Special Interview Project #1: Looking Back on 20 YEARS OF .hack with the Creator and Member who had launched the Series (.hack//20th Anniversary Book TRANSLATION)

Please read this before you start reading: This is a medium-translation level, which is not a much higher standard level than how it was translated, especially how this translation uses translators and adds a few edits to match English viewers' understanding, but hoping this would help viewers to understand what contents and information based on it mean. If any translator is willing to help me with corrections I would appreciate their contribution and their help for this article.

Disclaimer: The following article is a non-profit fan translation, all .hack title series are owned by CyberConnect 2 and Bandai Namco Entertainment, please buy .hack//20th Anniversary Book and support the official release!!!. You can buy it on Amazon or any online store.

.hack//20th Anniversary Book -Interview- Translation
(P.124-127)
Special Interview Project #1
Listen to President Matsuyama

LOOKING BACK on 20 years of .hack with the CREATORS and MEMBER who had launched the series 

Niizato-san, who launched the ".hack" project with President Matsuyama, and Anai-san, who has been leading the project for 20 years, talked about the 20-year history of ".hack".

Hiroto Niizoto

One of the founding members of CyberConnect2 Co.Ltd. He has been involved in the .hack series since the beginning and was in charge of the planning, storyline, and direction for .hack//, .hack//G.U., and .hack//Link. He has also supervised various related works and currently working as a game designer advisor and director of FUGA: Melodies of Steel.

Akihiro Anai

He was the Motion Director for .hack//G.U. and the Art Director for .hack//Link and .hack//Versus. he also worked as a director for Guilty Dragon: The Dragon Sins and Eight Curses and .hack//New World. He is currently working as a producer and director for various related work titles and has been involved in .hack // G.U. Last Recode for Nintendo Switch as a director.

Looking Back on 20 Years of .hack

Matsuyama: First of all, I would like to talk to Niizato-san, who has been involved in the .hack series since the beginning, and Anai-san, who has been involved in .hack//G.U. Can you give us your impressions about .hack over the past 20 years?

Niizato: When we started planning and developing .hack, our biggest concern was that people would not accept the idea of an online game. At that time, online games were just starting to become popular, and the game market was only enjoyed by a core group of players. I wasn't sure if users would be interested in this theme, but Final Fantasy XI was released just at that time. 

Matsuyama: That was a great coincidence.

Niizato: I think we were very lucky. Online games have spread rapidly since then, and now the online aspect has become commonplace. I would never have imagined this situation 20 years ago, so I am amazed that we live in such an era, and I still think it was very good that I was able to create my work with a certain level of vision.

Matsuyama: Although Anai-san was not involved in the development of the MUJI (the original .hack//Games or .hack//IMOQ), I believe he saw it as a player, so I would like to ask you to reflect on the past 20 years, including that time period.

Anai: When I was playing MUJI as a player, I never dreamed that I would be able to be involved in .hack games in this way. I know it's a bit of a cliché, but when I look back on it, it really happened in the blink of an eye. Personally, I still have the feeling that .hack//G.U. is not that old, but it has been around for a long time. But I think that's because of the fan books and events that have been held from time to time.

Matsuyama: We have done a lot of things at each turning point.

Anai: I have played nine titles at CyberConnect2, six of which are ".hack" titles. I feel as if it is a part of me that I have been working with them since I joined the company. I hope that this feeling won't change, it is something that I can continue to do with my fans in the future.

How did the .hack series project get started?

   Treasure Hacker image illustration

Matsuyama: It seems like we've suddenly come to the end of the interview (laughs). .hack has taken many forms, but let's start by asking about how you started this project in the first place. It was right after we finished Silent Bomber for PlayStation. We borrowed a PlayStation 2 development machine from Bandai and spent three to four months from October 1999 making a prototype, which became the start development process for .hack.

Niizato: That's right. At the time, the project was called "Treasure Hacker," but it was initially called "Moon Crow," and the theme was not an online game but a thief game. The original titles we had developed for the PlayStation until then, Tail Concerto and Silent Bomber did not sell well, to be honest.

Matsuyama: So it was also a last chance for the company.

