Keiji Inafune | Code Like It's 198x

For about twenty years Keiji Inafune was the face of Mega Man. Magazines called him the character’s creator, and by the late 2000s he was one of the most senior people at Capcom. He did not direct the first game: that was Akira Kitamura. Inafune was a young artist on Kitamura’s team, “then fresh out of college”, as Wireframe put it. He drew the Blue Bomber’s world, redrew the hero for the Super Nintendo, and went on to produce three of Capcom’s biggest new series: Onimusha, Dead Rising and Lost Planet. In 2009 he told the Tokyo Game Show that Japan’s games industry was “finished”. A year later he left Capcom, and in 2013 he asked Mega Man’s fans to pay for a new game in the old style.

Fast facts

Born: 1965, in Kishiwada, Osaka, according to public reference sources.
Capcom: 1987 to 2010, starting as an illustrator on Street Fighter and ending as its head of research and development and global production.
Mega Man: artist on the first game and its sequels; designer of the hero’s new look in Mega Man X (1993).
Capcom’s new series: producer of Onimusha and its sequels; the public face of Dead Rising (2006); came up with the concept for Lost Planet (2006).
After Capcom: founded Comcept in 2010; Mighty No. 9 (Kickstarter 2013, released 2016); Level-5 from 2017 until 2024.

An illustrator at Capcom

Inafune joined Capcom in 1987. His first job, according to Edge and two Retro Gamer histories, was drawing the character portraits for the arcade Street Fighter. That year he moved to the small team making Mega Man for the Famicom, led by Kitamura as director and planner, with Nobuyuki Matsushima as programmer. The team took its cue from Japanese animation, and from Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy above all. “The [Mega Man] character is really based on Japanese animation,” Inafune told Play magazine in 2004, as Wireframe quoted him: “Nintendo games really did not have a huge focus on the characters.”

Inafune also drew the art that surrounded the game. In Japan he designed the covers and manuals of the first few Mega Man games himself. Capcom’s American marketing department chose not to use his anime-style art and commissioned its own, and the result, Wireframe wrote, “has long since gone down in history as one of the worst ever”.

He stayed with the series after Kitamura left following Mega Man 2, which Inafune later remembered as a game the team made in its own time: “we worked really, really hard, you know, just 20-hour days to complete this, because we were making something we wanted to make.” The series carried on under producer Tokuro Fujiwara, with Inafune as artist. For Mega Man X (1993) on the Super Nintendo he was planner and artist, and replaced the squat 8-bit hero with a taller, more detailed design to suit the new console’s larger palette.

Producer

By the late 1990s Inafune was producing games himself. In 1999 Edge described him as a veteran of the Mega Man series who had worked on Resident Evil 2, and introduced him as producer of Onimusha, a samurai action game for the PlayStation 2 whose 30-strong team had largely come from that game. “The purpose of Onimusha was to create a game where players can use the abilities they have built up while playing Bio-Hazard,” he said. Onimusha: Warlords was an early hit on the PlayStation 2, and he produced the sequels too; Retro Gamer lists him as producer of Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny (2002). In 2002, when Capcom reorganised its developers into numbered studios, Edge reported that Studio 2 was run by Inafune.

In the Xbox 360 generation he became Capcom’s best-known spokesman in the West. He fronted Dead Rising, a zombie game set in a shopping mall, where, as Edge reported in 2005, he wanted “practically every object on every shelf” to be a potential weapon. It came out in August 2006 and, with Lost Planet: Extreme Condition in December, was one of two Capcom Xbox 360 games that each sold more than a million copies. Inafune said later that he “came up with the concept for the original Lost Planet”. By 2010 he was, in Edge’s words, “the head of R&D and global production at Capcom”. For Dead Rising 2 Capcom worked with Blue Castle Games in Vancouver, and Inafune described the culture clash to Edge: the Canadian team drank beer in the office on Friday evenings, and his Japanese staff “just thought it must be a trap!” He also directed Zombrex: Dead Rising Sun, a short tie-in film released in eight downloadable episodes.

