Junichi Masuda

Life

Junichi Masuda was born on January 12, 1968, in Yokohama, Japan. During childhood trips to Kyūshū, he enjoyed catching fish and bugs, which later inspired the Hoenn region in Pokémon.

In high school, he played trombone and fell in love with classical music, especially Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring and Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5. He studied computer graphics and the C programming language at Japan Electronics College in Tokyo. His daughter Kiri was born in September 2002, and he named a character in Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire after her.

Career

Masuda has worked at Game Freak since the company's inception in 1989, and has been involved in nearly every title that Game Freak has produced. Masuda was one of the original developers of the Pokémon series, beginning with Pokémon Red and Green. He was first hired to compose video game music, where his first game at Game Freak was Mendel Palace, a 1989 puzzle game for the Nintendo Entertainment System. After Mendel Palace, he worked on Yoshi, the company's first collaboration with Nintendo.

When the company first began releasing Pokémon titles, Masuda worked mainly as the composer, though he did minor programming work as well, and later began directing and producing them. His work on the first games included writing the program to play audio in the games, music, and sound effects. Masuda has been directly involved in the naming and design of many Pokémon. He has stated that one of the hardest aspects of design is making sure that a Pokémon's name and attributes will appeal to a global audience.

Since Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, Masuda has been one of the main employees who approve or reject designs for new Pokémon. He served as a member of the Game Freak board of directors. In June 2014, Masuda was present for the opening of The Pokémon Center Paris, the first Pokémon store in Europe, held at the historic Cremerie de Paris, a landmark location connected to Gabrielle Chanel and her friend the Russian composer Igor Stravinski. On September 28, 2018, Masuda revealed that during the early years of developing Pokémon games, 'game data was nearly lost in a computer crash.'

Masuda described it as 'the most nerve-racking moment in development,' saying 'We were developing the game on these Unix computer stations called the Sun SPARCstation 1. We're developing, and they're these Unix boxes, and they crashed quite a bit.' On November 1, 2018, Masuda stated that Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! would likely be his final time serving as director for the main series Pokémon games. The development torch was passed to Shigeru Ohmori, who had previously assumed lead director of Pokémon Sun and Moon.

However afterwards, he served as a director for Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, developed by ILCA. Masuda produced the Japanese ending themes 'Pokémon Shiritori' and 'Batsugun Type' for Pokémon Journeys with Japanese electronic group Pasocom Music Club. On June 1, 2022, Masuda left Game Freak to The Pokémon Company, acting as Chief Creative Fellow.

Influences and style

Masuda approaches each of his games with the mindset that a beginner should be able to easily play it. In view of this, his games begin in an easily approachable and accessible style, with more layers of complexity being introduced as the player progresses through the game. He believes that handheld systems provide an opportunity for social interaction that cannot be found on non-handheld console systems. He has stated that the continued use of 2D computer graphics has been integral to Pokémon's success.

Most of his ideas draw inspiration from simply observing real life and visualizing how he would design or draw outside objects. As a rule, he does not use previous characters as inspirations for new ones, instead creating each new one from independent sources. Masuda's musical style draws from a number of sources, particularly classical music and the works of Igor Stravinsky and Dmitri Shostakovich. His favorite musical genre is techno, and he has looked to the music of the Super Mario series as an example of video game music that works well.