Acclaimed game developer Goichi “Suda51” Suda has said, “If I had to name a mentor, it would probably be [Shinji] Mikami.”
Suda is the founder and CEO of Grasshopper Manufacture, a studio responsible for a variety of cult hits, including Lollipop Chainsaw, No More Heroes, Romeo Is a Dead Man, and many more. In a roundtable interview with Automaton and GenDesign’s Fumito Ueda, he elaborated on his relationship with Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami and much more.
When asked if he had a mentor figure in his career, Suda responded to Fumito Ueda, saying, “I don’t really have one, either.
“I originally made my debut working on the Fire Pro Wrestling series back at Human Entertainment,” he continued. “In that regard, Masato Masuda, the creator of the series, could be considered a mentor, but he feels more like the franchise’s founding father and a highly respected industry veteran to me rather than a mentor.”
If forced to choose a career mentor, Suda would choose Mikami. “That being said, even after establishing Grasshopper Manufacture, I continued to make games based purely on my own instincts, but when it came to making Killer7, Shinji Mikami (CEO of UNBOUND) taught me everything there is to know about action game design. So, if I had to name a mentor, it would probably be Mikami.”
Suda and Ueda go on to reveal that they sometimes go to dinner with Mikami as a trio, with Ueda saying, “he’s always been very good to us.”
“Mikami taught me something like a ‘sense for frames.’ Up until then, my internal sense of timing for adventure games and action games were completely different,” Suda explained. “Then I saw Mikami making adjustment after adjustment right in front of me, and everything just clicked perfectly into place. It blew me away.”
The DNA of Mikami and Capcom continues to thrive within Grasshopper Manufacture, as Suda explains, “Since some of our veteran staff worked on Killer7 alongside Mikami, there’s a part of Grasshopper Manufacture where the know-how of Mikami and Capcom still lives and breathes.”
Ueda and GenDesign’s upcoming game Gen Atlas was given a full reveal at Summer Game Fest 2026, and VGC interviewed Ueda at the event.
When asked about his upcoming title, Ueda avoids the question by just saying, “Um, right. Please stay tuned for further updates.”
