This Ninja Life

1UP hat vergangene Woche Tomonobu Itagaki und Team Ninja in Tokyo begleitet und die Erlebnisse in einem sehr coolen, sehr umfangreichen Special unter teamninja.1up.com festgehalten. Neben Berichten über Dead or Alive 4 (die mich trotz meiner Begeisterung für Ninja Gaiden nicht unbedingt interessieren) enthält die Seite vor allem Interviews mit Itagaki über Itagaki, –wie immer– seine Einstellung zum Rest der Branche und zu Ninja Gaiden 2.

Besonderes Bonbon für Fans ist der Kurzfilm This Ninja Life:

It’s Friday, and we’re proud to present something unlike anything you’ve ever seen in the video game industry before. THIS NINJA LIFE: A Short Film By Tomonobu Itagaki, a melange of video and images shot and filmed by Itagaki himself for 1UP.com. When we first approached Itagaki-san about getting involved in such a project he was initially surprised by the concept, but it didn’t take him long to warm up to the idea. While we initially planned to hit the town and party until we could barely stand, filming all the while, the concept matured a bit. We set Itagaki loose on the streets of Tokyo (and in the Team NINJA studio) to film whatever he wanted, and we would knit it into a narrative of his philosophies. Once he got started, we couldn’t stop him. After he submitted his first few rolls of footage, he said “If you have any requests for me, another film, another surprise, I’ll try to make it for you.” Considering he’d just gotten done with Tokyo Game Show and was getting ready for the X05 show in Amsterdam this October, we sheepishly said “Er, yes?” And so he went back into the brink to film more material, the pivotal “Gambling” footage you’ll see at film’s end. He even provided us with exclusive soundtrack material from Dead or Alive 4, which you hear at the opening of THIS NINJA LIFE.