Developed by Square Enix in partnership with Jupiter2, TWEWY was an innovative title that took advantage of the Nintendo DS hardware to include unique mechanics and design elements. The game was developed by a group of experienced creators behind many of Square’s most notable series, including Final Fantasy & Kingdom Hearts. The creative producer of TWEWY, Tetsuya Nomura, has an incredibly influential and storied career that has been discussed endlessly, but while he initiated the conception of The World Ends With You and played a key role in its creation, he tapped his long-time colleague Tatsuya Kando to helm the development of this beloved title.

Tatsuya Kando left Square Enix last year on May 31^st, 2025, after 29 years of contributions to many of the most beloved games ever created.

Kando’s departure left many fans distraught about the future of the series that he directed, feeling that it marked the true end for The World Ends With You. Given his extensive career and experience, I set out to research and compile as much information as I could about his journey in game development. My aim with this article is to document the stories of Kando and many other key figures to help interested readers understand the development history of TWEWY.

Some important prefaces to keep in mind as you read the following article:

1. This is a compilation and interpretation of publicly available information, mostly drawing from interviews with various Square Enix staff across the past 20 years. I try to avoid making any large inferences or leaping to editorial conclusions based on the research. Sources are linked in relevant paragraphs, and footnotes are added to clarify certain points or include additional details.

2. One of the primary sources of info is game credits; these are not indicative of the entire working history of a game developer. Plenty of game projects never see the light of day, and an individual may also have uncredited contributions to projects that we may never know about.

3. If you notice any errors or questionable quotes, please comment and let me know; the goal is to create a comprehensive document that gives a clear perspective on the history of the developer in a cohesive storytelling format.

Early Days

Many places credit Tatsuya Kando’s first contributions to videogames with Final Fantasy VII, but his career as an animator in games actually began at least two years prior.

In a tweet celebrating the 30th anniversary of Time Crisis, a classic rail-shooter arcade game series, Kando noted that this was actually his first game where he was in charge of character animation.3 The original Time Crisis, created by Namco, was released in arcades in December 1995, a bit over a year before the launch of Final Fantasy VII.

After Time Crisis, Kando joined development company Square to work on their latest project. On Final Fantasy VII, one of the most acclaimed videogames in history since its release in January 1997, Tatsuya Kando was a character animator working with the game’s 3D models. FFVII was the first in the series to use 3D polygonal character models in gameplay and cutscenes, drastically changing the opportunities for visual presentation and direction.

This time period was also the first instance of Kando collaborating with Tetsuya Nomura, who was assigned to the original character designs for FFVII and contributed significantly to the storyboarding and narrative. Kando also presumably worked with Yuusuke Naora, Art Director on VII, who had previously worked on Chrono Trigger as a graphics designer.

After his first project at Square, Kando went on to work on Parasite Eve, another boundary-pushing 3D title, modeling the game’s creatively horrific monster designs. By this point, Kando had racked up a significant amount of experience working with 3D modeling and became the motion director for the 1999 release of Final Fantasy VIII.4 Kando also contributed to Final Fantasy IX, released in 2000, as a character animator.5

Enter Kingdom Hearts

With each title that Kando worked on, Tetsuya Nomura was there too, having been the character designer for most major Square titles at the time. Nomura created the character designs while Kando played a role in bringing those designs to life in-game. Their work began to collide more with the development of Kingdom Hearts, where Kando served as the animation director while Nomura led the project as director, main character designer, and storyboard designer.

This appears to be Kando’s first role where he led a large team, as there were over 25 people credited in the animation of Kingdom Hearts. Kando went on to serve as animation director for several other titles, with the company now merging into Square Enix. One of these titles was Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, which was developed in partnership with Kyoto-based development studio Jupiter. Having worked on many handheld titles for the Game Boy systems, Jupiter was well-equipped to adapt the Kingdom Hearts formula to the Game Boy Advance system. Despite its quirks with the battle system, Chain of Memories was decently received, and Square Enix wanted to find a new project to work on with Jupiter.

The Spark

In 2004, Nintendo began the rollout for their revolutionary dual-screen handheld console - the Nintendo DS. During this time, Tetsuya Nomura (likely alongside some other major Square Enix devs) was invited by Nintendo to preview the DS. Seeing the capability of the hardware and the unique dual-screen setup sparked ideas in Nomura’s mind for the basic concept for a new IP.

Nomura wanted to see this idea come to fruition, but was involved in several concurrent projects, most importantly the development of Kingdom Hearts II.6 He decided to task the DS project to close members of the KH team, offering lead roles to Kando, alongside long-time art director Tomohiro Hasegawa, to draft ideas for a game to develop for the DS system.7 Kando and Hasegawa became co-directors, and having recently finished development of Chain of Memories with Jupiter, they continued their collaboration for this new project. They requested the help of fellow art director Takeshi Arakawa to assist with the planning of the project.

