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As you know, I have a particular interest (other say "obsession") with RE1 and RE1.5.
During the early 2000's, Doughboy (my Japanese translator) told me about an official Japanese manga telling the whole making-of of the first Biohazard/Resident Evil, from Shingi Mikami's point of view. In fact, it was an interview of Mikami, told in drawings.
Because I never heard of it, either from fans or journalists, I decided to investigate. It took me a few years but I finally found it around 2007: it was edited in 1998 by Shonen Magazine Comics and called "The World of Game Creators #1". There were 3 interviews in this small manga; one from Mikami about RE1; one about a developer of Bushido Blade, and one of a developer for a horse racing game. There was a whole series of "WGC" mangas, but only this one interested me.
I got Doughboy to translate the 54 pages of Mikami's interview in 2007, and I was working on the layout of this feature in 2009 (either for Biohazard France or for SurvivHor, I haven't decided at that time) when I lost my external hard drive. This was a major downer for me, because this comic had a lot of interesting facts I wanted to share with the RE community. I wanted Dot50Cal to host his own layout and English translation for this comic, and I did send him 6 pages to see if he was interested. I think this happened just before he left the community.
Anyway, I didn't tell anyone about this manga after my crash because I couldn't prove it was real anymore - and I know how the community is ;-) But as I said in an other topic, a few days ago I found some old folder in an other external hard drive and I can share with you the cover; the 6 pages I send to Dot50Cal (with the layout I was going to use for the French version), and an advertisement I made to promote the completed file in Biohazard France forums - and never used.
French advertisement
The cover
Page 11 (of my layout)
On the left page, Mikami explain how he came with the idea of the fixed camera angles. At that time of the RE1 development, he was struggling with the concept of fear. He thought that showing the monster in front of the gamer wasn't very scary.
In Capcom's offices, he went one day to the bathroom and was very scarred when, after turning an angle, he faced an unexpected coworker!
This gave him the idea of the fixed camera angles.
Page 15(of my layout)
I send these pages to Dot because they are very iconic of the game, nothing else.
Page 23 (of my layout)
In that time, Japanese gamers send mail to game developers. In each japanese game, there was a kind of survey asking the gamer what they thought about the game. Japanese developers used these mails not only for the feedback provided, but also to judge how popular their game was, among the gamers.
In the previous page [not provided], Mikami got 3 mails back during the first week [if I remember it right] and that means that Biohazard was a disaster and nobody liked it. He was then convocated by his boss… to see that his office was full of mails and that the game was in fact a huge success!
The comic ended with the team working on RE2 and having a hard time again.
That's also something I remember from the comic: the development of RE1 was hell. Nobody believed in the game, they didn't have enough resources (at the beginning anyway), they had to restart the development at one point, and Mikami was doubting all along. It was a very surprising interview and I hope that someone, with all these informations, can find the manga and get it translated again
During the early 2000's, Doughboy (my Japanese translator) told me about an official Japanese manga telling the whole making-of of the first Biohazard/Resident Evil, from Shingi Mikami's point of view. In fact, it was an interview of Mikami, told in drawings.
Because I never heard of it, either from fans or journalists, I decided to investigate. It took me a few years but I finally found it around 2007: it was edited in 1998 by Shonen Magazine Comics and called "The World of Game Creators #1". There were 3 interviews in this small manga; one from Mikami about RE1; one about a developer of Bushido Blade, and one of a developer for a horse racing game. There was a whole series of "WGC" mangas, but only this one interested me.
I got Doughboy to translate the 54 pages of Mikami's interview in 2007, and I was working on the layout of this feature in 2009 (either for Biohazard France or for SurvivHor, I haven't decided at that time) when I lost my external hard drive. This was a major downer for me, because this comic had a lot of interesting facts I wanted to share with the RE community. I wanted Dot50Cal to host his own layout and English translation for this comic, and I did send him 6 pages to see if he was interested. I think this happened just before he left the community.
Anyway, I didn't tell anyone about this manga after my crash because I couldn't prove it was real anymore - and I know how the community is ;-) But as I said in an other topic, a few days ago I found some old folder in an other external hard drive and I can share with you the cover; the 6 pages I send to Dot50Cal (with the layout I was going to use for the French version), and an advertisement I made to promote the completed file in Biohazard France forums - and never used.
French advertisement
The cover
Page 11 (of my layout)
On the left page, Mikami explain how he came with the idea of the fixed camera angles. At that time of the RE1 development, he was struggling with the concept of fear. He thought that showing the monster in front of the gamer wasn't very scary.
In Capcom's offices, he went one day to the bathroom and was very scarred when, after turning an angle, he faced an unexpected coworker!
This gave him the idea of the fixed camera angles.
Page 15(of my layout)
I send these pages to Dot because they are very iconic of the game, nothing else.
Page 23 (of my layout)
In that time, Japanese gamers send mail to game developers. In each japanese game, there was a kind of survey asking the gamer what they thought about the game. Japanese developers used these mails not only for the feedback provided, but also to judge how popular their game was, among the gamers.
In the previous page [not provided], Mikami got 3 mails back during the first week [if I remember it right] and that means that Biohazard was a disaster and nobody liked it. He was then convocated by his boss… to see that his office was full of mails and that the game was in fact a huge success!
The comic ended with the team working on RE2 and having a hard time again.
That's also something I remember from the comic: the development of RE1 was hell. Nobody believed in the game, they didn't have enough resources (at the beginning anyway), they had to restart the development at one point, and Mikami was doubting all along. It was a very surprising interview and I hope that someone, with all these informations, can find the manga and get it translated again
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