A SAITO BEHOLD

Yano and Matsuura might be spearheading the project, but Saito’s presence should excite fans of iNiS’s Osu! Tatakae!Ouendan in particular. Saito and his team originally conceived Ouendan as an arcade game, but when Nintendo released DS, iNiS decided the game should take advantage of its touchscreen interface. “The Ouendan/Elite Beat

Agent series has a very special place in my heart, since I was involved with it from concept through the entire production,” Saito says. “It was also the first title for me that had been received so positively by fans.” His artistic influences for Project Rap Rabbit include a series of ancient Japanese picture scrolls known in English as Scrolls Of Frolicking Animals, the work of modern artists Ikeda Manabu and Akira Yamaguchi, and films such as Kung Fu Panda and Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away.