is a Japanese video game artist. She is best known for her work with Square (now Square Enix), in particular with the Final Fantasy series.
Biography Shibuya was born in 1965. While in middle school, she began creating illustrations and animations inspired by anime series including Space Battleship Yamato and Galaxy Express 999. As a high schooler she enrolled in a technical school to study animation and worked part-time for animation studios on popular anime including Transformers, Area 88, and Obake no Q-taro. In 1986, as she was losing interest in animation work, she was recruited by video game company Square.
Shibuya's first work for Square was providing illustrations for Alpha game manual and graphics for several games in development. In 1987, prompted by the success of Enix's Dragon Quest the previous year, Square released Final Fantasy. Shibuya created graphics including characters, spells, monsters, fonts, menus, and the game's opening bridge scene. By Final Fantasy II, she was one of two designers creating all the pixel art for the game.
Shibuya went on to design graphics for other Final Fantasy games, most notably the iconic chibi versions of characters, monsters, fonts, and menus. She was the primary pixel artist for many well-known games including entries in the SaGa series and Mana series (of which she created all the graphics for the first game).
In 2019, during a lecture at Japan Expo Paris, Shibuya was invited by Women in Games to be a member of honour.
Works +YearTitleRole(s)1986 Alpha Manual illustration King's Knight Graphic designSuishō no Dragon 1987 Rad RacerThe 3D Battles of WorldRunner Final Fantasy Graphic design, monster design1988 Final Fantasy II 1990 Final Fantasy III1991 Final Fantasy Adventure Graphic design Final Fantasy IV Package design1992 Romancing SaGa Character pixel art Final Fantasy V Character pixel art, package design1994Final Fantasy VI Graphic director, character pixel art1995Romancing SaGa 3 Character pixel art1997 SaGa Frontier 1999 SaGa Frontier 2 2000 Final Fantasy IX Sub character graphic design2001Blue Wing Blitz Graphic director2003Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Menu graphic design, user interface2005 Code Age Commanders Menu design2007 Yosumin! Design director2008 Nanashi no Game Character graphic design Final Fantasy IV: The After Years Character pixel art2009 Season of Mystery: The Cherry Blossom MurdersArt director2010 Final Fantasy Dimensions 2D pixel artDragon Quest Monsters: Wanted! monster and background graphic design2014 Terra Battle Monster graphic design2015 Final Fantasy Dimensions II Chief designer, character pixel art, menu design Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius Character supervisor, Katy Perry’s character design2020Final Fantasy Pixel Remasterhttps://www.square-enix-games.com/en_US/news/final-fantasy-pixel-remaster-kazuko-shibuyaLead pixel artist See also
References