Niizato: With all the pressure we were under, we had to think hard and came up with two ideas. One was the basis for Treasure Hacker, and the other was an idea for a fantasy game with a talking sword that would grow as it ate various things. When I presented the idea to the president, I remember he said, "Online stories would be more interesting, but it's a lot of work to make them." It was a lot of work, but I'm still glad we chose "Treasure Hacker" because it was an interesting theme and I was interested in it.

Matsuyama: At that time, there was a major change in the structure of Bandai's video game division, and although we had many plans, we were told by Bandai that we would have to do something completely new in order to sell our products. We began analyzing the market, and with the advent of Dreamcast and PlayStation 2, we decided to focus on online games because the time was right for people to be exposed to online games on game consoles at home.

Niizato: The project started out as an RPG to solve a mystery that was hidden in an online game, both in the game and in real life, and to make it a project that people could enjoy for a long time.

Matsuyama: We were very positive about it, but the higher-ups at that time were very clear about it: "It's not easy for a small developer to sell an original title, so it's better to start by making games based on manga works. A certain manga work that has recently started will surely grow in the future, so you should make a game of it." But in the end, I turned down his proposal and asked him to be stubborn with .hack, the "Treasure Hacker" at that time.

Niizato: In that sense, the pressure was great.

Matsuyama: But what was amazing were Bandai's producers at the time, Shin Unozawa-san and Daisuke Uchiyama-san. They were able to match us with famous screenwriters and character designers to create new IP (Intellectual Property). That is how ".hack" was born. The four-volume MUJI, the two-disc set of the animation and game, and a sales price that was 1,000 yen less than the standard software at the time were all part of Bandai's strategy.

Niizato: At the beginning, there was no talk of a four-volume series. I was really surprised when Unozawa-san came to me with a smiling face and told me that he was going to make it a four-volume story and sell it as a set with the OVA. We had to rewrite a story that was supposed to be 20 hours long, the volume of one game, in order to make it into a four-volume set, which was a lot of work at the time.

Matsuyama: Of course, the production side did their best, but it was by exchanging ideas with the production side that ".hack" became a unique work, and I think it became a project that everyone could look back upon. At the time, we were meeting at Bandai's office near Shinjuku with Kazunori Ito-san, the screenwriter, with myself, Niizato-san, and Uchiyama-san to discuss the game script, and every once in a while Unozawa-san would come in, say something big, and leave.

Niizato: That's right. At that time, we did not yet have a Tokyo studio, and I came to Tokyo once every two weeks.

Matsuyama: Ito-san has an interesting way of creating a script. He folds a piece of paper in half three times and then unfolds it to create each stage of the story in eight squares separated by folds. In manga and films, we call it a three-arc plot, but anime and games can't be finished in two hours, so we had to keep the plot within a larger volume. If you want to create a subtext, you must have an eight-story arc structure.

Niizato: So at first, the keywords "Infection," "Expansion," "Malignancy," and "Mutation" were written in 8-Story Arc, right?

Matsuyama: Yes, that's right. So when Unozawa-san asked me to make a four-volume, I combined the two chapters into one package, such as infection and expansion, malignant and mutation, and so on. This became the subtitle of the "Mujirushi" (.hack//IMOQ) series as a result. Only the keywords for volume 4 were slightly different, but "Infection Expansion," "Malignant Mutation," and "Invasive Contamination" were the same as the first keywords, and the story composition of the completed script was the same as the story composition for the first 8 story arc. 

Niizato: It is, and the change to a four-volume format was one thing, but the fact that the game and animation were sold as a set was also a surprise at the time. 

Matsuyama: In 2000, PlayStation 2 was released, and while it made a strong debut as a game console, it was also very popular as a DVD player. The DVD of "The Matrix" released the year before had sold 800,000 copies in Japan alone, and watching anime and movies on game consoles had become commonplace. Seeing this situation, Unozawa-san decided to create a new experience by adding an OVA episode to each of the four-game volumes. This led to the animated television series ".hack//SIGN" and the manga ".hack//Legend of the Twilight".

Niizato: Making a manga was not a simple task either.

Matsuyama: That's right. We were told that we had already been told the story. Still, we were told that we couldn't do Shonen Ace, so we were introduced to the magazine, Comptiq, which was at the time making the transition from an underground magazine to a more general entertainment-oriented magazine, and we agreed to cooperate if we could work together on a new project. The series began. While so-called multimedia development itself was not uncommon, such as simultaneous and multiple activities were rare. As a result, the game became a worldwide hit, including in Japan and the U.S. In the midst of this, the .hack//G.U. Project began to move forward. 