In November 2004, Kando, Hasegawa, & Arakawa attended one of the Nintendo hands-on “Touch DS!” events, allowing them to get a better sense of the handheld console and its possibilities. They returned a couple of times to get as much time with the device as they could early on. Working with the team at Jupiter, including planning director Hiroyuki Itou8, the team then began to work on a game they felt could only exist on the DS.

“Kando and I have been working together for over 10 years, and as the leader of the Animation Section, he's been responsible for organizing the largest number of staff in that section. I thought, if I were to entrust him with a new IP, I'd want to challenge him due to his lack of experience directing, and so I asked, "How would you like to be the director?"

- Tetsuya Nomura (from the original TWEWY 2007 Guidebook)

Beginning Development

At first, the development team was focused purely on brainstorming and workshopping ideas for a unique story and gameplay system that would take full advantage of the DS. With the new dual-screen hardware and touch capabilities creating a never-before-seen format for developers, they spent a lot of time iterating on gameplay ideas and mechanics and creating prototypes of different battle systems.

Early prototyping involved a team battle setup where the player vied for control over territories on a map spread across the whole of Japan. Focused on the idea of battling across both screens, the team had to prototype and playtest several variations of the base gameplay mechanics to understand how players would approach a dual-screen system, as they had no prior reference for this style of play. By January 2005, they whittled down the premise to take place primarily in Shibuya.

Eventually, with input and feedback from Nomura, they settled on a dual-screen combat system with the protagonist Neku battling on the bottom screen while his partner fights on the top screen simultaneously. By March 2006, the core system’s foundation was established for the team to build upon.

“Everyone was shocked at first at the idea. They kept saying that it was impossible. Then we decided on using both screens for the battles, and from that point on, it took a long time to materialize the idea… We knew that this was a brand new concept, so I was really afraid of someone else doing it first.”

- Tatsuya Kando (from the Square Enix Members Creator’s Roundtable)

Wanting to experiment with the many unique aspects of the DS, the team integrated mechanics like shouting into the DS microphone to use certain abilities in combat, and the built-in clock & WiFi capabilities to give rewards based on how long the game was on standby and if they encountered other DS users in-person, encouraging players to take a break from the game and interact with others (a core theme & message of the story). Many other mechanics and functionalities were considered but cut due to scope and time constraints, some of them being online multiplayer components.

Assembling the Team

With a strong core concept and project proposal, development entered full swing with a relatively lean team formed largely through Square Enix’s partnership with Jupiter and the influence of Tetsuya Nomura.9 Virtually the entire team credited at Jupiter had previously worked on Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories on the Game Boy Advance, which neatly led into this new DS handheld project.

The directors Kando, Hasegawa, & Arakawa all contributed to the world and overarching story of The World Ends With You, forming small writing teams to brainstorm the background and plot elements. Early on, they centered the story on an episodic format with the narrative’s mysteries playing out across multiple arcs.

One of the few members of the main staff at Square Enix who hadn’t previously worked on Kingdom Hearts was scenario writer Sachie Hirano.10 Having worked on the scripts for the FFVII spin-offs Before Crisis & Dirge of Cerberus, Hirano was tasked with taking the plot and worldbuilding created by the directors and transforming it into an actual story & script. He worked closely with event planner Yukari Ishida to refine the script and flesh out the full story of TWEWY.11

With a team full of artists, TWEWY took on a heavily stylized art direction. Taking place in Shibuya, the visuals were inspired by contemporary graffiti & street culture. They brought on another lead artist, Gen Kobayashi, who had recently worked with Nomura on the art for Musashi: Samurai Legend & Mario Hoops 3-on-3, games that also featured hyper-stylized artwork and visuals.12 Kobayashi became the lead character art designer, assisting Nomura with the character designs for TWEWY and creating many of the actual illustrations and visuals used in the game.

The diverse 2D backgrounds depicting the various streets and alleys of Shibuya were directed by longtime Square artist Takayuki Ohdachi, who also served as one of the main art directors for Kingdom Hearts II. During the height of KHII’s development, Ohdachi visited Shibuya each morning on his way to work for inspiration on TWEWY. Many real-world locations and buildings were recreated in the game, presenting an authentic take on the streets of Shibuya.

On the music side, Nomura looked to an artist at Square Enix who never had an opportunity to compose a significant amount for a soundtrack before: Takeharu Ishimoto. A rock musician and guitarist with a love for heavy alternative music, Ishimoto applied to Square after playing through Final Fantasy VII.

