罪 公式ガイドブック 完全版 [Persona 2: Sin Official Guide Book (full version)]. Atlus. 1999. p. 269. ISBN 978-4-7577-0081-9.
  12. ↑ "Persona 3 Game Adapted as Television Anime for January". Anime News Network. 2007-11-07. Archived from the original on 2015-04-12. Retrieved 2007-11-07.
  13. ↑ 『ペルソナ3』から10年後の世界を舞台にしたアニメ『PERSONA-trinity soul-』が制作開始! (in Japanese). Famitsu. 2007-11-07. Archived from the original on 2013-09-14. Retrieved 2007-11-15.
  14. ↑ 『キャサリン』の公式サイトで副島氏描き下ろしの店舗別特典イラストが公開. Famitsu. 2011-01-25. Archived from the original on 2011-12-01. Retrieved 2015-08-15.
  15. ↑ 『ペルソナ4 ザ・ゴールデン』新要素が多数！新キャラ「マリー」も登場. Gpara.com. 2011-09-08. Archived from the original on 2013-05-15. Retrieved 2015-08-15.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 12/2/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.