He complained about it up to the day before it went on sale. Kojima: There was a proper setting and world created by Hajime Katoki, and the pixel art was drawn in accordance with that, but Shinkawa didn’t like it. “This doesn’t look right, this is wrong here…” he just kept going on. There’s this robot in Policenauts called EMPS, and Shinkawa was really critical about its design. I asked him to do a quick bug-check playthrough and give me his opinion generally.

He joined Konami right as we were wrapping up the development of the original PC-9821 version of Policenauts.

(laughs) To be perfectly honest I can’t say my drawings on the table here are really “good”, there’s an unskilled, rough quality to them.

I actually like things that look a little rougher, unfinished, or flawed in some way. Finished, perfect drawings… I mean, they have their place and all, but I don’t find much enjoyment in them. It sounds like you enjoy experimenting with different styles too. Shinkawa was 25 years old in this picture. Hideo Kojima (top) and Yoji Shinkawa (bottom). When we gave him this task he replied back to us, “May I create a model instead?” We said, “What? But you only have two weeks!” and he was like, “That’s fine.” At the time dinosaurs were all the rage (laughs), so we asked them to produce several different drawings using dinosaur as a motif-an anthropomorphized dinosaur, a gigantic dinosaur, etc. Part of our hiring process involves giving the candidate certain problems to solve. (laughs) When I first saw his work he had drawings in an American comic style, a French comic style… and these didn’t at all seem like they’d been drawn by the same person. He had 4 different styles on display then. He’s the only one, and it was an instant hanamaru (the Japanese equivalent of a “gold star”). I’ve probably looked at 10,000 candidates myself at this point, and I’ve never seen anyone who I immediately wanted to give an S until Shinkawa. We also grade each portfolio with a rating of S, A, B, C etc. We’re looking through about 100 people’s work, and in the process you do see things that really jump out at you as amazing. Before our hiring interviews, we make a point of reviewing the potential candidates’ portfolios. Kojima: Shinkawa joined Konami in 1994, so fairly recently, but he was a rare find, the kind you only come across once every 10 years. Hideo Kojima – Director / Producer / Writer -Tell us how you and Shinkawa began working together.

Policenauts characters