Susumu Takajima


 * This article is about the celebrity. For the fictional version of the celebrity, see Susumu Takajima (character).

Susumu Takajima (高島　進) is an American-born Japanese game programmer, voice actor, and music artist at the point to where he holds dual citizenship. He is the current headmaster of Drillimation Studios. Born in Anaheim, California during one of his father's trips to the United States for a shareholder's meeting, the date to return to Japan was postponed after his mother's water had broken. Despite being unable to return to Japan, she had Takajima there instead. Takajima became the president of Drillimation in March of 1998, almost a year after his father's death.

Early Years
Takajima was born on October 25, 1979, in Anaheim, California to Hiroshi and Miyuki Takajima. He was the second child in their family, with his older brother Hiroki Takajima. Takajima spent the first few weeks of his life before returning to Japan. At the age of seven, Takajima's parents bought him a Famicom, which his father had been using for programming games.

Junior high and senior high years
At the age of nine, Takajima began programming games on a PC-98 computer his parents owned. At the age of eleven, his parents bought him a PC-9801DX, which he dominantly used during his years in junior high and senior high school. When Takajima was a third-year junior high student, he began composing his own pieces of music using his experience of playing in a concert band when he was in junior high school. Around that time, he met Kagami Ochiai, who would later go on to become his future wife. After Takajima graduated from junior high, Ochiai moved away to Nagasaki, and he would not meet her again until after senior high.

College years
Takajima's father's health began declining in 1995 during his first year in senior high school. His father would continue functioning for two more years, but after returning home from school during the first term of his third year in 1997, Takajima had learned that he had died following complications from a stroke, and his mother asked him to take over his position. Takajima was inaugurated in March of 1998, shortly after graduating from senior high.

Around that time, he was reunited with Kagami Ochiai, his former friend from junior high school. Throughout their years in college, they began dating and a year after graduating from college, they became married. Takajima proposed to Ochiai in October 2002 and officially became married in March 2003.

Businessman years
After Takajima and Ochiai were married, Takajima continued his success as a programmer and composer for Drillimation games and songs for Ochiai. On December 9, 2004, Takajima became a father to a healthy baby boy by the name of Minoru Takajima (高島　稔), named after Minoru Shiraishi from the Lucky Star series, then to a baby girl by the name of Konata Takajima (高島　此方) on September 6, 2006, named after Konata Izumi from the same series, and to another baby boy by the name of Satoru Takajima (高島　悟) on June 11, 2008, named after then-Nintendo president Satoru Iwata.