Friday, March 1, 2024

An interview with Hirohide Sugiura from 2020 has been added

An interesting interview with the co-founder of MonolithSoft, Hirohide Sugiura, from the June 4th edition of Famitsu 2020, has been translated by Lugalbanda of Xenomira. The interview is not exactly news, but when I found out about it I knew it would be worthwhile to make it available on this study guide. Previously, only a part of it was translated by Oni Dino of Nintendo Everything. The part he translated was this:

Sugiura: It all started when I played Xenogears back then. I was in charge of another game at the time, but Xenogears really stood out prominently among the rest, and I fell in love with it. Afterward, we put together plans for a Xenogears 2, but Square at the time had a lot of financial investment in their movie division, so it was extremely difficult to get things put into production internally. Despite that, I knew somehow I had to make something from these ideas, so I chose to go my own way.

That must’ve been some impression Xenogears had on you.

Sugiura: Tetsuya Takahashi, Yasuyuki Honne and 27 others felt the same. So with the help of Masaya Nakamura (founder of Namco), we went ahead with establishing Monolith Soft. We did negotiate with other video game companies when going solo, but I was a big fan of Namco – so much so that I even applied to their new hires after graduation. Anyway, after meeting with Nakamura, it was Namco’s outstanding sensibilities that was the deciding factor for us.

So that’s how Monolith Soft came to be.

Sugiura: The number one motivation for me was because I loved the world that Takahashi created. And that fact still holds true to this day.


The interview focuses on the 20th anniversary of the founding of the company, and since the founding of MonolithSoft occured during the height of the company's interest in the Xenogears and Xenosaga series, basically creating the company for the main purpose of making a sequel to Xenogears in some way, it is a valuable source for future updates to the history articles. Since Sugiura is a huge fan of Xenogears, and the main patron of Takahashi, interviews with him have usually proven to be very interesting. He was the first person to publically express an interest in returning to the Xenosaga series one day, before both Soraya and Takahashi later did as well.

Tuesday, January 23, 2024

Part 1 of the Xenogears Story Analysis is now up

Apologies for the long wait, but I have now added a story analysis section with the first part of the Xenogears Story Analysis completed.

Most of this article has actually been finished for a few years now, but I did not realize how long the section examining the narrative structure would turn out, so I decided to split the story analysis into two parts. It was originally intended to be just one long article. In hindsight I should have realized just having one article would make it too big since the original story analysis was divided into six parts, and most of the writing that has been restored from the original analysis will be included in part 2. There is also a possibility that it will be divided into more parts, but for now the plan is two parts.

So this is not merely a restoration of the old material, but a new article that I am much more satisfied with, since the one on the old website was very messy and also included references to debates I had with other fans and detractors at the time that are no longer relevant with the passage of time. Having been mostly away from the Xeno fandom for over 10 years now I feel I can approach this endeavor with more detached objectivity and better focus. A much more positive feedback loop has also taken place with new analysis of Xenogears by other people (such as Resonant Arc on YouTube) having improved due to being more competently informed by better resources (such as this study guide) than was available in the past, which in turn actually helps even me discover new and valuable insights every now and then.

Speaking of old debates becoming irrelevant over time, I have also been thinking of writing an entirely new article examining how fan perception of Xenogears, Xenosaga, and Takahashi's original vision has changed since the early days of Xenogears up till now. This from the perspective of Western fans only having access to limited information, and how much of the views younger audience currently have of the series is also transient and will change over time for similar reasons, since, although more information can be found today, there still exists laziness and some information is hard to dig up. I think such an article might be useful since the purpose of this study guide is to make people more informed, and the worst ideas and theories about the Xeno series (or about anything) always comes from the less informed. And unfortunately, a bad idea easily becomes a bad idea in the heads of many.

However, if I write such an article it would be better to wait until after more material has been restored. For now the focus will be on the Story Analysis Section.

Sunday, September 11, 2022

Interview with Tetsuya Takahashi from KOS-MOSFIX has been added

An interesting new interview with creator Tetsuya Takahashi from CHOCO's new book KOS-MOSFIX has been translated properly by Lugalbanda. What is particularly interesting about this interview is that it answers a lot about Takahashi's thought process behind the design of KOS-MOS, why he went with something "fan-servy" rather than something more serious and appropriate to the more mature and dark setting of the original Xenosaga vision. It makes so much more sense that he originally wanted something more niche, inspired by artist Hans Bellmer, which would have given KOS-MOS a creepier vibe reminiscent of Deus in its initial form (something comparably creepy never ended up appearing in Xenosaga, though the Archetype version of KOS-MOS and certain aspects of Gnosis came close). Xenosaga: Episode I still had the creepiest, most moody atmosphere out of all the Xeno games thus far. Takahashi's various niche interests was always what made him interesting as a creator, and I think that it would be so much more interesting if Takahashi attempted some way of re-making Xenogears or Xenosaga in a medium that would be less expensive and can embrace a more niche audience and result in less compromises like this.

Here are some images of Bellmer's dolls.


