Suda 51 Meets My Big Fat Geek Running

In an attempt to avoid turning this blog into a series of endless voyages into my own navel, I’m going to be featuring interviews with awesome people every Friday. First up is Suda 51, the Quentin Tarantino of videogames.

Suda’s games (which include critical darlings Killer 7 and the No More Heroes series) are violent candy-coloured post-modern masterpieces, winking at gamers as they batter them into submission with one mad idea after another. What’s even more incredible is that Suda is still only 39.

In the UK to promote his latest game, No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle, Suda kindly answered some questions on his fitness regime for my blog. Yes, you too can now discover the eating habits and weight control secrets of one of Japan’s craziest (and, frankly, nicest) videogame directors:

During the interview we also discussed his drinking habits. Apparently he’s a big fan of sake, although he does like wine too. “I have to be careful with wine though,” he laughed. “It’s a dangerous drink. Some time ago Capcom invited myself and Shinji Mikami (the creator of the Resident Evil games) to a party where there was lots of wine. Mikami drank so much he was horribly sick. I had to carry him home!” Aww. It’s sort of lovely to think of these two titans of the Japanese videogame scene staggering home with each other, slurring “you’re my besssh friend” at each other.

Suda 51 would love to make a game set in 80's Manchester...

He also talked of his love of the British pop scene in the 80’s, and how he’d love to set a game in Manchester during the Factory Records era, featuring music from bands like New Order and the Happy Mondays. “The Getaway put me off setting a game in London, but I think Manchester could be a brilliant setting,” he told me.

Sylvia Christel from No More Heroes was based on Dutch porn actrees Sylvia Kristel

But the real exclusive was when we got on to the subject of modern Japanese cinema. Suda is a big film geek – his games are stuffed with movie references - Sylvia Christel for example, one of the characters in No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle is a reference to dutch actress Sylvia Kristel, the Dutch actress best known for her starring role in the original Emmanuelle).

The 'heroine' of Miike Takashi's Audition prepares to go to work...

His latest game also contains a cameo from Miike Takashi, the enfant terrible of Japanese cinema best known for the messed-up horror flick Auditon. He loved working with Miike – “I’d love to work with him again,” he said. “I think he should make videogames -  can you imagine how violent and crazy they’d be? Plus he works so fast, it’d only take him a week to make!”

Sono Sion's Love Exposure - Who's a pretty birdie?

When we asked if he was familiar with the work of Sono Sion his eyes lit up. Sono is another mad cinematic genuis, who recently released the jaw-dropping Love Exposure – essentially a four hour re-make of Teen Wolf, if Teen Wolf was directed by a man obsessed with cross-dressing and up-skirt photography.

Suda revealed that he’d had dinner with Sono at the end of last year: “I met him last year in fact, we went for dinner. I told him how much he’d inspired me with his movies, and he said ‘Well actually, if you’re interested you can adapt my next movie into a video game. So hopefully I’m doing that next, I really want to make it happen!”

So there you have it, a world exclusive – an  upcoming collaboration between Sono Sion and Suda 51. Frankly the mind boggles at what those two crazy otaku could cook up together…

No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle will be released for the Nintendo Wii in April.