Niizato: The outline of the game is completed in 2002 when we were working on Vol. 3 of "Mujirushi". We were talking about how .hack" should be developed in 2006 in anticipation of another three years of development.

Did you join the company as an Animator?

Matsuyama: In "Mujirushi" (Original .hack games or .hack//IMOQ), the main character, Kite, is the same as the player, and the main character is often divided into a Final Fantasy type or a Dragon Quest type. We've tried to keep them from talking on their own. So what's next is the opposite: we're going to create a character that allows the user to create a secondary character, and we're going to do it in a totally chuunibyou style.

Niizato: Kite never really came to the top in the popularity polls, because he wasn't in the forefront of the story. So we talked about how we wanted to make the next .hack main character so that it would win first place, and Haseo was conscious of that aspect of the game.

Matsuyama: The fact that .hack//G.U. is a three-volume series is also a reflection of the "Mujirushi" series. People can follow the story up to the second run, but the fourth run after the third can be a bit sluggish, and many people tend to stop after the third run in the original game. Because we thought that if we made a peak at the second game, people would be willing to play through to the third. as a result ".hack//G.U." became a three-volume series, and master timing changed from every three months to every four months, It has been another intense year. What was the status of .hack//G.U. when Anai-san join the company?

Anai: It was 2004, and we were discussing how to present ".hack//G.U." at the following year's E3 (*). When I was playing Mujirushi as a player, I was dissatisfied with the game because I had always loved online games. When I was assigned a project, I thought, "Nothing has been decided yet," but on the other hand, I was happy because I was free to do what I wanted to do.

Matsuyama: At that time, we were taking a lot of time to dig into setting up the world and characters, so we had hardly finished anything at that point. So we worked together with Anai-san and the other members who had joined us at that time to make the game in a hurry (laughs). Although the "three-year development period" gives the impression that we were working on the project for three years, that was not the case.

Anai: That's right. In the beginning, we were working on the script, design, and gameplay systems, and it was often difficult to see the whole picture of the development process.

Matsuyama: Do you remember your first job when you started working on the project?

Anai: I joined the company as a motion animator, and the first thing I was assigned to do was modeling. There was a goblin designed by (Seiichiro Hosokawa) who was the only modeler on the project, but there were no models to create motion, so I said, "Well, I'll make it myself," and that was my first job (laughs).

Tokio was originally named as Peta!?

Matsuyama: That's just like us (laughs). After going through such a prototype period, in 2006, .hack//G.U. Vol.1 Rebirth was released, and from there, the series was released every four months, but the .hack//G.U. project is also running simultaneously with the anime film .hack//G.U. TRILOGY and .hack//Link for PSP are also in the making. Do you remember the beginning development process of ".hack//Link"?

Niizato: First of all, the concept of the game was to change the tone of the game from .hack//G.U. and expand the target audience. The idea was to make the game a little more casual so that more people would know about it since the previous direction was too maniacal. So we had to think strategically about how to make the characters with pop style while still allowing the viewer to experience the original era. It was also a big challenge (laughs).

Matsuyama: We talked about the fact that the previous ".hack" games, especially .hack//G.U. had a revenge theme, and although people liked them, but, they didn't have a brightness that everyone could appreciate. We started the project with the idea of creating a title that would be a culmination of all of the series' works, with the main character, Tokio, being born from the perspective of attracting new, younger fans. .hack// was a four-volume series, and .hack//G.U. was a three-volume series, so it was inevitable that it would take three years, but we planned to make .hack//Link in a year and a half so that the entire game could be played in one volume, but it ended up taking three years.

Niizato: The amount of scenarios was too big.

Matsuyama: That's right. That's why we couldn't release American and European versions. The difference in PSP sales between Japan and overseas was also a miscalculation. What was your position with .hack//Link?

Anai: I was the art director for .hack//Link. After I had been with the company for quite some time, I began to direct all of the artwork. It was a lot of work, and it never seemed to end, but it was interesting. The entrance to the project was completely different from the previous ones, and there were a lot of strange ideas in a good sense that only Niizato-san could have come up with. Tokio also had a different name at first.

