Kou Shibusawa

Kou Shibusawa (シブサワ・コウ, Shibusawa Kou, born 1950 in the Togiki prefecture) is a Japanese game creator and producer for many of Koei's titles. His real name is Youichi Erikawa (襟川 陽一, Erikawa Youichi) and he created the company with his wife in 1978. He's largely credited to being one of the most prolific workers at Koei and is currently the company's general producer.

His alias' namesake is an emphasized version of the company's first syllable, Kou, and Shibusawa Eiichi. He's also taken credit as Eiji Fukuzawa, first part a derivative of Koei's "ei" and the second name being a homage to Fukuzawa Yukichi.

He was also going to lead the production of the PS3 version of Hisao Kurosawa's film, tentatively titled "Oni" and later "Ni-Oh". Both the film and game were going to be co-produced at the same time. The film was projected to be out in 2006 but the current status for both projects remain unknown.

He states that he first became interested in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms from various comics based on it. He then read the novel, which eventually lead to his hobby of exploring global history. To replicate the same experience in others, he aims to make all his projects "entertain and educate" players. His goal for creating video games is also the company's motto.

Works

 * Romance of the Three Kingdoms series
 * Nobunaga's Ambition series
 * Uncharted Waters series
 * Taikō Risshiden series
 * Kessen series
 * Winning Post series
 * Crimson Sea - both titles; supervised
 * Fatal Inertia - authorized and also participated in the Japanese localization