Although they are not mentioned in the interview, I think Murase also designed Cid and Garland. This is based on the similarities with his other artworks, so I'm not 100% sure (I'll let you judge). - ThreadSky

jkermarrec.bsky.social • 12 days ago

Although they are not mentioned in the interview, I think Murase also designed Cid and Garland. This is based on the similarities with his other artworks, so I'm not 100% sure (I'll let you judge).

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jkermarrec.bsky.social•12 days ago

He did, however, design Kuja. At first, Murase drew an elegant outfit that made him look like a prince, but Minaba rejected it. Instead of your usual medieval fantasy design, he mentions how he wanted “something with impact.” And so, the design became much more daring.

jkermarrec.bsky.social•12 days ago

By the way, in 2011, Shuko Murase drew a promotional image of Kuja for the arcade card game Lord of Vermilion Re:2. What's funny is that he added the bird from Amano's artwork! (I'm sorry, the image is quite small.)

jkermarrec.bsky.social•12 days ago

Finally, Murase also designed Zorn and Thorn. He wasn't supposed to work on secondary characters, but he had some spare time after his work on the Final Fantasy movie was complete, so here they are. (He adds he also worked on summons, but doesn't specify which ones.)

jkermarrec.bsky.social•12 days ago

So, putting Yoshitaka Amano aside, the main misconception regarding FFIX's characters is that the main cast was designed by Toshiyuki Itahana. As we have seen, it's not the case. The idea comes from the fact he regularly shares doodles of the game's characters.

So what did Itahana actually do?

jkermarrec.bsky.social•12 days ago

First of all, I think even Square Enix is to blame for this confusion regarding Itahana's role. For example, this interview published in 2020 on the Final Fantasy Portal site *never* mentions his exact contribution, or even Murase's name. So it's easy to believe he was the main character designer.

jkermarrec.bsky.social•12 days ago

Actually, Itahana joined the FFIX team quite late, after his work on Chocobo's Dungeon 2 (released December 1998 in Japan) was complete. At that time, the main characters were already done, and the team simply needed more hands as development was moving forward. As such, he started working on NPCs.

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