Ishimoto interviewed for a part-time role as a synthesizer programmer/audio technician who would work on the technical implementation of music for games. During the interview process, he met Yoko Shimomura, the established videogame composer behind many legendary soundtracks up to that point, including Street Fighter II, Breath of Fire, LIVE A LIVE, Parasite Eve, and Super Mario RPG. Shimomura and the rest of the interview panel approved of Ishimoto, and he was brought on to work on the 1999 release of Legend of Mana, where he took Shimomura’s compositions and arranged them in-engine using the PlayStation’s audio hardware.13

Afterwards, Ishimoto continued to work on other Square projects as a synthesizer programmer, including Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy X, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, and Kingdom Hearts II. Having a very distinct rock music style that didn’t mesh with many of Square’s games at the time, Ishimoto had few opportunities to flex his composition abilities. Fortunately, he was able to work on small projects like the FFX Vocal Collection, an audio drama narrated by the voice actors of FFX characters where Ishimoto composed the backing music for the track “Spiral,” which features grungy guitar riffs and drum patterns.

Having worked under Nomura on the recent Kingdom Hearts projects, his potential was noticed, and Ishimoto was brought on as the main composer for the entire soundtrack. Ishimoto had developed a lot of experience working with limited audio hardware to implement soundtracks, so he was well-suited for composing utilizing the DS sound architecture. The directors asked Ishimoto early on to create the kind of music that a person may hear while walking through Shibuya.

Collaborating with a wide array of vocal artists, Ishimoto was able to craft the eclectic soundtrack of The World Ends With You. They utilized the Kyuseishu Sound Streamer software developed by CRI Middleware to compress audio files of not only voice acting, but also the music to include a substantial vocal-led soundtrack that typically wouldn’t fit on the small storage limits of a DS cartridge.14 Ishimoto would later go on to compose music for the soundtracks of several Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts titles, and work again alongside Yoko Shimomura.

Development Roadblocks

While The World Ends With You was being developed by a strong team of individuals with plenty of prior experience collaborating, there were several hitches along the way. Primarily, the team was significantly spread out across offices and regions in Japan. The core Square Enix team was operating in their Tokyo headquarters while the crew at Jupiter was based in Kyoto.

With a two-hour train ride each way, meeting in person to plan and make important decisions was crucial but extremely time-consuming and costly. Unable to do video conferences, they relied on weekly phone calls to check in, which made coordination between teams difficult. As the director, Kando ended up traveling to Kyoto weekly as well to oversee development and collaborate with staff at Jupiter. There was a clash in development styles and culture between the teams at Square Enix and Jupiter that they had to navigate, on top of managing quality standards and consistency across the staff.

Meanwhile, character designer and artist Kobayashi was working practically solo from Square Enix’s Osaka office, toiling away at many of the major visual assets needed for the game. Surrounded by a fast-paced work culture in the Osaka office, Kobayashi worked quickly to create a large majority of the illustrations in the game, and designed the bulk of the various NPCs and side characters of Shibuya.

As a consequence of story ideas and contributions coming from many different sources, various plot elements and parts of the script were altered frequently throughout production, even in its later stages of development. This caused several headaches as the script had to be rewritten several times to account for changes in the story to avoid inconsistencies and plot holes. Many people across the staff, as well as a robust QA team, were tasked with reviewing the storyline, plot structure, and dialogue to quash any issues and offer input. While this process was initially rough, it helped refine the final narrative.

The World Ends With You

Despite all of the challenges, The World Ends With You was completed on time, releasing in Japan on July 27th, 2007. After roughly 2 ¹/₂ years in development, the game was unveiled to the world with a strong critical reception and gradually developed a cult following that fell in love with its emotionally affecting story, unique art style, and addicting alternative soundtrack. It was truly a team effort, with a stellar meeting of minds and creative souls that put their hearts into a completely new IP. The staff was largely formed by the influence of Tetsuya Nomura and the Kingdom Hearts series, but they managed to carve a distinct personality and style that shines through in The World Ends With You.

Kando: “These past two and a half years have been very busy and felt like such a long period of time, but it was really quite short. I think we've done everything we possibly can.”

Hasegawa: “I'm satisfied that we were able to accomplish everything we set out to do, and create something that no one else had ever done before. That's why I hope everyone will pick up the game and play it.”

Arakawa: “I was given a lot of freedom working on this project, and I had a great time making it. I hope players will enjoy it just as much as we did.”

(from the original TWEWY 2007 Guidebook)

After its release, fans expressed their love for The World Ends With You, and rumors and desires for a continuation of the series began to swirl. And thus began a decade-plus period of relative silence and suspense…

Afterword

If you got this far, thank you for reading this article to completion. My hope is that you found the development of The World Ends With You as interesting as I did, and that you learned something new about its history. Whether you have played through TWEWY yourself and internalized Mr. H’s guidance, or just read this out of pure curiosity, I appreciate your attention.15

This is the first article that I have written in this format, and the process evoked the desire to create more in this style, to continue researching & documenting stories about videogames and their development. What started as a biographical take on Kando’s history as a director rapidly grew in scope into a more comprehensive exploration of the development of The World Ends With You and the people behind its creation. One of the projects I would like to work on is a “part-two” to this article that covers the aftermath of TWEWY, the decade of sequel rumors, the anime series, Solo/Final Remix, and NEO: The World Ends With You.

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