Taro Yoko
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is a Japanese
video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...
director Director may refer to: Literature * ''Director'' (magazine), a British magazine * ''The Director'' (novel), a 1971 novel by Henry Denker * ''The Director'' (play), a 2000 play by Nancy Hasty Music * Director (band), an Irish rock band * ''D ...
and scenario writer. Starting his career at the now defunct game developer
Cavia ''Cavia'' is a genus in the subfamily Caviinae that contains the rodents commonly known as the guinea pigs or cavies. The best-known species in this genus is the domestic guinea pig, ''Cavia porcellus'', a meat animal in South America and a com ...
, his best-known work is on the action role-playing video game series ''
Drakengard ''Drakengard'', known in Japan as is a series of action role-playing video games originally developed by Cavia (company), Cavia and published by Square Enix. The Drakengard (video game), eponymous first game in the series was released in 2003 ...
'', and its
spin-offs Spin-off, Spin Off, Spin-Off, or Spinoff may refer to: Entertainment and media *Spinoff (media), a media work derived from an existing work *''The Spinoff'', a New Zealand current affairs magazine * ''Spin Off'' (Canadian game show), a 2013 Canad ...
, ''
Nier ''Nier'' is an action role-playing video game developed by Cavia and published in 2010 by Square Enix for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. In Japan, the game was released as for the PlayStation 3 with a younger main character, while an alterna ...
'' and '' Nier: Automata''. Yoko was born in
Nagoya is the largest city in the Chūbu region of Japan. It is the list of cities in Japan, fourth-most populous city in Japan, with a population of 2.3million in 2020, and the principal city of the Chūkyō metropolitan area, which is the List of ...
, Aichi, and studied at the Kobe Design University in the 1990s. While he did not initially intend to pursue a career in video games, after working at Namco and Sony, he joined Cavia and became the director and scenario writer for the first ''Drakengard'' game. He has since worked extensively on every game in the series (except ''Drakengard 2''), and on mobile titles after becoming a freelancer following Cavia's absorption into AQ Interactive. Critics have noted Yoko's unconventional game design and writing style. One of the main aspects of his work is exploring the darker aspects of humanity, such as why they are motivated to kill each other, although he typically does not share a common opinion on his story's dark natures. His writing technique, described as "backwards scriptwriting", involves outlining the ending of the story first and building the narrative backward from that point. Due to his disdain for being photographed, he generally wears a mask when giving interviews or presenting games.


Early life and education

Yoko Taro was born in
Nagoya is the largest city in the Chūbu region of Japan. It is the list of cities in Japan, fourth-most populous city in Japan, with a population of 2.3million in 2020, and the principal city of the Chūkyō metropolitan area, which is the List of ...
, Aichi, on June 6, 1970. Taro's parents were often absent from home due to their jobs, so he was mostly raised by his grandmother, who left a strong impression on him. During his youth, he heard about an incident that would influence his later work as a scenario writer: while an acquaintance was in a shopping street with a group of friends, one of them who was walking along a high building roof slipped and died from the fall. The scene as Yoko heard it was initially "horrifying", but included a humorous element as well. He studied at Kobe Design University and graduated in March 1994. He is married to Yukiko Yoko, an illustrator who worked on ''
Taiko no Tatsujin is a Japanese video game series created by Namco. In the games, players simulate playing a taiko drum in time with music. The series has released games for the Arcade video game, arcade and for console and mobile platforms including PlayStation ...
'' series and also did work on ''
Drakengard 3 ''Drakengard 3'', known in Japan as is an Action role-playing game, action role-playing video game developed by Access Games and published by Square Enix exclusively for PlayStation 3. It is the third main game in the Drakengard, ''Drakengard'' ...
''.