“Japan is over”

Inafune had, Edge wrote in 2009, “spearheaded the overseas strategy of Capcom since the early years of the millennium”. At the Tokyo Game Show that September he gave his verdict on the show: “Japan is over. We’re done. Our games industry is finished.” Edge added that his comments “were universally supported during discussions we had with other Capcom staff”.

His promotion to global head of production in 2010 was, Edge wrote, “short-lived”: later that year he left to set up his own studio, Comcept. Several Mega Man projects were cancelled around the same time, and the main series did not return until Mega Man 11 in 2018. Speaking to the Japanese site 4Gamer as he left, in a translation reported by Siliconera, he said that as head of development he “couldn’t go any higher”, and that the job rewarded playing safe: “not doing anything new so as to avoid failing”.

Comcept and Mighty No. 9

Comcept worked with other companies on their games. By 2014 it had co-developed Sony’s Soul Sacrifice, which Edge said had met “a lukewarm reception”, and Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z with Team Ninja and the American studio Spark Unlimited. Inafune also ran a school for young developers, which he called Inafune Academy. “I don’t want to see fewer game developers in Japan,” he told Edge; “I want to see new game developers come up.”

In August 2013 he took Mighty No. 9 to Kickstarter. Edge described it as a game for fans of a series whose look was “iconic enough to survive without the name”: its hero, Beck, copies his enemies’ abilities as Mega Man did. It asked for $900,000, reached that in two days and raised nearly $4 million from more than 67,000 backers. The game came out in June 2016, after delays, to poor reviews: GameSpot called it “inoffensively average” and IGN “charmless”. On the launch-day stream, speaking through a translator, Inafune took the blame: “I’m the key creator. I will own that responsibility.” Comcept’s other big project of the period, ReCore, an Xbox One game made with Armature Studio for Microsoft, was announced in 2015 and released in 2016.

Level-5

In June 2017 the Japanese publisher Level-5 bought Comcept and made it a subsidiary, Level-5 Comcept, with about 15 staff in Osaka. “I had the feeling that I wanted to be like Hino since around the time I was at Capcom,” Inafune said of Level-5’s head, Akihiro Hino. In 2023 Level-5 named him producer of Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time. He left Level-5 Comcept in 2024; the company was dissolved in May 2025, and the original Comcept in January 2026.