Peta initial design plan  

Matsuyama: At first, we named the character "Peta" to represent a member of the digital native generation, but neither Kite nor Haseo had that kind of name, so we ended up changing it. If you dig up the old setting materials (see .hack//Archive 04 -.hack//Link-), you will find that some of the names were written as "Peta".

Niizato: Mega, Giga, and Tera are commonly used, but Peta is very uncommon. So we went too far ahead (laughs).

Anai: But Peta's design was modeled after the main character in Guilty Dragon, so in a way, it is a revival.

What is your most memorable experience in the past 20 years?

Matsuyama: In 2010, the OVAs .hack//Quantum and .hack//Link were released, and in 2012, the theatrical version of .hack//Sekai no Mukou Ni was released. Versus was also released exclusively on the Blu-ray version, which you can run on your PlayStation 3, and a fan disc with the movie was released as well. From there, you've developed the titles you just mentioned, such as Guilty Dragon and .hack//New World, but looking back, what do you remember the most?

Niizato: We produced .hack//G.U. TRILOGY as a 3DCG animation, didn't we? We held a screening for fans in Fukuoka at the time, and I believe it was the first time for me to see so many real ".hack" fans filling the auditorium (laughs).

Matsuyama: Oh, come on! (Laughs) But I think I may have the same feeling too.

Niizato: I was really impressed by the fact that I could actually see and feel that there were so many fans who were interested to see this work.

Matsuyama: Of course, there were people waiting in line to try out .hack at the events like the Tokyo Game Show, but at most, there were a few dozen people. The .hack//G.U TRILOGY screening event was held at Yasuda Seimei Hall, a 400-seat venue. It was Cyber Connect2's first attempt at a screening, and we signed a contract with Bandai's Rights Department to produce the full set of .hack//G.U TRILOGY. This was also the first time we produced and sold merchandise for example T-Shirt. Seeing 400 people in Fukuoka was a rare experience. What about you, Anai-san?

Anai: When it came time to decide who would be responsible for publishing illustrations for .hack//G.U., we held a competition. I originally wanted to be an artist, but I remember thinking to myself every day, "If I don't win here, what did I get into this game company for?” I was very busy, but I also enjoyed being a creator because I was free to design monsters, weapons, and characters other than the main characters. It's easy to forget such sensations after working for so long, but I always remember how I felt at that time.

The Message for Fans and President.

Matsuyama: I guess it's time to wrap things up by asking each of you to give a message to the fans who have continued to support us over the past 20 years.

Niizato: This may sound a bit clichéd, but I can only express my sincere gratitude to all of you who have followed us over a long period of 20 years. In particular, those who were in their teens 20 years ago spent a lot of time and money during the most important period of their youth. I am truly happy for them, and I think it's great that they have continued to follow us for the past 20 years without letting it be just a page from their youth. There are works that I myself have followed as a fan, but I think that enthusiasm is extremely valuable, so I'm really happy that you feel that way about .hack.

Anai: I know this is going to sound like the same old comment, but I can't thank you enough for your support. I think that it is thanks to the support of the fans that we have been able to come this far, and the fans of ".hack" are truly loving. I have a deep impression of them. I think everyone has their own ".hack" title that they want to keep for the rest of their lives, and I'm very grateful that people actually think that way after we made the game. I hope you will continue to support us in the future as well.

Matsuyama: So, for the last time, please feel free to say whatever you want to say to Matsuyama without me being here.

Niizato: It's not easy to do it (laughs). The boss and I both like works (.hack series) that depict human drama, with revenge for him and betrayal for me, but our underlying tastes matched, so what we really wanted to do and what we thought was interesting, came together in the work of .hack. .hack series is the culmination of what we really wanted to do and what we thought was interesting. It makes me happy to know that so many people can relate to it, and I think it's because we really pursued what we liked that it was so well received. When we were launching the project, the president and I would lock ourselves in a room and bounce ideas off each other while giving each other positive criticisms. I think it was because of our relationship with the president that we were able to enhance each other's efforts while stretching ourselves, and I am very glad that we were able to do so. I hope we can continue to give each other positive criticisms in the future.

Anai: It's fine that the president isn't here. Including the president and Niizato-san, as well as Guilty Dragon and .hack//New World, I'm probably the most knowledgeable person in the company about .hack, so I think it's about time for me to get my baton (laughs).