"Blocked."
Hideki Kamiya (born December 19, 1970) is a Japanese game designer best known for his incredibly blunt, sometimes irritable nature and his critically acclaimed action games, which tend to cram together ludicrous amounts of stylistic insanity and razor sharp action gameplay. Born in Matsumoto, Nagano, Kamiya began his career in 1994 as a designer for Capcom.
He made his directorial debut in 1996 with Resident Evil 2; during development, he met veteran producer Shinji Mikami. Eventually, Kamiya would go on to create and direct the original Devil May Cry, which was released in 2001 to critical acclaim. After Kamiya worked on Viewtiful Joe in 2003, the members of his development team would later go on to form Clover Studio in 2004 with fellow producer Atsushi Inaba serving as CEO. His final directorial project for Capcom would be Ōkami, which was released in 2006 and became an Acclaimed Flop upon its release. That August, Kamiya left Capcom along with Mikami and Inaba. From there, the trio would later go on to found Seeds Inc. One year later, the studio merged with Odd Inc., which was founded by former Capcom developer Tatsuya Minami, to form PlatinumGames. Kamiya's next project, Bayonetta, was released in 2009.
He is also well known for maintaining his Twitter account
, which is to say, that was where he trolls his fans mercilessly (and berates and blocks people for asking stupid or repetitive questions). note In fact, an entire documentary was made about this where he personally, happily and proudly admitted that at the time he had blocked over 17,000 people without the use of a blocklist. Even Platinum themselves were not safe from his blocking. For a time, Kamiya used the account to practice his English skills, but eventually lost patience with his audience and he has since instantly blocked any non-Japanese reply, declaring any who would reply to him in English as "insects". His behavior became notable enough that his account was restricted in 2022 amidst controversy over Hellena Taylor's exclusion from Bayonetta 3, possibly due to having blocked so many people in so short a time that Twitter's automatic safeguards logged him as a mass-blocking bot account.
On September 25, 2023, it was announced by PlatinumGames (and later by Kamiya himself) that Kamiya would leave PlatinumGames on October 12, 2023. According to Kamiya in a video he made on the day of his departure, he decided to quit Platinum due to his position conflicting with his beliefs as a developer and him wanting to move on. He has also stated that he has no plans to retire from game development.
Games by Kamiya:
As Director:- Resident Evil 2 (1998)
- Devil May Cry (2001)
- Viewtiful Joe (2003)
- Ōkami (2006)
- Bayonetta (2009)
- The Wonderful 101 (2013)
- Scalebound (cancelled)
- Project G.G. (TBA)
- Sol Cresta (2022)
Other roles:
- Resident Evil (1996) - Planner
- Resident Evil 0 (2002) - Original designer note
- Gyakuten Saiban 3 (2004) - Voice actor for Godot (Japanese version only)
- Viewtiful Joe 2 (2004) - Writer
- Bayonetta 2 (2014) - Supervisor and Writer
- Astral Chain (2019) - Supervisor
Hideki Kamiya's works provide examples of:
- Acclaimed Flop: All of his games, sans RE2 and the original DMC, were either commercial disappointments (Viewtiful Joe and Bayonetta) or outright flops (Ōkami and The Wonderful 101) yet are called some of the greatest games of their generation.
- Ascended Meme: Wonder Director, a character based on (and voiced by) Kamiya in The Wonderful 101 actually says "Ask your mom" as one of his quotes. Bayonetta also says it in Bayonetta 2, and in her reveal video in the fourth Super Smash Bros.
- Astral Finale: Most of his games have Grand Finale set in space.
- Author Appeal:
- Space Harrier was one of his favorite games. Bayonetta and The Wonderful 101 have stages emulating the game.
- The first phase of the Mundus fight in the original Devil May Cry is also a rail shooter-esque stage.
- Scalebound was made purely due to Kamiya's love of dragons. In fact, he had been wanting to make the game since before Bayonetta was in development.
- Badass Boast:
- People on Twitter often ask him why he is so awesome. His response?"Lions don't learn how to hunt."
- Following rumors that he took time off for mental health reasons due to problems with Scalebound's development, he said this:"And...I took time off for my mental health? ...Me!? No way."
- People on Twitter often ask him why he is so awesome. His response?
- Caps Lock: He will occasionally post tweets in caps only.
- Catchphrase:
- "Ask your mom."
