In a recent interview with Siliconera, bouncing boobs producer Kenichiro Takaki talked about the future of Senran Kagura and some details from Deep Crimson.
I quoted the Deep Crimson and more general comments below, but if you are interested in Estival Versus too, you can read the other tidbits here.
Who are some of the new characters in Senran Kagura: Deep Crimson. Can you talk about them and introduce them to us?
Takaki: So, in Deep Crimson we have two new main characters. One of them is Kagura. For a long time, people were asking what the Kagura part of the game’s title meant, so we finally added a character with the title name. Right now, she’s young, but moving forward, [so] she’ll probably be one of the strongest characters—she does, after all, share a name with the title! There’s also Naraku, who is sort of an assistant that takes care of Kagura.
How big can you make breasts before they actually become a problem for the programmers?
Takaki: (laughs) I think that the characters you see on the cover of Deep Crimson are probably about as big as we can get. If they got any bigger, when the character crossed their arms, it might actually pop out over it. To have anything bigger actually work out and get them to jiggle right, I think I’d need a machine with just a bit more specs…
On that note, Senran Kagura usually alternates between systems. Where do you think the series will go next? Will it ever move away from Nintendo or Sony devices?
Takaki: As of now, we’re not really thinking about expanding to any other platforms. I’m happy continuing to develop for the platforms the series has already showed up on.
What could you do, or what have you done, to make the games more inviting to people who might be discouraged by the degree of fanservice in the game?
Takaki: There are voices I’ve heard say that while they don’t mind clothes being ripped off in battle because that makes sense in context, characters appearing fairly undressed during talking scenes or adventure mode cutscenes is too jarring. I hear what they’re saying, but that is sort of the essence of Senran Kagura in the first place. If they can overlook that, I’d be happy… but there’s also an option in Deep Crimson that allows players to view the cutscenes without costumes or practical nudity… that sort of thing.
Have you ever considered doing a crossover with a game like, say, Story of Seasons? I mean, both of the titles have the common ground of milk, right…?
Takaki: (laughs) While we’re out drinking, things like that get brought up, but! Other than that, like you mentioned earlier, we do look into things like Dead or Alive. Senran Kagura characters are also making an appearance in Nitroplus Blasterz, so we like doing stuff like that as well.
This is a bit of a character specific question. Asuka has this dreadful hatred of frogs in the game. Why did you choose frogs specifically?
Takaki: In the game, the reason she fears frogs is because of a traumatic event that happened in her childhood.
You don’t personally find frogs to be disgusting then?
Takaki: You know, I used to like them, but, nowadays, yeah, I’m sort of a little grossed out by frogs.
In Japan, Senran Kagura had a partnership with Umaibo. How did that partnership come about and where can Umaibo gain from pairing up with Senran Kagura specifically?
Takaki: So there’s an Internet café in Japan called DS Café. They actually had a public vote for what kind of collaboration people wanted to see, and they were the ones who approached both Marvelous and Umaibo with this idea. Whichever option got first place is the one that would get the collaboration project, and people voted for us! I think it worked well since Umaibo looks a lot like the scrolls in the game.
Not poles?
Takaki: (laughs) Scrolls! But poles makes sense too!
What’s your favorite feature from Deep Crimson?
Takaki: One of the things I’m really proud of in that game is that the players can fight against giant boss monsters. For me it actually added a lot to the gameplay, and it’s something I really want to revisit in future titles.
Deep Crimson has a new feature that makes use of the 3DS’s camera. There aren’t a lot of games that do this. What do you want to see from this feature from the community?
Takaki: Simply and honestly, I wanted to give the fans out there the chance to put their favorite character in their room, or lying on their bed, and so on. Really, I just wanted people to use the AR feature with their imagination.