Susumu Takajima/Blogs/December 1, 2007

Hi, this is Driller or Susumu Takajima from Drillimation.

Oh boy, I can't believe it's December already, and it's Christmastime once again. It's almost the birthdays of our son Minoru (December 9) and my queen Kagami (December 21). Today, I'm actually going to be interviewing her just for you!

Driller: Today, I'm going to be giving the inner viewings of you to our son Minoru and our daughter Konata. The goal of this interview is discussing both our gaming and voice acting history and our stances on them.

Kagami: Thank you Susumu, and since you mentioned "son", I can't believe you are making me have another baby! So today, I want to start off with your first gaming memories. So, what was the first video game you played?

Driller: Good question Kagami! Basically, the Famicom was the first video game console I ever played, but you might not even know this about me, I wasn't actually born in Japan. I was actually born in America during one of my father's business trips. So basically, I hold citizenship in both Japan and the United States! Pretty dang crazy! Obviously, I spent most my youth in Japan and went to America during my summer breaks when you and I were in elementary, junior high, and even senior high. I studied English with an American tutor, who was working at the American Drillimation facility. She wanted me to provide the translations for the Drillimation games. Moving on, my father actually owned a Commodore 64, PC-88 and PC-98 machines, and even the IBM PC.

Driller: Steering away from the above, the first video game I ever played was Namco's Pac-Man, which I did not know that it was more popular in America than our home country of Japan. Also, before the first Mr. Driller game was made, the Famicom also came out, so my family got one right away. Whenever I would get a new game, I would tell it to everyone at school and encourage them to get that particular game. Some of the biggest games that influenced me were Super Mario Bros., Pac-Man, and Xevious.

Kagami: Yeah, my story also began with the Famicom as well. That was a gift I got for Christmas in 1986 before I even met you, and I got two games with it: Super Mario Bros. and of course, the NES port of Mr. Driller. My mother had been watching an awful lot of Lucky Star during my early years, and The Drillimation Series was the first anime I ever watched as a youngster. And so, the reason I came to Drillimation was there was an ad campaign looking for a young girl to voice Remilia Scarlet in Touhou 6: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. I had a bit of anxiety about voicing a vampire, but I did it anyway. Prior to doing the voices of Remilia and Flandre Scarlet, I helped out in school plays, because I had an interest in theatre.

Driller: Awesome. I also wanted to tell you that another one of my influences was Street Fighter II. I was a big fan of martial arts movies such as the works of Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee. That game was a great way to fight without having to leave any pain behind. That led to the creation of Super Smash Keyboards and Killer Minecraft, which nearly corrupted my reputation during my teenage years. I've heard that ZUN put in more than 10,000 yen a day, which led to his checks from Drillimation temporarily disappearing in a flash.

Kagami: Meh, I didn't really care for Street Fighter II. In fact, my parents wouldn't even let me play Super Smash Keyboards or Killer Minecraft at all! Of course, that changed when I started watching the anime Sailor Moon, which influenced the anime version of myself in Anime Atrocities and Chuhou Joutai. You made the anime version of Susumu Takajima but was instead influenced by anime such as Dragon Ball.

Driller: So, why did you call yourself "Princess Kagami" in Chuhou Joutai?

Kagami: I coined the name after Princess Serenity from Sailor Moon, but wanted to go for a more colorful scheme. I picked the color orange because it is my favorite color. Similar how red is your favorite color, you made your shirt red in the game.

Driller: So, what did you do while you were away from me in Nagasaki?

Kagami: Oh, there's a long list. I can't be asked to explain it all. Basically, my mom got outsourced to Nagasaki, and I was forced to follow her there. She made me and Yumi work as a miko the local shrine. I also continued my J-pop songs there, and I even played the lead role of Kaguya at my high school's theatre department's production of The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter during my first year. A lot of the crowd called me "Houraisan" during the receptions of the performances. I remember going to prom with this guy, and I dressed in a Victorian-style gown, which impressed everyone. It felt like I was Princess Konata from Lucky Star walking into the Lucky Star Kingdom's Great Hall for the first time to meet Prince Susumu Hori. Of course, I never won Prom Queen, but you made us win as one of the endings in Chuhou Joutai 5: Faults Before Waltz.

Driller: Of course, that "ex" I had to defeat in order to get a chance to date you now works at Drillimation.

Kagami: Meh. You never really cared for him. Besides, what programs do you use to make the games?

Driller: For most of the game, it's Driller Engine. For the sprites and artwork, it's mostly Photoshop. Before Adobe introduced Photoshop, which was during the Driller Engine 1 Era, we had to do it all with pen and paper and rasterize it into the game. For the music, it's Open ModPlug Tracker, as all Drillimation games use tracker music for their soundtracks.

Kagami: I'm not that great of an artist, but you are better than me. For music, I'm still a J-Pop singer, as I provide the vocals to most of the vocal songs you write.

Driller: It was amazing how we made everything in Driller Engine go straight to the arcade. Personally, I became a master at Touhou Project within a number of weeks during the Driller Engine 1 Era. Were you ever good at Touhou?

Kagami: No, not personally. I'm still getting confused with 3D, and I wasn't good in the arcade because I had trouble with the joystick. Playing the game with a D-Pad and an analog stick was way better.