- He has a fondness for "cute babes."
- He often responds to "When will we see...?" questions with "Next week... in gaming magazines/Nintendo Direct."
- Since nearly all of Platinum's games have been published and owned by an outside company, every time someone asks him to port one of his games to another console, he replies "Ask [company name]." This also happens when people ask him to make a new Viewtiful Joe, Devil May Cry, or Ōkami game, as those IPs are owned by Capcom.
- Several "...or else I'll block you" tweets are often prefixed with "As I've said 10000000000000000000 times...":Repeat for idiots : AS I'VE TOLD YOU 10000000000000000000 TIMES I'M NOT A DIRECTOR OF BAYO2 SO ASK HASHIMOTO OR I'M GONNA FUCKIN' BLOCK YOU.
REPEAT: As I've told u 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000 times, have ur fucking conversation or argument elsewhere or I'll block u.
Repeat: As I've said 10000000000000000000 times, I never need any advice. I do what I wanna do. I am me. U are u. Advicing idiots-> Blocked. - "Blocked."
- Depending on his mood, he may be polite enough to ask for permission first. "May I block you?"
- "Enough of [x]", [x] being whatever video game/anime Twitter is trying to get him to watch. Usually mixed with "something" to show contempt toward whatever it was and annoy the fanboys.
- "To all X idiots: (Beat) I LOVE YOU!" when fans of X game harass him on Twitter and Kamiya calls them idiots, but they eventually allowed him to make a dream come true (like PlatinumGames finally making a Star Fox game or Bayonetta's inclusion in Super Smash Bros.).
- He often refers to anyone he dislikes as idiots and insects.
- "[X] confirmed!" or some variation, for games that hadn't been announced and were not likely to be released any time soon. Particularly ones he no longer has control over, like Viewtiful Joe 3.
- Challenge Gamer: Many of his favorite video games are
Nintendo Hard arcade games, such as the original Gradius and Space Harrier. He's pretty damn good at them, too. - Creator Backlash: Kamiya mentioned the only failure he has ever had in his career was the handling of the PS3 port of the original Bayonetta.
- Creator Cameo: He appeared in The Wonderful 101 as Wonder Director. He also voiced Six Machine in Viewtiful Joe and Onigiri in Ōkami. note
- Disowned Adaptation: Though initially approving of the matchup, he disliked the DEATH BATTLE! episode where Dante and Bayonetta fought each other, calling it "garbage" on his Twitter feed. Along with annoyance at how often Dante vs. Bayonetta questions would clog up his feed, Kamiya allegedly prefers the idea of the two teaming up instead of squaring off.
- Doing It for the Art: This is all that needs to be said. Kamiya has often expressed that he didn't care about how well his games do in terms of sales. All that matters to him is that fans enjoy his games.
- Foreign-Language Tirade: The last thing you'll see from his account if he decides to block you for being annoying or an asshole.
- Franchise Zombie: Averted by Bayonetta and especially Devil May Cry. Although Kamiya didn't direct any of their sequels, he didn't hold any hard feelings about it, still offered creative input on Bayonetta 2, and many fans agreed they are as good, if not better than the originals. With his lack of involvement in the later Devil May Cry games, Kamiya went as far as to claim that he was only the creator of the first game specifically, rather than the series as a whole. He also approved of Viewtiful Joe: Double Trouble for the DS and the series's anime adaptation, as well as the Resident Evil 2 remake. He has no real opinion on Ōkamiden, though.
- God Never Said That:
- Some fans believe that Kamiya once stated that Bayonetta would defeat Dante should the two fight. In actuality, he was making a joke about how women usually have the final say over men in a relationship. Unsurprisingly, this joke only stoked the flames for fans of Crossover Shipping.
- Also, some fans believed Kamiya had once stated that he hated Super Smash Bros. and that he would refuse to ever allow one of his character to be included in their roster. This was, of course, debunked. People continuously tweeted him asking his opinions about his characters' inclusion when he had no control over it nor was he even allowed to discuss it even if he did know something, which predictably caused him to snap.
- Kamiya is sometimes thought to hate sequels because he has never directed a sequel to any of his own games. Kamiya actually said he would love to make sequels to every single one of his games and has multiple ideas for them, but various circumstances and scheduling conflicts have prevented it from happening. note
- Some fans believe that Kamiya once stated that Bayonetta would defeat Dante should the two fight. In actuality, he was making a joke about how women usually have the final say over men in a relationship. Unsurprisingly, this joke only stoked the flames for fans of
- Heel: Kamiya's Twitter persona is basically an act. ... At least in part.
