Kensuke Tanaka Interview: Famitsu.com 9/18/2013

Introduction

The following interview comes from Famitsu.com's online sight, which was published on September 18, 2013. which can be found here [1]

In the article, Kancolle's main producer, Kensuke Tanaka, talks about the hints regarding the Marriage system along with giving an explanation regarding why I-19 got delayed from the Summer 2013 Event.

In addition, he talks about plans for his plans to include Foreign Ships, an anime series, talks about some player's strategies, along with talking about the passion behind doing the designs and voice work for the Kanmusu

What interesting things are in the stock for KanColle from now on?

Interviewer: Are there plans for any additional systems in the game, aside of what we have now?

Tanaka: Currently, if you level your favourite ship girl to level 99, there’s nothing left for the two of you. However, we’re preparing a system which will make it possible.

I: This looks like very good news for Admirals.

T: Yes, but if we do it in a conventional way, it won’t be very interesting, so we’re going to come up with something special. Somehow, I feel, you will pull it out of me…

I: Please, don’t spare us any details!

T: Hmm, what should I say? Your favourite Ship girl, to which you’ve devoted all your affection, so she can grow up, has a secret crush on you. In addition to that, we want to add some special interactions. Your face’s like “What the…?” *laughs*

I: Please, implement this quickly!

T: Understood!

I: Sorry, I’ve lost my composure. The other day a new submarine girl was announced. When can we expect her to be implemented?

T: I-19, right? This is… Can I talk about it? The truth is that there was a brief announcement at Comptiq, but we didn’t plan on revealing her.

I: H-huh?

T: Firstly, truth is, we wanted to release I-19 for the recent “Southern Waters Assault Reconnaissance” event. However, event preparations and Comptiq's article coincided, so we passed the materials and had the article quickly scraped together. And so, while checking it, we thought “Well, it’s time to implement the event”, and when we checked the work folder, we were like “Oh? There are no I-19 voice files, kuma”. Then it came to us. “That is, we forgot to record I-19’s lines, kuma” is what I have to say.

I: That’s… As she’s a submarine, it means that she’ll be voiced by Nakajima Megumi, same as I-168 and I-58, right?

T: Nope, we thought about having all three of them done by the same person, but in the end decided to have another seiyuu voice I-19. That’s why we forgot about it. As it was impossible to implement with the event, we shifted our focus to other plans, namely implementation of Suzuya and Kumano.

I: Using flamethrowers, I see? (lol)

T: My bad, I apologize. However, it was already to late for Comptiq to apply any last-minute changes to the article, so… It was already past proofreading and at the printing shop. With such a bad timing, we’ve decided to make an exclusive scoop sort of thing. But having this kind of overzealous editor department makes me really happy! I-19 will be implemented in the next update, I apologize!

I: You’ve had such a secret, huh? Talking about new ships, I’m really interested if there will be any foreign ships implemented?

T: We have very specific plans about this too. I wonder if we could do something about it, by utilizing a submarine expedition.

I: Will we ships from many different countries?

T: Germany, United States, Britain… We’re thinking about releasing shipgirls from many different countries. We have the kind of “Oh! It’s this guy!” artist booked already. Please look forward to it!

I: I can’t wait! Continuing, as we mentioned the recent event, did you suspect that 10,000 people will obtain the Yamato?

T: Correct. It’s a good feeling, very relieving.

I: Did you expect people trying to shave off the event map gauges with submarines?

T: Yes, of course. However, people were complaining, “I can’t use submarines”, but it's not exactly true. You can use submarines for chipping, although it's not very effective. I also wanted the game to have this "Honestly, I'm using the submarines!" kind of appeal. On the other hand, being able to clear up to 3-4 map (Decisive Fleet Battle of the Northern Sea), is a bit beyond my expectation. As such, the recent update has changed the formations a little bit. We’ve already informed the players.

I: Flagship type light cruisers also made an appearance. It was a large update, wasn’t it? By the way, Yamato’s moderate damage art depicts some very bad looking damage to her left side. This reflects the historical facts, but how are this kind of illustrations actually done?

T: Sometimes it’s us, the developers, coming up with such ideas, but artists are also extremely helpful and engaged. For example, Shibafu, responsible for Fubuki and Akagi, among others, is really accurate. Akagi’s moderate damage art has bomb holes in the same places as her real life equivalent, at the Battle of Midway. It’s not something we asked for, instead, it’s a product of Shibafu’s passion. That’s why I believe that shipgirls are created by everybody. This goes for the seiyuu as well. They lend their voice, while checking out each and every possibility, to multiple characters, and put their heart and soul into it. They also perform detailed research of historical facts for each of their shipgirls. Shipgirls aren’t just the text that I write, or data I create. Artists and seiyuu are the ones who bring them to life. Although, I think that it’s the love they receive from the admirals makes them complete.

I: It looks like KanColle is a joint effort. Well then, I want to ask what’s on your mind for the future of KanColle?

T: I can’t say anything concrete now, but at a very early point of the development process, we’ve shown our designs to our senpais at Kadokawa’s anime department and received feedback and advice from them. Perhaps, thanks to the enthusiasm of all admirals, anime show isn’t just a dream. I would be truly happy if we could see life-like shipgirls move on the TV screen.

I: Certainly, please! Our time is up, but before we go, a message to the fans please!

T: More and more people want to play Kancolle, and I apologize for being unable to prepare environment capable of letting all of you play immediately. Even now we’re improving our systems and servers. To all the admirals who managed to create an account, as always, you have my sincere gratitude, thank you! I hope we’ll be able to further create and develop KanColle’s world together with everybody. From now on, with all my heart, please keep supporting and enjoying KanColle and the shipgirls!

Special thanks to User:Huggykaze for his translation work