Patrick: Kanaya, I wanted to ask you... You’re a programmer. I can’t program, so this is very alien...

Fumihiro: Alien?? [laughs]

Patrick: I mean, I don’t understand programming. You’re not a ‘concept’ person; you don’t do any of that? Just programming.

Fumihiro: Yes.

Patrick: I know some programmers; I have friends who program. And some programmers are very... like robots. [Fumihiro laughs] But some programmers are very artistic and passionate. And I’ve heard some programmers say that programming code is... beautiful; it’s like poetry. [Fumihiro laughs again] What do you think?

Fumihiro: I think computer programming is very easy, but if you want to write beautiful code, like poetry, you have to think about many, many things. I want to write beautiful code too. [long pause, as he struggles to find the words in English]

Patrick: It’s a difficult question, sorry.

Fumihiro: Thinking about the concept, the architecture, takes longer than writing the code, for me.

Patrick: So it’s more planning, than... [gestures typing]

Fumihiro: Yes. I think programming is the language of computers; computer language is like Japanese, English, Chinese... any language. I don’t like mathematics, I like language. Many programmers like mathematics, but I don’t. But I like language; it’s my strong point, I think.

Patrick: So... I’m sorry if this is too difficult to answer, but, compared to programmers who love mathematics, how is your programming style different?

Fumihiro: I don’t think I write code. I think I write computer language. Other programmers think like... they calculate. But, that’s not bad! But I like my style.

Patrick: So when you program, it doesn’t seem like numbers, it seems like writing.

Fumihiro: Yes.

Patrick: That’s really interesting. I’m glad I asked the question. [to Kenichi] For Archime-DS, you had this small team. You worked at Skip; you know many programmers. Why did you choose Kanaya?

Kenichi: I think it was timing; it was time for us to make Archime-DS together. I’ve known him for a few years, but I’d never worked with him. I wanted to work with him, but there was never a good time, until Archime-DS.

Patrick: He was available for you?

Kenichi: When I asked him to make Archime-DS with me, he was having a... down time. He had tension; he was depressed. I thought, I have to give him a chance to change his negative mental state.

Patrick: Does that sound right to you, Kanaya?

Fumihiro: He talked about making Archime-DS; I thought, I don’t want to make Archime-DS. [laughs] But he told me, “Let’s make it.”

Patrick: He convinced you? Fluttered his eyelashes?

Fumihiro: He told me and Taniguchi and Hikarin and Hashimoto, “Let’s make Archime-DS.” At first, I didn’t think it would be a success, but finally, I thought, “Why not make it?”

Kenichi: I think he can never make up his mind. But there was no choice; there was only one way to make Archime-DS. I never told them, my staff, “Let’s make Archime-DS.” I told them, “I need you. You, and you, and you.” I told them, “I need your power.” Kanaya, Hikarin, Taniguchi, Hashimoto-san... gave their power to me, to make Archime-DS. There was no choice.

Patrick: [to Fumihiro] So you had an obligation to fate. So... Nishi said you were depressed at the time. And you worked on Archime-DS; did it help you?

Fumihiro: Yes, it did. Making Archime-DS was so exciting, and so fun.

Patrick: Oh good.

Fumihiro: I hate... I don’t like long development times either. At the time, I was working on a long project, but I took on Archime-DS, a short project. I... [searches for words] I was... I felt... [searches again] It was so exciting. [laughs] Sorry.

Patrick: It’s all right. Difficult to explain such specific feelings, right?

Fumihiro: Yes.

Patrick: But it was a fun time. It gave you energy.

Fumihiro: Yes.

Patrick: I think it helps, for a game to have a short development time. If you start a big project, at the beginning, it’s exciting, but in the middle...

Kenichi: You get tired of it.

Patrick: Imagine you’re walking across a country. If it’s a tiny island, you can be in the middle, and you can see the beginning and the end. So it’s fun – you can see how far you’ve come, and you can see your destination. But a big project is like a big country...

Kenichi: You get lost.

Patrick: I get to the middle, and I can’t even remember starting out; I can’t see my goal, so... it’s discouraging.

Kenichi: Yes, discouraging.

Patrick: Does that sound right?

Kenichi: A long project is bad for everyone.

Patrick: You become unhappy. If you finish something in a short time, you have something to show people; “I did a thing!” If you have a lot of unfinished projects, it’s depressing. If you finish something, it’s like, “Yes!” – and you can carry that energy to the next project, and then, “Finished! Yes!” and so on. There’s momentum.

Kenichi: I know. I understand perfectly.

Patrick: Art shouldn’t be impossible. Art is just life; “Let’s do it! It’s done! It’s not perfect, but no worries, let’s do another one; let’s do another one...” That’s my feeling now.

Kenichi: Me too, me too. Ideally, I would like to do fifty percent short business; fifty percent long business.

Patrick: They both have advantages and disadvantages.

Kenichi: Yes, yes.

Patrick: I think it’s important, because making a game can take two, three, four, five years. You’re an adult at maybe twenty? What age were you when you started Skip?

Kenichi: Twenty-eight? No – thirty-three?

Patrick: Let’s say about thirty-five. So from thirty-five, until you die, maybe eighty or ninety years old – let’s say fifty years before you die; forty years before you retire or get too old... So if a game takes five years to make...

Kenichi: How many... yeah, yeah, yeah.

Patrick: You get to make ten games, in your whole life. It’s not enough, right?

Kenichi: Life’s very short.

Patrick: Is that your feeling?

Kenichi: Yes, perfectly.

Patrick: I was going to ask before, about Chibi-Robo... In Chibi-Robo, in the corner of the screen, every time Chibi-Robo moves, the counter goes down. So you can see his time limit; his life limit. My feeling was, oh, it represents death. I thought maybe the meaning of Chibi-Robo is, you only have so much time.

Kenichi: Oh, “Life is short.”

Patrick: Yeah.

Kenichi: [looks thoughtful; complains in Japanese about difficult questions, to laughter] My message for the player is, “Life is short,” and there’s not much time, before the future comes.

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