- Hype Aversion: Invoked. He and the rest of PlatinumGames' staff permanently decided not to develop a potential game adaptation of Kill la Kill due to the gamers' repeated demands to do so, with the apparent exception of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance director Kenji Saito. Fortunately, Arc System Works would end up taking that problem off their hands.
- Hypocritical Humor: He frequently posts profanity on Twitter, yet when people send him tweets with the word "fuck", he would sometimes tell them "Don't use F-word, it's rude."
- Insistent Terminology: When people refer to the Recurring Boss of Devil May Cry as "Nelo Angelo", Kamiya will often say "Nero is correct." note
- Insult Backfire: When a fan asked Kamiya his feelings about reviewers giving The Wonderful 101 low scores because they felt it was "too hard", he responded, "Honor."
- Mathematician's Answer:
- When inquired of something on Twitter, Kamiya is known to not elaborate or be specific about it, which is understandable since he's most probably constantly busy with a project, and has more than enough tweets to respond to.
- When asked "Do you have a favourite [x]", he often answers with "A lot."
- When asked why his answers tend to be so short, his response was "Can you say some long sentence in Japanese?" note
- No Dub for You: He explained that the reason Devil May Cry, Viewtiful Joe, and the original version of Bayonetta were not dubbed in Japanese because the characters in those games aren't Japanese themselves. In fact, The Wonderful 101 and every port of Bayonetta sans the original 360 and PS3 release were the only Kamiya games to actually include dual audio.
- Old Shame: The original version of Resident Evil 2, often referred to as "Biohazard 1.5", which was his first assignment as director. He took a more passive role in accepting other team members' suggestions, turning the game into a mess that they had to completely do over from scratch. Kamiya stated that the experience taught him to take a more assertive role in making games and allowing his vision as a director to shine through.
- Only the Creator Does It Right: While both Bayonetta 1 and 2 were widely agreed to be fantastic games, the biggest debate surrounding them is if Yusuke Hashimoto was a worthy successor or if you miss Kamiya's trademark flair.
- Overly Long Gag: He's known to link to his other tweets when people repeatedly asked him the same questions on his Twitter feed. Often these linked tweets would contain more linked tweets, eventually culminating in an answer if you follow the link trail long enough.
- Promoted Fanboy: Kamiya is a noted lover of video games in general, especially '80s-era arcade and console games, and his philosophy is to design the type of games that he himself would like to play. In particular, getting to work for Sega (Bayonetta) and Nintendo (The Wonderful 101) was a dream come true for him.
- Rank Inflation: Quite common in games directed by him.
- Recurring Boss: Another favorite of his. Includes every boss in Devil May Cry save Mundus, Orochi and Waka in Ōkami, Jeanne in Bayonetta, and Prince Vorkken in The Wonderful 101.
- Refuge in Audacity: His entire Twitter persona lives off this.
- Running Gag:
- When asked about information while he's under a non-disclosure agreement that prevents him from answering:(In reference to The Wonderful 101) "Thanx all, but if I keep talking, ninjas from Kyoto will force me to commit ritual suicide, so forgive me until there is new, official info."
- After Scalebound was announced, Kamiya revived the above gag with a new variation.
- Pretending he's never heard of the Sega Dreamcast on purpose, sometimes even acting as though he doesn't know what Sega itself is. note "Dream... what? What... cast?"
- He has several baked-in Twitter responses to people that make specific mistakes. Like when someone refers to Vergil in the first Devil May Cry as "Nelo Angelo" instead of "Nero Angelo"note , or if someone spells his company's name as "Platinum Games" instead of "PlatinumGames", or someone draws Bayonetta without her beauty mark and he responds with an ASCII emoticon pointing out the lack of mark.
- When asked about information while he's under a non-disclosure agreement that prevents him from answering:
- Shared Universe: According to this tweet, Kamiya believes that all his games take place in the same universe, not unlike the Fanon Welding players regularly take part in. Overlaps with Intercontinuity Crossover, given that his works prior to Bayonetta are Capcom IPs. Interestingly, many of these connections involve Devil May Cry in some form or another (such as Viewtiful Joe's Alastor being the spirit of the Devil Arm from DMC1 or Bayonetta's many assertions about DMC lore and use of an information broker named Enzo Ferino) and even Capcom themselves have run with some of these ideas in their crossovers.
