Hiroshi Kajiyama

Hiroshi Kajiyama's Shining Force Gaiden painting from the book Sega TV Game Key Art Gallery.

Kensuke Suzuki (鈴木健介, Suzuki Kensuke), better known by his pen name Hiroshi Kajiyama (梶山浩, Kajiyama Hiroshi), was an artist and game designer whose contributions to the Shining series include character design and illustrations for Shining Force Gaiden, Shining Force Gaiden II, Shining Force Gaiden: Final Conflict, Shining Force CD, Shining Wisdom, and Shining Force III.

For the creation of the character designs of Shining Force III, Kajiyama was joined by Shin Yamanouchi, who had previously designed characters for Shining the Holy Ark, and with whom Kajiyama's credits are sometimes confused.

Suzuki was the president of the production company Rit's, which provided some art to Shining Force II: The Ancient Seal and is credited for work on all of the Gaiden games and CD.

After leaving the Shining series, Kajiyama continued to work with Camelot Software Planning, for whom he created monster designs for their Golden Sun series.

In addition to his work on Shining Force, Kajiyama was known for Dragon Master Silk, a series of dungeon-crawling RPGs with sexually provocative artwork. Suzuki would go on to publish a large volume of pornographic illustrations using the name Hiroshi Kajiyama.

Before the release of Dragon Master Silk and Shining Force Gaiden in 1992, Suzuki only published artwork in a more realistic style. Suzuki painted cover illustrations inspired by Western fantasy art for games like Dark Wraith, Wardner, and the North American release of Dragon Warrior II.

Kensuke Suzuki died in 2018.

Translated Statements

Kajiyama writes the following in the Shining Force Gaiden section of the art book Half Quarter Book One.

Kajiyama's artwork from Half Quarter Book One.

Shining Force Gaiden

This is character line art from Gaiden. Some people said that the relaxed poses lacked dynamism and detail and would only appeal to kids. But that's such an unbelievable lie. And from the beginning, people looked at the main character Nick and said, "I really think that character looks like a girl." How could they say that? (Famitsu's editorial department seems to have propagated these sentiments.) Characters like Teddy are a counterpoint.

外伝のキャライラストの線画です。 ひねらず、こだわらず自然体で、子供が見てわかりやすいモノを。というのは大嘘で、主人公のニックははなから「実は女の子に見えるキャラ」なんて考えてました。(ファミ通の編集さんには通じたらしい) テディとかは趣味丸出し。

When I was working on this, I hadn't really done any professional work as Kajiyama (梶山), and I hadn't published anything in this style before. I think that when the job started, Sonic was originally asking for my usual realistic style. (I'd previously done realistic illustration work under another name.) I showed them the first roughs and said, "I can draw like this, too . . ." and they seemed impressed.

この仕事の頃は、まだ「梶山」でそんなに仕事はしてなくて、絵もあまりにでていなかったのでソニックさんのほうでは「いつものリアルな絵」を想像していたみたいです。(※別の名前でリアルな絵柄の仕事をしていたので) 最初のラフの時「こんな絵も描くんだ・・・」と感心されたし。

Suzuki's cover art for Stronghold for the PC-98. This more realistic illustrative style is characteristic of Suzuki's earlier work.

Game Credits

For some games, Suzuki is credited for different roles under both the name Kensuke Suzuki and the pseudonym Hiroshi Kajiyama.

JP Release	Title	Credits
Jan. 1987	Dragon Warrior II	Cover Art (uncredited)
Aug. 1989	Dark Wraith	Scenario, Graphics; Illustrations (uncredited)
April 1991	Wardner (Genesis)	Cover Art (uncredited)
Jan. 1992	Cyber Dodge	Character Design, Cover Art
Dec. 4, 1992	Dragon Master Silk (PC-98)	Game Design, Graphics Design
Dec. 25, 1992	Shining Force Gaiden	Character Design, Graphics
June 1993	Shining Force Gaiden II	Character Design, Graphics
June 1994	Stronghold ~Kōtei no Yōsai~	Cover Art (uncredited)
July 15, 1994	Blue Garnet	Illustrations
July 22, 1994	Shining Force CD	Character Design, Graphics
Oct. 1994	Moldorian	Production, Character Design, Graphics
June 1995	Shining Force Gaiden: Final Conflict	Character Design, Graphics
July 1995	Shining Wisdom	Character Design
Aug. 1995	Dragon Master Silk II (PC-98)	Game Design, Graphics Design
March 1997	Dragon Master Silk (Saturn)	Character Design
Dec. 1997	Shining Force III Scenario 1	Character Design, Illustration, Battle Backgrounds
Feb. 1998	Sugoventure: Dragon Master Silk Gaiden	Character Design, Character Graphics
April 1998	Shining Force III Scenario 2	Character Design, Illustration
Sept. 1998	Shining Force III Scenario 3	Character Design, Illustration
Dec. 1998	Shining Force III Premium Disc	Character Design, Illustration
Aug. 2001	Golden Sun: The Broken Seal	Monster Design
June 2002	Golden Sun: The Lost Age	Monster Design, Illustration
Oct. 2010	Golden Sun: Dark Dawn	Monster Design, Djinn Design
Feb. 2014	Super Heroine Chronicle	Character Design: K-86X

External Links

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/KAJIYAMA_

Staff Directory

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