Naozumi Yamaguchi

Naozumi Yamaguchi
Place of birth: Saga prefecture, Japan
Employment history: Human Polygon Magic Overworks Sega WOW Marza Animation Planet
Role(s): Artist, director

Naozumi Yamaguchi (山口 直純) is a former animator at Sega. He originally worked in the anime industry, but entered the games industry to work on RPGs.

Prior to entering the games industry he was an animator with little interest in video games. However, he began to see their potential as more role-playing and adventure games released with rich storylines. He was worried for his future as, at the time, the number of anime productions was in decline and the world was rapidly shifting from analog to digital, so he joined games company Human. At first it was a struggle for him as someone who drew via pencil to suddenly learn how to draw with a mouse.

At Human he was a designer for their Fire Pro Wrestling and Twilight Syndrome series. He later worked at Polygon Magic, working on games such as Incredible Crisis, Leiji Matsumoto 999 and Abarenbou Princess. In 2000 he joined Sega's Overworks studio, where he was involved with storyboarding for Shinobi and Nightshade, as well as directing the cinematics in Sakura Taisen: Atsuki Chishio Ni. Following the creation of Global Entertainment R&D Dept. 3 he became the event director for Phantasy Star Universe. He later worked at Marza Animation Planet.

Yamaguchi's favourite video game series is Final Fantasy. His most memorable work is on Shinobi, as it was his first experience working with motion capture. He often draws inspiration from anime and movies he watches in his own work. His cousin Naohisa Yamaguchi also works in the games industry as a logo designer.

Production history

Games

• (; 2002) — コンテ (as 山口 直純)
• (; 2003) — ムービー制作 (as 山口 直純)
• (; 2003) — 絵コンテ ／ 演出 (as 山口 直純)
• (; 2003) — CG Artist
• (; 2003) — Cutscene Storyboarding
• (; 2005) — Artists
• (; 2006) — Scenario
• (; 2006) — Scenario
• (; 2006) — Event Directors
• (; 2006) — Event Directors
• (; 2006) — Scenario
• (; 2006) — Event Directors
• (; 2007) — Scenario
• (; 2007) — Scenario
• (; 2007) — Event Directors
• (; 2007) — Event Directors
• (; 2007) — Scenario
• (; 2007) — Event Directors
• (; 2008) — Producer
• (; 2009) — Director

Videos

• (; No results?) — Pre-Production

• Sakura Taisen: Atsuki Chishio Ni (2003)

Interviews

• Naozumi Yamaguchi interview by Gpara