“Mitsuhiro Arita was born in 1970 in Fukuoka Japan. He had been working as a freelance artist since 1986. The first project he worked on was Pokémon Trading Card Game, and continuously working on it for over twenty years.
He also worked on Final Fantasy XI for eleven years and did concept design for the theatrical animation film BERSERK: the golden ages I-III, books, and magazines.”
Current clients also include Marvel and MTG.
TGN: Growing up in Japan, in the 1970’s/80’s, did you play any games during your childhood?
MA: The first game I played was Pong at the toy store in the mall. Then Breakout. Maybe they were copies of Atari’s original, though. After that, the video game scene moved to arcade machines. I played Space Invaders, Dig Dug, Xevious, and Galaxian up to Virtua Fighter during my school days. I didn’t play scrolling shooters or 2D fighting games very much. Besides those, I started using a personal computer in 1982 and began programming as a hobby. Of course, I played PC games too. RPG and adventure games on PC were better than those on game consoles in the early days. I also played Game & Watch, and I remember having a portable game machine of Heiankyo Alien.
TGN: What were your favorite games you played?
MA: Silpheed on MEGA CD. The games created by GAME ARTS always implemented cutting-edge programming technology, which was attractive to me as a programmer. Not only that, but the gameplay, music, visual design, and world design were also fantastic. I still play it sometimes on MEGA DRIVE Mini.
I also love the Culdcept series. It first appeared on the Sega Saturn and had releases about every four years until around eight years ago. I especially loved the orchestral-like music by Yuzo Koshiro and the art by Naoyuki Kato. Kato-san’s background is in oil painting, and it didn’t look like typical artwork for a Japanese game. Working on Culdcept was one of my dreams, and surprisingly, it came true! I joined the project when Omiya Soft made Culdcept SAGA for Xbox 360, and I have created about one hundred artworks for it up until today. I hope I can work on it again in the future.
You can buy my self-made artbook at my online store if you’re interested: https://mitsuhiroarita.myshopify.com/
TGN: Do you still play any games today?
MA: After starting my career as an artist, I’ve lost time to play video games. However, originally, I loved adventure games on PC directed by Hideo Kojima—specifically SNATCHER and POLICENAUTS—so METAL GEAR SOLID caught my eye. Originally, I was a SEGA fan, but I bought a PlayStation 2 specifically to play it. After that, Hideo Kojima’s games became the only ones I follow closely. One reason I love his games is that they tend to be story-driven, so I don’t need to spend a lot of time if I’m content just enjoying the story. However, his games shifted to open-world design after MGSV… This change made it more difficult to quickly enjoy just the story. Anyway, I can’t wait to play Death Stranding 2 this year!
TGN: Thanks to Mitsuhiro Arita for the great interview! it was an interesting insight into his background in games!
Be sure to check my LINKS section, for a link to his website.
TheGameNarrative 