Interview with the Granblue Fantasy Localization Team

As a change of pace from interviews with voice actors, FKHR, and KMR, we reached out to Cygames and asked if we could pick the brains of their localization team. To our delight, they agreed!

KMR and FKHR answer questions from Twitter — Granblue_en interview with Kimura Yuito and Fukuhara Tetsuya 5/26/2020

As Granblue Fantasy‘s development team adjusted to the new rules of the Coronavirus pandemic, we reached out to Kimura Yuito, (“KMR”, producer of GBF) and Fukuhara Tetsuya (“FKHR”, director of GBF). Armed with questions from Twitter, we asked them about challenges the game is facing in the age of COVID, along with a few other burning questions.

Pash! interview 04/2020: reader submitted questions to FKHR

Pash! magazine allowed readers to submit questions to FKHR, and he answered 28 of them in the latest issue! Let’s dig in.

Interview with the producer and director of Granblue Fantasy part 2 – Anime Expo 7/4/2019

Kimura Yuito (KMR) and Fukuhara Tetsuya (FKHR), the producer and director of Granblue Fantasy, talk about GBF‘s increasing international presence, and provide a behind-the-scenes look at the fun side of GBF development. Continued from Part 1.

Granblue goes global

Granblue_en: Are there plans for creating localizations for GBF in other languages, like Chinese or Korean?

Interview with the producer and director of Granblue Fantasy part 1 – Anime Expo 7/4/2019

At Anime Expo 2019, granblue_en was granted a special opportunity to sit down with Kimura Yuito (KMR) and Fukuhara Tetsuya (FKHR), the producer and director of Granblue Fantasy.

If we had a chance to interview KMR and FKHR at Anime Expo next month, what would you want us to ask them? Try to focus on things that wouldn't necessarily be covered at their panel!
— グランブルーEN (@granblue_en) June 4, 2019

We came armed with questions pulled from our followers on Twitter, as well as a few things we’ve always been curious about as players.

Fukuhara Tetsuya and Kimura Yuito interview – Famitsu 04/11/2019

(translated from the 04/11/2019 issue of Famitsu by @vibratingsheep, all mistakes are Sheep’s. All bolded phrases were highlighted in the original interview.)

The Granblue Fantasy style built over 5 years

Famitsu: When you look back at the last 5 years, what stands out?

Kimura Yuito (KMR): I left the Granblue Fantasy team for a time, but when you consider the time we were in development, I’m right at 5 years now.

Fukuhara Tetsuya (FKHR): I’ve been here since we started development, so it’s been about six and a half years for me. You could say that I’ve given this game my 30s.

Touyama Nao (Lyria) Web Newtype interview

Web Newtype has published an interview with Touyama Nao (Lyria), recorded after she took home Best Supporting Actress and the newly created Game award at the Seiyuu Awards. The awards ceremony was why she was 2 hours late to the 5th Anniversary broadcast, in case you were wondering. The full translated text of the interview follows:

Newtype: It’s been quite a while since your debut, hasn’t it, Touyama-san?

Touyama Nao (Touyama): I’m about to start my tenth year in the business, but it feels like it’s gone by so quickly, and I haven’t done that much…. Because everything still feels so fresh to me, I feel like a greenhorn compared to the other ten-year vets near me (laughs). To this day, I still feel excited when I see ads for the voice school I went to, or see the training materials we used. They brings me back to a time when I didn’t know what path I could take to follow my dream, or when I had just joined an agency and didn’t know the rules of being a pro yet.

Suzumura Kenichi Interview – Pash! Magazine 04/2019

(translated from a Pash! April 2019 issue interview by @vibratingsheep, all mistakes are Sheep’s)

Pash: What kind of character does Sandalphon strike you as?

Suzumura: I see him as a very earnest character, who’s capable of true idealism. But I feel like his idealism also resulted in great pain and tragedy. He has a strong soul that lets him move forward, in spite of that pain.

Fukuhara Tetsuya interview – Pash! Magazine 04/2019

(translated from the original Pash! interview by @vibratingsheep, all mistakes are Sheep’s. Please support Pash! Magazine by buying it from Amazon or Bookwalker)

Planning story events a year in advance

Pash: Congratulations on Granblue Fantasy reaching its 5th anniversary! Tell us your thoughts about reaching this milestone.

Fukuhara Tetsuya (FKHR): It’s all gone by in a flash. 5 years is ancient by the standards of a mobile game, but there are still so many plans in motion for new content and things that we still want to do. We’re not going to rest on our laurels; we’re going to keep working hard.

Fukuhara Tetsuya Interview – Famitsu 12/15/2018

(translated from the original Famitsu interview by @vibratingsheep, all mistakes are Sheep’s)

The significance of taking Granblue to consoles

Famitsu: You just announced Granblue Fantasy Versus and showed off the latest build of Granblue Fantasy Relink. Why did you direct so much energy and effort to making console versions of Granblue Fantasy?

FKHR: On a business level, I want to keep the whole game industry healthy, so that’s one reason. Granblue Fantasy is our company’s biggest IP, and as a fantasy RPG it fits very well in a console setting.

Famitsu: You feel like you already have a strong mobile game, do you think that it will fit nearly as well on consoles?

FKHR: There are some people, especially young ones, who have only ever played games on smartphones and don’t know how fun console games can be. The opposite is true as well, with people who only play on console or who drifted away from gaming and are unaware of how advanced mobile gaming has become. And of course, people who play both platforms are welcome. We hope to bring them all as many new and enjoyable gaming experiences as possible.