is a Japanese video game director,

game designer Game design is the art of applying design and aesthetics to create a game for entertainment or for educational, exercise, or experimental purposes. Increasingly, elements and principles of game design are also applied to other interactions, in ...

HAL Laboratory formerly shortened as HALKEN (derived from its native name), is a Japanese video game developer founded on 21 February 1980. While independent, it has been closely tied with Nintendo throughout its history, and is often referred to as a secon ...

employee, and

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

who is the current general director of the ''Kirby'' series and voice of

King Dedede is a fictional character in Nintendo's ''Kirby'' video game series created by Masahiro Sakurai and developed by HAL Laboratory. Dedede first appeared in the 1992 video game ''Kirby's Dream Land'' as the main antagonist, but gradually became an ...

Biography

Early life

Born in the

Gifu Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Gifu Prefecture has a population of 1,991,390 () and has a geographic area of . Gifu Prefecture borders Toyama Prefecture to the north; Ishikawa Prefecture to the northwest, F ...

in 1979, Kumazaki studied at the

Kanazawa College of Art The Kanazawa College of Art (金沢美術工芸大学, ''Kanazawa Bijutsu Kōgei Daigaku'', literally Kanazawa Art and Industrial Design University) (colloquially known as Bidai or Kanabi) is a public university in Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan. A ...

and the Suidobata Fine Arts Academy.

Early work at HAL Laboratory

Kumazaki first joined HAL Laboratory in 2002, where some of his early roles included debugging the game '' Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land'' and designer for ''

Kirby Air Ride ''Kirby Air Ride'', known in Japan as , is a 2003 racing video game starring Kirby, developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the GameCube. ''Kirby Air Ride'' has the players and computer-controlled racers ride on Air Ride Mach ...

'' (for the levels) and ''

Kirby Canvas Curse ''Kirby: Canvas Curse'', known in Europe as ''Kirby: Power Paintbrush'', is a platforming video game developed by HAL Laboratory, published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS and released in 2005 and is the first ''Kirby'' game to be released for ...

'' (for the battle with the final boss Drawcia). His first game as director came in 2008 as the

Nintendo DS The is a handheld game console produced by Nintendo, released globally across 2004 and 2005. The DS, an initialism for "Developers' System" or "Dual Screen", introduced distinctive new features to handheld games: two LCD screens working in tan ...

remake ''

Kirby Super Star Ultra ''Kirby Super Star Ultra'' is an anthology platform video game developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS in 2008. The game is an enhanced remake of ''Kirby Super Star'', originally released for the Super Ninte ...

'' where the original game was further expanded to include four additional sub-games.

As director

In 2010, he was working on the built-in software for the then-new

Nintendo 3DS The is a handheld game console produced by Nintendo. It was announced in March 2010 and unveiled at E3 2010 as the successor to the Nintendo DS. The system features backward compatibility with Nintendo DS video games. As an eighth-generatio ...

system when he was roped in to the development team the then unfinished ''Kirby Wii'' game; under his supervision the development team eventually managed to incorporate elements from the three unfinished concepts for the project and the game was finally released as ''

Kirby's Return to Dream Land (released as ''Kirby's Adventure Wii'' in PAL regions) is a 2011 platform video game developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the Wii. It is the ninth mainline installment and the twenty-second game in the ''Kirby'' series. While ...

''. Since then, Kumazaki has helmed the role of Director and later, General Director for various main ''Kirby'' platformers, including ''

Kirby's Dream Collection ''Kirby's Dream Collection Special Edition'' is a 2012 video game developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the Wii system. It is an anthology disc celebrating the 20th anniversary of the ''Kirby'' series, which took place on Apri ...

'' 20th anniversary compilation (2012), '' Kirby: Triple Deluxe'' (2014), '' Kirby: Planet Robobot'' (2016) and ''

Kirby Star Allies ''Kirby Star Allies'' is a 2018 platform video game developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch. The twelfth mainline installment in the ''Kirby'' series, the player controls Kirby in his quest to prevent a pri ...

'' (2018). In addition, he has worked on the drafts of the box comics of the ''

BoxBoy! is a series of puzzle-platform games developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo. The series centres around Qbby, a square-shaped character who can produce a string of connected boxes. The boxes are used to overcome obstacles in stag ...

'' series games since 2016 and is the voice actor of

of the ''Kirby'' series, a callback to

Masahiro Sakurai is a Japanese video game director and game designer best known as the creator of the ''Kirby'' and '' Super Smash Bros.'' series. Apart from his work on those series, he also led the design of ''Meteos'' in 2005 and directed '' Kid Icarus: Upr ...

’s role as voice actor of King Dedede in '' Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards''. As general director of the ''Kirby'' series games, Kumazaki considers "devices, maps, and tough boss battles" the essential components of quality action games. Kumazaki is also well known within the ''Kirby'' fandom for incorporating lore (the most notable being the Ancients first mentioned in ''

'' by Magolor) and backstories of various characters and unifying the canon of the series through the pause screen descriptions of various bosses and interviews. As of 2021, Kumazaki is also in the Board of Directors of HAL Laboratory.

Personal life

Kumazaki used to own a pet

cat The cat (''Felis catus'') is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from the wild members of ...

by the name of Tom; he sampled the voice of Tom for the voice of the final boss of '' Kirby: Planet Robobot'' (2016). The cat died in 2017, aged 17. Kumazaki also maintains his own personal blog and a public

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

profile. In his free time Kumazaki creates digital paintings of

cosmic horror Lovecraftian horror, sometimes used interchangeably with "cosmic horror", is a subgenre of horror fiction and weird fiction that emphasizes the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible more than gore or other elements of shock. It is named a ...

art, commonly depicting original subjects with occasional renditions of ''Kirby'' bosses.

Works

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kumazaki, Shinya 1979 births Living people Horror artists Japanese lyricists Japanese male voice actors Japanese portrait painters Japanese video game directors Kirby (series) Nintendo people People from Gifu Prefecture