Career

Initially not intending to pursue a career in video games, his first job a month after graduating was as a 3D CGI designer for
Namco was a Japanese multinational video game and entertainment company founded in 1955. It operated video arcades and amusement parks globally, and produced video games, films, toys, and arcade cabinets. Namco was one of the most influential c ...
. In 1999, he joined Sugar & Rockets Inc., a now-defunct in-house developer owned by
Sony Computer Entertainment Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC (SIE) is an American video game and digital entertainment company that is a major subsidiary of Japanese conglomerate Sony, Sony Group Corporation. It primarily operates the PlayStation brand of video game co ...
. In 2001, a year after Sugar & Rockets' consolidation by Sony, Yoko got a job at
Cavia ''Cavia'' is a genus in the subfamily Caviinae that contains the rodents commonly known as the guinea pigs or cavies. The best-known species in this genus is the domestic guinea pig, ''Cavia porcellus'', a meat animal in South America and a com ...
. While working at Cavia, he became involved in the creation of ''
Drakengard ''Drakengard'', known in Japan as is a series of action role-playing video games originally developed by Cavia (company), Cavia and published by Square Enix. The Drakengard (video game), eponymous first game in the series was released in 2003 ...
''. While the game's co-producer Takuya Iwasaki intended to take the director's role, he was busy with other projects, so Yoko was asked to take up director's duties. He also helped create the scenario and characters, as well as co-writing the script with Sawako Natori. During its production, Yoko was unhappy with the amount of changes asked for by the game's advisory board. It got to the point where he decided he would not work on another ''Drakengard''. He was later involved in the production of ''
Drakengard 2 ''Drakengard 2'', known in Japan as is an action role-playing video game developed by Cavia and published by Square Enix in Japan and Ubisoft in all other territories for the PlayStation 2. It is the second entry in the ''Drakengard'' series, s ...
'', being credited as a video editor while also remaining as one of the game's creative staff. Mostly tied up with another project during production, his original concept for the game as an arcade-style game with dragons in space was vetoed and he had creative clashes with the game's new director Akira Yasui. After ''Drakengard 2'' was completed, Yoko started work on a third entry in the series. As the game developed, the initial concept was developed to the point where the game was rebranded as ''Nier'', a spin-off from the series. Despite this, Yoko continued to consider it the third entry in the series. After ''Nier'' was released and Cavia was absorbed into AQ Interactive, Yoko left the company and pursued an independent career. During this period, he took an unknown role in the development of Square Enix's social game ''Monster × Dragon''. The majority of his freelancer work involved social mobile games. Many years later, Yoko teamed back up with multiple staff from the production of ''Drakengard'' and ''Nier'' to create a true second sequel to ''Drakengard'', determining through questionnaires that the main appeal to the fanbase was the dark stories. After the completion of ''Drakengard 3'', Yoko "went back into unemployment". After that, he began writing a short-term special column for ''
Famitsu , formerly , is a line of Japanese Video game journalism, video game magazines published by Kadokawa Game Linkage (previously known as Gzbrain), a subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, Kadokawa. ''Famitsu'' is published in both weekly and monthly f ...
'' titled "Taro Yoko's Circle of No Good Thinking". In 2015, Yoko announced that he had started his own company called Bukkoro, staffed by Yoko, his wife Yukiko, and Hana Kikuchi, novelist and scenario writer for ''Nier'' and ''Drakengard 3''. His other works include the 2023
anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...
television series based on '' Nier: Automata'' titled '' Nier: Automata Ver1.1a'', co-writing the script with the anime's director Ryouji Masuyama. Yoko has stated his intense dislike of interviews. His reason, according to his ''Famitsu'' column, was that he feels video game developers are not entertainers or commentators on their work and that he thinks the subjects they talk about in interviews would be overly boring to those reading or listening. When he does give interviews, he prefers to wear a mask to avoid being photographed, and in a video interview concerning ''Drakengard 3'', he used a
glove puppet Glove puppetry () is a type of opera using cloth puppets that originated during the 17th century in Quanzhou or Zhangzhou of China's Fujian province, and historically practised in the Min Nan-speaking areas such as Quanzhou, Zhangzhou, the Chao ...
. He has also stated that he likes to be blunt when stating his opinions, as he feels that video game fans deserve truth and honesty.