Sources

Edge issue 263, February 2014, pp. 73–75, interview with Keiji Inafune and Yosuke Hayashi: his start in 1987 as an illustrator on Street Fighter; the Mega Man games; involvement in Dead Rising and Lost Planet; the promotion to global head of production in 2010, “short-lived”, and the founding of Comcept; Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z and Spark Unlimited; Inafune Academy and his quote; Soul Sacrifice’s “lukewarm reception”.
Retro Gamer Collection volume 5, 2011, p. 232: “Mega Man’s creator is Keiji Inafune”; his work on Dead Rising and Onimusha.
Retro Gamer issue 107, October 2012, p. 62: Street Fighter history; Inafune “got his break at Capcom drawing up character portraits for Street Fighter”.
Retro Gamer issue 120, November 2013, p. 39: Street Fighter’s character portraits “designed by a young artist who had just started at the company”, Keiji Inafune.
Dan Root, “The changing face of Mega Man”, Wireframe issue 2, November 2018, pp. 44–47: Kitamura as director and Inafune as artist “fresh out of college”; Astro Boy; Inafune’s 2004 Play interview; Fujiwara and Inafune after Kitamura’s departure; Inafune as planner and artist on Mega Man X; the Japanese covers and manuals and the American box art; Inafune’s departure in 2010 and the cancelled Mega Man projects.
Keiji Inafune, interview in Play magazine, April 2004, as quoted in “Mega Man 2”, Wikipedia (web, secondary): “20-hour days”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mega_Man_2
Edge issue 73, July 1999, p. 25, and issue 74, August 1999, pp. 34–35: Onimusha, its producer Inafune, his work on Mega Man and Resident Evil 2, the 30-strong team and his quote.
Edge issue 100, August 2001, p. 28: Onimusha 2 preview, produced by Inafune.
Retro Gamer issue 106, September 2012, p. 64: Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny (PS2, 2002), key people “Keiji Inafune (producer)”; Onimusha: Warlords an early hit on the PS2.
Edge issue 111, June 2002, p. 57: Capcom’s studios, Studio 2 headed by Keiji Inafune.
Edge issue 156, December 2005, p. 41: Dead Rising preview (“practically every object on every shelf”).
Edge issue 160, March 2006, p. 50: Inafune as the “frontman” for Dead Rising and Lost Planet on Xbox 360.
Edge issue 220, November 2010, pp. 14–15, interview with Keiji Inafune: “head of R&D and global production at Capcom”; Zombrex: Dead Rising Sun; Lost Planet; Blue Castle and the Friday beer.
Edge issue 208, December 2009, p. 35: the Tokyo Game Show 2009, “Japan is over”, Capcom’s overseas strategy.
Capcom, “Corporate History”, Capcom investor relations (web, secondary): Dead Rising (August 2006) and Lost Planet (December 2006) each selling more than a million. https://www.capcom.co.jp/ir/english/company/history.html
Kris, “Keiji Inafune On Japanese Developers And Why He Left Capcom”, Siliconera, 1 November 2010 (web, secondary), translating his interview with 4Gamer of 29 October 2010. https://www.siliconera.com/keiji-inafune-on-japanese-developers-and-why-he-left-capcom/
Edge issue 259, November 2013, p. 60: Mighty No. 9, “Keiji Inafune’s Kickstarter project”.
Mike Diver, “Kickstarter Hit ‘Mighty No. 9’ Proves a Critical Flop”, Vice, 21 June 2016 (web, secondary): the $900,000 goal met in two days; nearly $4 million from more than 67,000 backers; the June 2016 release; GameSpot and IGN verdicts. https://www.vice.com/en/article/kickstarter-hit-mighty-no-9-proves-a-critical-flop-producer-says-its-better-than-nothing-957/
“Mighty No. 9”, Wikipedia (accessed September 2026) (web, secondary): the campaign from 31 August 2013; release on 21 June 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mighty_No._9
Damien McFerran, “Mighty No. 9 Problems ‘Totally My Fault’, Admits Creator Keiji Inafune”, Nintendo Life, 22 June 2016 (web, secondary): the launch stream, translated by Ben Judd, and Inafune’s quote. https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2016/06/mighty_no_9_problems_totally_my_fault_admits_creator_keiji_inafune
“Keiji Inafune and the Makers of Metroid Prime Showcase All-New Exclusive ReCore”, Xbox Wire, 16 June 2015 (web, secondary): ReCore from Inafune and Comcept with Armature Studio. https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2015/06/16/xbox-keiji-inafune-and-the-makers-of-metroid-prime-showcase-all-new-exclusive-recore/
“ReCore”, Wikipedia (accessed September 2026) (web, secondary): released in 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReCore
Sal Romano, “Level-5 acquires Comcept, now Level-5 Comcept”, Gematsu, 13 June 2017 (web, secondary): the acquisition, about 15 staff in Osaka, Inafune’s quote about Hino. https://www.gematsu.com/2017/06/level-5-acquires-comcept-now-level-5-comcept
Liam Doolan, “Keiji Inafune Is The Producer Of Level-5’s New Fantasy Life Game On Switch”, Nintendo Life, 22 April 2023 (web, secondary). https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2023/04/keiji-inafune-is-the-producer-of-level-5s-new-fantasy-life-game-on-switch
Rafael Antonio Pineda, “Keiji Inafune’s comcept Game Company Announces Dissolution”, Anime News Network, 29 January 2026 (web, secondary): Inafune’s departure in mid-2024; Level-5 Comcept dissolved in May 2025; comcept dissolved in January 2026. https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2026-01-29/keiji-inafune-comcept-game-company-announces-dissolution/.233590