is a Japanese video game artist from

Yokohama is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of To ...

active since 1999, most known for her work with

Arc System Works , commonly referred to as ArcSys, is a Japanese video game developer and publisher located in Yokohama. Founded by Minoru Kidooka in 1988, the company is known for arcade 2D fighting game franchises, including ''Guilty Gear'' and ''BlazBlue'', a ...

's ''

Guilty Gear is a series of fighting games by Arc System Works, created and designed by artist Daisuke Ishiwatari. Guilty Gear (first video game), The first game was published in 1998, and has spawned several sequels. It has also adapted to other media suc ...

'' series.

Career

Initially joining the company as a

part-time Part-time can refer to: * Part-time job, a job that has fewer hours a week than a full-time job * Part-time student, a student, usually in higher education, who takes fewer course credits than a full-time student * Part Time Part Time (styliz ...

artist, she went on to work as general director on four titles, one of the few women in the Japanese game industry to hold such a position. The last of those, ''

Battle Fantasia is a fighting video game developed by Arc System Works. Originally released in Japanese arcades in April 2007, the title was ported to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 home consoles in Japan in May 2008, with a North American Xbox 360-exclusive ver ...

'', came from an original concept by Iwasaki herself and was the developer's first fighting game with 3D models. With no previous experience, she and her team developed

2.5D 2.5D (two-and-a-half dimensional) perspective refers to gameplay or movement in a video game or virtual reality environment that is restricted to a two-dimensional (2D) plane with little to no access to a third dimension in a space that otherwis ...

techniques that influenced ''

Street Fighter IV is a 2008 fighting game published by Capcom, who also co-developed the game with Dimps. It was the first original main entry in the series since '' Street Fighter III'' in 1997, a hiatus of eleven years. The coin-operated arcade game version wa ...

'', as well as other Arc System Works games. In 2011, she left Arc System Works and relocated to

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

, holding leading positions in

mobile game A mobile game, or smartphone game, is a video game that is typically played on a mobile phone. The term also refers to all games that are played on any portable device, including from mobile phone (feature phone or smartphone), tablet, PDA to ...

developers

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. Although she found Arc System Works' CEO and the ''Guilty Gear'' team welcoming, Iwasaki also faced

gender discrimination Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls.There is a clear and broad consensus among academic scholars in multiple fields that sexism refers primaril ...

during her work with the company, which made her interested in working on other countries. She has been vocal about the hurdles women face in the Japanese video game industry, sharing her experience in

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

events and working as an ambassador for the Singapore Committee for

UN Women The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, also known as UN Women, is a United Nations entity working for gender equality and the empowerment of women. UN Women advocates for the rights of women and girls, and focu ...

programme Girls2Pioneers.

Works

References

External links

*
Emiko Iwasaki
on

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1976 births Living people Japanese illustrators Artists from Yokohama Video game artists {{Illustrator-stub