Kou Shibusawa

Kou Shibusawa (シブサワ・コウ, Shibusawa Kou, born 1950 in the Togiki prefecture) is a Japanese game creator and producer for many of Koei's titles. His real name is Youichi Erikawa (襟川 陽一, Erikawa Youichi) and he created the company with his wife in 1978. He's largely credited to being one of the most prolific workers at Koei and is currently the company's general producer. As of November 8, 2010, he is standing in for the Representative President position of Koei-Tecmo Holdings. The previous president, Kenji Matsubara, resigned although his reasons for doing so are not clear and curiously not enclosed in the official report. He is acting as chief director for FOST (Foundation for the Fusion of Science and Technology) and created a division to celebrate sections of the entertainment section. He hopes to celebrate the video games and simulations that serve a useful global impact while still being interesting.

His alias' namesake is an emphasized version of the company's first syllable, Kou, and Shibusawa Eiichi. He's also taken credit as Eiji Fukuzawa, first part a derivative of Koei's "ei" and the second name being a homage to Fukuzawa Yukichi. As for why he has one, he stated his wife should get one make him sound fitting for the producer image. He has been known as Kou Shibusawa since the first Nobunaga's Ambition title in 1981.

Shibusawa is also going to lead the production of the PS3 version of Hisao Kurosawa's film, tentatively titled "Oni" and later "Ni-Oh". Both the film and game were going to be co-produced at the same time. The film was projected to be out in 2006 but the current status for both projects remain unknown. He is confident of the game at least, stating that he would like to see it in stores sometime this year.

Shibusawa states that he first became interested in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms from various comics based on it. He then read the novel, which eventually lead to his hobby of exploring global history. To replicate the same experience in others, he aims to make all his projects "entertain and educate" players. His goal for creating video games is also the company's motto.

While famous for his video game contributions, he is making a recent debut to the film industry as the supervisor in charge of the Japanese dubbed version of The Last Airbender (known as Airbender in Japan). Though it is his first time dealing with Japanese voice overs, Shibusawa remarks that he has confidence since he can use his experience with cinema in video games to help him. He hopes to create an emotional and action filled impact with his interpretation of the movie script.

When asked about which Koei product he would like to adapt to film, Shibusawa expressed a possible interest in making a live-film adaption of the Dynasty Warriors series.

Works

 * Nobunaga's Ambition series
 * Romance of the Three Kingdoms series
 * Uncharted Waters series
 * Winning Post series
 * Taikō Risshiden series
 * Eiketsuden series - as Eiji Fukuzawa
 * Emit
 * Nanatsu no Hikan
 * Dark Hunter
 * Kessen series
 * Crimson Sea - both titles; supervised
 * Fatal Inertia - authorized and also participated in the Japanese localization
 * Ni-Oh