The information revealed in this interview has, as usual, compelled me to yet again update the History of Xenosaga article, adding some of the new information and quotes. It kind of contradicts his earlier comment in the ODM where he said that "Mugitani-san [CHOCO] thought a sexual impression [for KOS-MOS] would be good, or so he said, and so he also researched underwear." - which ascribed the thought process behind KOS-MOS's design mainly to CHOCO. These sometimes confusing and contradictory statements are what made the history articles hard to write, and why inserting new info that puts a different light on something said previously isn't always very simple or easy.

Monday, July 9, 2018

New article: the Future of the series

I have added a new article that deals with rumors of a possible continuation or a remake of the Xenogears and/or Xenosaga series. The idea is that once something is said or appears in an interview by the creators, fans can add this in the comment field and in this way have new information pile up there in case I'm on a break from the fandom. I'm not really keeping track of things anymore and also have some skepticism that anything will truly come out of these rumors or talk among the developers, but I get that people would want a section on the study guide that deals with a possible future of the series. So here it is.

Most of the article is currently only the last part of the History of Xenosaga article that's been moved and then slightly expanded upon.

Wednesday, July 4, 2018

Article: the "Merits of these works" added

Some more text has been restored and added to the study guide in the form of a new and updated article called "the Merits of these works." This is an article that incorporates various bits and pieces of texts from previous sections of the old study guide - including "A Brief Overview", "Why This Study Guide?", the intro of the "Plot Analysis", the last part of the old History article that dealt with Xenoblade Chronicles, and some bits from other places - into a more fully fleshed out and complete text that deals with the merits of Xenogears and Xenosaga in general. It can be regarded as an introduction or the first page of this study guide readers are encouraged to read, but for various reasons it got postponed.

One of the reasons it got postponed was that I wasn't happy with the writing, and because of that I feel the need to share something. I honestly don't think my writing is all that good, but since nobody has complained yet I guess it's passable. You could say that my ambition was to learn how to write better about the series or things in general, by examining how actual academics and the "cultural elites" tend to write about famous and classical works. Thus part of my writings on the previous study guide was to emulate a bit of their style. However, I'm not sure I'm suited to write in that style and these days I find the academic jargon to be less interesting than I used to think. The most important thing is simply to be able to get things across in an understandable way. Of course, reading stuff you don't normally read is good for expanding your mind and ways of looking at things.

I'm also not that knowledgeable or talented in writing about stuff like music, game design, and so forth beyond the plot or story. And since it has been a while since I thought about the series I have also started to forget things about the works in general. And when it comes to the themes and influences on these works, there's just too much to keep track of. For example, I never researched Gnosticism all that in-depth and I don't know if Takahashi knows that much about it either or just got the concepts through Jung (he said something similar in regards to Norse mythology in an interview, that he got it through his interest in Nietzsche). Then there's the issue I have with not being able to fully figure out what Takahashi's ultimate message with the works really is.

My wish was always to read texts like this written by an actual academic or similar who is more knowledgeable about literature and cultural history. The material on the study guide was sort of put together for that purpose, to provide other authors, academics, fans and journalists to have access to proper material so as not to get certain facts or ideas wrong in their essays. It's funny, but I never actually wanted to be the one to write some of the articles that I did. I always wanted someone else to write this kind of stuff, someone more suitable. But since it appeared that wasn't going to happen, I decided to just go ahead and give it a shot myself. I figured it'd be good for learning practice if nothing else, and for sure it has been useful and ended up being a sort of fun thing to do. But these days I find it hard to return to the series and fix up some of the work that needs fixing in my articles. Which is why restoration work on the study guide is going so slow and often put on hold.

The article may need to be cleaned up some more in the future, because I don't know how well it actually manages to get to the point. But I think it provides some food for thought and should at least be a useful resource for people discussing the merits of the series or works in general.

Monday, July 2, 2018

Xenogears 20th Anniversary Concert interviews and more

Thanks to the work of Lugalbanda the study guide can now archive translations from the recent Xenogears 20th Anniversary Concert pamphlet. Lugalbanda has also dug up some ancient Xenogears stuff, such as another interview from Hakoere and the rest of the pages from the interview with Xenogears staff, both from 1998. He also helped to clean up some other translations that Gwendal struggled with. Enjoy!

These translations and more are also available at Lugalbanda's website Mira found at https://xenomira.wordpress.com/

Thursday, May 10, 2018

A new interview with Tetsuya Takahashi has been added

An interesting interview with creator Tetsuya Takahashi from February this year by the Japanese denfaminicogamer site has been translated by Lugalbanda, and while it is not specifically a Xenogears or Xenosaga interview, it is a general Tetsuya Takahashi interview that goes into some interesting stuff about Xenogears and his time at Square and so I've decided it belongs on the study guide.

The information revealed in this interview has also compelled me to update the History of Xenogears article, adding some of the new information and quotes.

There may also be more interviews coming up from the Xenogears 20th Anniversary Concert pamphlet from the same translator, so stay tuned for that. Accordingly, I will re-arrange the interview order slightly and divide them up into more specific Xenogears and Xenosaga related interviews, and I will place the Xenogears interviews at the top since the latest interviews mostly concern Xenogears as well as Xenogears being the more popular work.