- Signature Style: Kamiya's games usually have...
- Heavy emphasis on action, and characters designed to exude and revolve around action — hence them usually being described as "character action" games. note
- Ranking systems after each battle scene.
- Genre shifts that homage classic arcade games, ESPECIALLY shooters.
- A recurring rival who is fought multiple times. note
- Characters, stories, names, and themes inspired by both classical mythology along with manga, games, and movies.
- A distinct menu setup inspired by the classic Resident Evil menus.
- Gigantic, high-concept boss fights that act as setpieces.
- Final bosses with multiple forms and phases.
- Quick time events.
- Tons of special moves, skills, weapons, and combos to unlock.
- As mentioned under Worldbuilding, the universes of each Kamiya game are surprisingly dense with detail and backstory. Usually you can find and collect diary entries throughout the game (such as the various files in RE2 and Antonio Redgrave's notebooks in Bayonetta) that help to explain things that happened before the story.
- His games are often filled with references to each other, which helps build the sense of a shared universe.
- A rich level of replay value due to the sheer depths of characters' movesets and options.
- Spiritual Successor: Bayonetta was this to Devil May Cry, as Kamiya wished to revisit the style of gameplay that made him famous in order to show how he had evolved as a director. The Wonderful 101 is sometimes thought by fans to be one for Viewtiful Joe, but Kamiya denied this, as the similarities are largely aesthetic and theme-based only.
- Stillborn Franchise: Because of its poor sales, The Wonderful 101 was the only Kamiya game to have not yet received a sequel. This almost happened to Okami thanks to Clover's shutdown the same year it came out, but it has since had a followup and multiple re-releases.
- Unexpected Shmup Level: Yet another personal touch of his.
- Worldbuilding: While the stories in most of his games can (for the most part) be summed up as "go kill the bad guys and look cool", there is a shocking amount of detail that goes into the world itself, from lore on every individual enemy and their role in the world, justifications of gameplay mechanics with plausible in-universe explanations, and meticulously followed art directions that even something as innocuous as the menu screens strictly adhere. The main plots may be simple, but they do not sweat the little details that most other games take for granted.
- What Could Have Been:
- He admitted on Twitter that every one of his games have turned out very different from the initial concept.
- Kamiya admitted that he was approached about Bayonetta appearing in Project X Zone 2, but declined as he wanted his creations Bayonetta and Dante to meet on "his terms." However, he later stated he came to regret this decision after realizing how fans would have loved seeing the two finally meet.
- He admitted on Twitter
- Why Fandom Can't Have Nice Things: Despite the large amount of people who annoy him on Twitter, Kamiya mostly averts this as he still uses it to interact with his fans. He has even visited his fans on 4chan. He's gone on to state that he actually enjoys blocking people who he thinks are "idiots." Kamiya often complains and blocks people who do the following:
- Being asked questions that he has already answered.
- Kamiya will not answer Twitter questions regarding games in the Devil May Cry series past the first title. note He will respond with a terse "whatever," pretending he doesn't know what the asker is talking about. In the case of persistent questioners, Kamiya will curse the asker out and block them, often with a scathing comment in Japanese.
- Late in 2012, it was rationalized that he would intentionally dodge some questions because he had inked a deal with Nintendo behind the scenes to create a sequel of Bayonetta for the Wii U and didn't want many details leaking out. However, fan rage over the game being released for the Wii U angered Kamiya.
- Kamiya decided that he wasn't going to develop a Star Fox game after being pestered by many fans when he expressed an interest in doing so. However, he relented in June 2015 when he announced that PlatinumGames was co-developing Star Fox Zero.
- Anyone who badmouths Capcom. Despite what's happened between them and Kamiya, he still holds respect for Capcom, a.k.a. his "old home."
- However, as of July 2018, Kamiya finally imposed a temporary ban on responding to him in any non-Japanese language, including English. The purpose of this ban, he claims, is to filter out people who don't read his posts before replying to them, with most of those people being non-Japanese. And he knows there are people who are going to hit him up in English anyway.
- In a sign of self-awareness, The Wonderful 101: Remastered's Kickstarter campaign included "Get Blocked on Twitter By Kamiya" as an optional reward for its backers.
