As we were putting this guide together, we reached out to our fans to see who had any questions for the creators of Disgaea. We received thousands of entries, and we were able to get some answers out of NIS America’s team, both serious and... not:
The Fans
Mr. Niikawa
(President of Nippon Ichi Software and NIS America)
Steven Carlton
Editor for NIS America
Toshihiro Beppu
Translator for NIS America
What do you enjoy the most in the Disgaea games?
Getting a lot of bonus stats to spend after reincarnating.
I enjoy the humor in the game. Translation is really fun because the Japanese text is really funny. After my translations have been edited, I enjoy reading the editted text because of the English humor my editor adds to it.
Are there a lot of gags and jokes that are lost in translation and/or added while adapting the game script from Japanese? Do you have some examples?
We very rarely abandon jokes or gags without substituting them with some kind of similar joke or gag, especially in our games. As far as adding jokes and gags, when it comes to the Disgaea series, we rarely have to add jokes or gags, since it’s pretty packed with them already.
Adding on to what Steve wrote, I think he adds a fairly good amount of gags and jokes... Sometimes I need to tell him to take them out since they’re so “out there”.
I’ve always absolutely adored the voice acting in your games! How do you find and train your amazing voice actors?
We let the fine people at the recording studios handle all of the voice actor wrangling. We generally will tell them what type of voice we want for each character, or who we want specifically, and they will give us several choices to choose from, or tell us if who we requested was available. We don’t really have anything to do with the actor’s themselves, except for when they’re in the booth for us. But during that time, we, along with the voice director, help get the performance we want from them.
I couldn’t have said it any better, Steve.
Are there any official Prinny days at the office?
I’m told they’re on the weekends, but I’m not allowed out of the base panel to confirm this.
Not yet...that I know of...I’ll get working on that.
The Disgaea series first started with Disgaea: Hour of Darkness. For over the past ten years, the series has expanded into something that is revered as one of the best Role Playing Games series of at time. Did the success of the series impact the way of life within NIS America? Obviously the games became popular in the West, but did working on the Disgaea series, specifically, impact the company?
Well, the largest impact the Disgaea series has had on NIS America is that the success of the first game enabled us to come into existence, or so the legend goes...
I’m relatively new to the company so I wouldn’t know... :(
If a Prinny heads east from Chicago at 2PM going 40MPH, and another Prinny leaves NYC at 2:30PM heading west at 20MPH, how big will the explosion be?
Assuming my math is correct, -i squared...
To Steve: Isn’t that just -1? There would be no explosion. Both Prinnies will be lifted and thrown shortly after they leave their respective cities.
Dood?
Dood…
Brah…
What originally inspired the story behind Disgaea?
The first thing that was decided was to use the “Netherworld” as the setting.
We figured that since this is the “Netherworld,” we don’t have to worry about any kind of limitations, and that anything goes. Because of this, we thought, “Let’s do whatever we think would be the most interesting and humorous,” and “Let’s do the craziest and most over-the-top things that other creators wouldn’t dare to do.”
What was born from that was the first Disgaea, and its cast.
We didn’t really care whether it sold well or not, we just did whatever we wanted.
Where did the first idea for Prinny come from?
We wanted a mascot character, so we wrote up a list of our ideas and passed it on to Mr. Takehito Harada, the artist. “Just make it awesome!” we said, and what came from that was the Prinny. Mr. Harada truly is a genius.
When will Asagi get her full fledged video game or get to lead the Prinny Squad to forcibly get her own game, dood?
Of course she will! However, whether that game will ever be released is a mystery...
What is the craziest thing that you were going to put into a game, but decided not to add?
Anything that we think is interesting, we cram into the games. The only things that don’t make the cut are the things we think are boring.
We make sure the interesting things that don’t make it in due to time constraints are put into the next game. The basic idea, though, is that we make sure everything that’s interesting finds its way in somehow.
It’s been several years since we’ve had a game with Laharl, Etna and Flonne as the main characters. How does it feel to go back to the characters that started it all?
“Welcome home!” It feels like we’re meeting up again with old friends.
We’ve used them as hidden characters or guest characters for a while now, but that is a completely different feeling than using them as main characters. It seems that being the main characters is what suits these three the best.
If you could bring any 3 characters from Disgaea D2 to another game who would it be and why?
Hmm, that is a difficult question. Each and every one of them is very unique, so if things go poorly, they will steal the limelight and steal the “main character” position for themselves. It’s a dangerous proposition, so it’s better that we don’t let them into any other games.
How many demons have been designed but never used?
I’m sure there are several designs that Mr. Harada himself has discarded, but of all the ones that he has submitted, almost all of them have been used.
How does it feel to have such a huge fan following that started just from one game?
It feels amazing. I am extremely grateful. We will continuously endeavor to make the Disgaea series, as well as our other titles, even more fun and interesting. So please continue to give us your support!
My ambitions are to get an Academy Award, and a Nobel Peace Prize, so I’ll surely do my best to offer you all kinds of titles that you’ll be sure to love!