A biographical manga based on the life and career of Masahiro Sakurai, lead developer of Super Smash Bros. and Kirby series, will be released next month in Japan.
The manga, roughly translated as “Learn About People and Work Through Manga: Masahiro Sakurai: Making the World More Fun with Games” alongside his award-winning YouTube series “Masahiro Sakurai: On Creating Games” is a continued effort from the veteran to share his expertise on video game development to a new generation of starry-eyed developers.
About the Manga
As reported by Famitsu, the 160-page book promises to share the origin of Sakurai’s spark for video games, his experiences developing Kirby and Super Smash Bros. and his founding of Sora LTD, and his legacy as a developer in retirement. 3 pages have been shared as a sneak peek.
The book is split into six chapters:
- Young Sakurai and Games
- The Birth of Kirby
- The Beginning of Super Smash Bros
- The Founding of Sora, Inc
- The Legacy
- A Beacon for the Future
The manga will be released in Japan on November 18th for 1430 yen (roughly £7 / $9) with no current plans for an English translation.
The announcement of the manga and “On Creating Games” are a fascinating insight into a developer with very rare, very pure intentions to create a library of easily accessible knowledge into the otherwise lucrative industry.
Sakurai and “On Creating Games”
“On Creating Games” is one of the most invaluable resources online for anyone interested in video games, covering topics such as Work Ethic, Animation, Marketing, Team Management and more. Yet Sakurai himself didn’t want to earn a single penny for it. The series cost over $600,000 to make with a total of 256 scripts produced in the span of five months, yet none of the videos were monetized.
Later during his acceptance speech for the Association of Media in Digital (AMD) award for the “Creating Games” series, Sakurai said the following “I did something extremely irrational on my channel – I disseminated all of my knowledge as a game director to the world for free. Why did I do that?” Answering his own question, “I feel like I’m losing to a lot of professions out there. While I am making my own contributions, I can’t even hope to compete with what doctors do, for instance. In the end, without peace and health, people cannot enjoy digital entertainment – this is something I’m conscious of.”
While initially coming off as maybe a bit dispirited on the value of video games, Sakurai then follows up with “The digital media we create has the potential to “buff” peoples’ lives, making it an extremely rewarding profession.”
In the final video of the YouTube series, Sakurai shares that he didn’t want the lesson to be seen as “something done for profit”, knowing that it would dilute the perception of the knowledge he was sharing. He simply concludes that he wanted his series to be a donation and contribution to the games industry and nothing less.
It’s clear that whatever remaining knowledge Sakurai wishes to share in the new manga will carry the same spirit.
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