Masanobu Endō

Masanobu Endō
Born (1959-02-23) February 23, 1959
Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Occupation Video game designer
Years active 1984-present

Masanobu Endō (遠藤 雅伸 Endō Masanobu, born February 23, 1959 in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan) is a game designer, president of Game Studio and Mobile & Game Studio and the director of Digital Games Research Association Japan.

He graduated from the Yokohama Suiran High School and from the Department of Information & Image Science at the Chiba University.

Personal history

In 1981, Endō joined Namco. During his time with the company, in 1982 he created the wildly popular shoot 'em up game Xevious, single-handedly designing, programming and drawing the graphics for the game. Later he produced games such as The Tower of Druaga and Grobda.

After that he became independent, founding his own company called the Game Studio, where he continued to produce games in the Babylonian Castle Saga such as The Return of Ishtar, The Quest of Ki, The Destiny of Gilgamesh (aka The Blue Crystal Rod). In addition, he produced Family Circuit and Tenkaichi Bushi Keru Nagūru for Namco, Kidō Senshi Z-Gundam: Hot Scramble for Bandai and Airs Adventure on the Sega Saturn.

Furthermore, he entered the mobile phone game market at an early stage, creating titles such as Sangokushi Nendaiki, Kētai Shachō, Unō Paradise, Beach Volley Girl Shizuku among others.

On the internet

In March 2001, several messages relating information only an insider would know about Xevious were posted on the retrogaming forum on 2channel by the alias Evezoo END. The administrator of 2channel, Hiroyuki Nishimura, confirmed the identity of the poster as Endō and presented him with a special handle name he could use to post messages with. Since March 29, 2001, Endō has posted on 2channel as 遠藤雅伸 ★ in threads about himself.

Endō has also contributed to the retrogaming forum by drawing the banner image for it, which was taken into use on May 15, 2001.

In the recent years, he supervised the production of the anime The Tower of Druaga: The Aegis of Uruk and the MMORPG The Tower of Druaga: The Recovery of BABYLIM. When the final episode of the anime was broadcast on GyaO Jockey, he appeared on TV as a guest commentator with the name 遠藤雅伸★, explaining that it was his on-screen character. The program set a new record in TV ratings.

Endō has his own character by the same name in the aforementioned MMORPG, modeled after his appearance when he was younger, and he also works as the shopkeeper of the item shop ボッタクル商店 (lit. "ripoff shop"). However, a lot of users complain that the game is replete with bugs and has bad gameplay balance, and that as the supervisor, Endō should take responsibility for the problems.

Appearances in the media

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