Writing

Yoko is noted for creating games with a dark, disturbing or unusual atmosphere. This was stated as the main reason he was brought in to work on ''Monster × Dragon''. His writing method, which he has not seen in other works of fiction, is called "backwards scriptwriting". He described it as starting with the ending first, then working backwards from there. He then creates central plot points that form emotional peaks in the narrative, adds details, then scatters them through the narrative so the player can build a suitable emotional connection. He uses a secondary method called "photo thinking" in conjunction with his scriptwriting method. Yoko describes it as a method of visualizing and keeping in order events and emotional peaks throughout the story. He cited his inspiration for this method as ''The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci'' by
Jonathan Spence Jonathan Dermot Spence (11 August 1936 – 25 December 2021) was a British-American historian, Sinology, sinologist, and author specialised in History of China, Chinese history. He was Sterling Professor of History at Yale University from 199 ...
. He is keen in experimenting with the video game format, feeling that many conventions of the video game market inhibit developers' creative freedom. Many of his games reflect his own feelings about death and his
socratic questioning Socratic questioning (or Socratic maieutics) is an educational method named after Socrates that focuses on discovering answers by asking questions of students. According to Plato, Socrates believed that "the disciplined practice of thoughtful q ...
of the concept. Yoko also considers food an important tool in creating a game, stating that he thinks that types of food from across the world can help him get a feel for the people the game is being aimed at. Yoko was influenced in his style for the ''Drakengard'' series by many games of the day: a commonality he noted was that the player got gradings for their performance after killing dozens or hundreds of enemy units in a "gloating" manner. Because the concept of enjoying killing seemed insane to him, he designed the first game's main protagonists to be insane. He also wished to explore what drove people to kill each other. Later, for ''Nier'' and ''Drakengard 3'', Yoko explored the idea of a terrible event where both sides believed they were doing the right thing. For ''Nier'', he took direct inspiration from the
September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...
and the War on Terror. Another direct influence on ''Nier'' was of the gameplay of the ''
God of War A war god in mythology associated with war, combat, or bloodshed. They occur commonly in polytheism, polytheistic religions. Unlike most gods and goddesses in polytheistic religions, monotheistic deities have traditionally been portrayed in their ...
'' series, which both he and the game's producer Yosuke Saito admired. He has stated his dislike for the "plain and forgettable" type of female video game character: he demonstrated his dislike for this and the stereotypical role-playing video game romance in Furiae, an important character in ''Drakengard''. Another character he has been greatly involved in creating is
Zero 0 (zero) is a number representing an empty quantity. Adding (or subtracting) 0 to any number leaves that number unchanged; in mathematical terminology, 0 is the additive identity of the integers, rational numbers, real numbers, and compl ...
, ''Drakengard 3''s protagonist: while creating her, he felt it would be interesting to create a character who was formerly a prostitute as it was a character type that was fairly rare in video games. In general, Yoko does not consider his writing to be as dark as others see it, while admitting that he deliberately incorporates dark elements. A notable influence on the gameplay of his titles was the classic
shoot 'em up Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs) are a Video game genre, subgenre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain typ ...
'' Ikaruga''; it directly inspired the dragon flight sequences of ''Drakengard'' and bullet hell sections in ''Nier''; and informed Yoko on the synchronization of gameplay with the music. A biography of him drawn Keiji Yoshida and based on Yoko Taro's own words was released in the ''Game Creators of Biography'' web manga series, under the title ''"ヨコオタロウ編"'' (''"Yokoo Tarō-hen"''). It was published by
Cygames is a Japanese video game development studio established in 2011 by CyberAgent. Mobile and e-commerce company DeNA acquired a 24% stake in the studio in 2012, and Nintendo acquired another 5% stake in 2018, leaving CyberAgent with 69% of the sha ...
on its Cycomi platform, starting from February 21, 2021.


Works


Video games


Books and manga


Television


Stage plays


Music videos


Further reading

* *


References


External links


"Diary of Tarō Yoko" online blog

Dengeki Online interview series about Drakengard and Nier

Bukkoro home page
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Yoko, Taro 1970 births Creative directors Japanese chief executives Japanese video game directors Living people People from Nagoya Japanese video game writers