Yoji Shinkawa

Yoji Shinkawa (Japanese: 新川洋司, Hepburn: Shinkawa Yōji; born December 25, 1971) is a Japanese artist. He is best known as the lead character and mecha designer for the Metal Gear franchise. He has collaborated with Hideo Kojima on many of his games.

Yoji Shinkawa
新川 洋司
Shinkawa in 2008
Born	(1971-12-25) December 25, 1971 (age 53) Hiroshima, Japan
Alma mater	Kyoto Seika University
Occupation	Illustrator
Years active	1994–present
Employers	Konami (1994–2015) Kojima Productions (2015–present)
Notable work	Metal Gear

Biography

Shinkawa was born in Hiroshima on December 25, 1971.^[1] He began working at Konami after graduating from Kyoto Seika University.^[2] He first worked as a debugger for the PC-98 version of Policenauts. He moved on to serve as art director for the later console ports of the game, and as the lead character and mecha designer for the Metal Gear series.^[1] He served as the art director for all Metal Gear Solid games, while providing character designs for Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. He is the lead artist and character designer for Kojima Productions.

Shinkawa was inspired by anime and manga artists like Yoshikazu Yasuhiko and Yoshitaka Amano,^[3] and western artists such as Frank Miller, Aubrey Beardsley and Willy Pogany.^[3] He drew inspiration from French artists such as Mœbius. Shinkawa used felt-tip pens, especially the Pentel Brush Pen, as well as Adobe Photoshop and Corel Painter.^[2] He is a fan of heavy metal, and artists such as Megadeth, Rage, Killswitch Engage and Yngwie Malmsteen.^[2][4]

Works

Video games

Year	Title	Role
1994	Policenauts	Mechanical design
1998	Metal Gear Solid	Art director, character design, mechanical design
2000	Metal Gear: Ghost Babel	Illustrator
2001	Zone of the Enders	Mechanical design
	Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty	Art director, character design, mechanical design
2003	Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner	Art director, mechanical design
2004	Fu-un Shinsengumi	Illustrator
	Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater	Art director, character design, mechanical design
2005	Fu-un Bakumatsu-den	Illustrator
2006	Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops	Character design
2008	Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots	Art director, character design, mechanical design
2010	Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
2013	Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance	Character concept design
2014	Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes	Art director, character design, mechanical design
2015	Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
2017	Call of Duty: Black Ops III - Zombies Chronicles	Illustrator
2019	Left Alive	Character design[5]
	Death Stranding	Art director, character design, mechanical design
2025	Death Stranding 2: On the Beach

Other works

Novels

• Urban Hercules (illustrations)
• Metal Gear Solid (cover illustration)
• Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (cover and interior illustrations)
• Metal Gear Solid Substance I: Shadow Moses (cover illustration)
• Metal Gear Solid Substance II: Manhattan (cover illustration)
• Metal Gear Solid: The Phantom Pain (cover illustration)
• Point of Impact (cover illustration, 2013 Fusosha Mystery edition)

Films

• Godzilla: Final Wars (monster and mecha designs)
• Pacific Rim (Poster design, Japanese release)

Toys

• Frame Arms/Frame Arms Girl (mecha/character design for Byakko)
• Project M (mecha/character designer for Takara Tomy)

Trading cards

• Magic: The Gathering – Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty (Satoru Umezawa)
• Magic: The Gathering – Special Guest: Yoji Shinkawa Secret Lair (Phyrexian Metamorph, Tezzeret the Seeker, Skullclamp, Solemn Simulacrum)