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During Anime Expo, GamingTrend spoke with Ryo Hino, lead producer of the show from NBCUniversal Entertainment Japan, and Kensuke Ito, producer at Konami. The team discussed bringing the fan-favorite Suikoden II to television screens, highlighting a mandatory requirement that everyone working on Suikoden: The Anime had to play the original game.
Addressing the massive gameplay scope, Hino noted that compressing a game taking 10 to 20 hours into a coherent narrative was the initial challenge. Ito explained that they focused on the character story between Riou and Jowy, completing the two best friends' story. While focusing on this friendship, Hino mentioned they also tried to include as many of the 108 recruitable characters as possible for fans to find.
Ito noted that future entries like Suikoden III and IV are referenced since they share the same world and time frame. To translate fighting styles, Ito described combining CG effects and hand drawings to represent the game's party, boss, and army combat types. Furthermore, Ito stated that producing the animation in-house at Konami allowed them to utilize internal company materials and original notes from creator Mr. Murayama.
Suikoden: The Anime is now airing in Japan and will premiere worldwide on October 6 with a 60-minute episode, followed by weekly releases every Tuesday.
