Less than a year ago, two key producers from Marvelous Entertainment moved to Grasshopper Manufacture. Yasuhiro Wada, the creator of Harvest Moon and the company’s former managing director, was appointed as Grasshopper Manufacture’s Chief Operating Officer. Yoshiro Kimura, creator of Little King’s Story and Chulip, was hired as the Chief Creative Officer.
That’s a photo of the luminary designers with Grasshopper Manufacture CEO Goichi Suda from Famitsu’s announcement. Wada and Suda met when they were developing Flower, Sun, and Rain – the PlayStation 2 version, which was published by Victor Interactive. Prior to joining Grasshopper, Wada left Marvelous Entertainment and considered working on his own. Because he felt his goals aligned with Grasshopper Manufacture he joined the company.
Kimura has not worked with Grasshopper Manufacture and wondered if Suda was a fan of pro wrestling before meeting him. He was thinking about ending his video game creating career when Suda approached him. Suda was honest and told Kimura the good and bad points about working at his company, which convinced Kimura decided to join.
Siliconera learned that as of last month Yasuhiro Wada and Yoshiro Kimura are no longer at Grasshopper Manufacture.
While no Grasshopper Manufacture titles tied to Wada and Kimura were announced, Suda hoped having these visionaries at Grasshopper Manufacture would yield a more steady stream of games. Grasshopper Manufacture is currently working on Rebuild of Evangelion: Sound Impact, Sine Mora, Black Knight Sword, Lollipop Chainsaw, and the enigmatic Kinect game Codename D (which may be called Diabolical Pitch).
