Tadashi Konan

This article is written from the Real Life point of view

Enami phot — Photo provided to Metroid.jp, with Konan wearing his *Metroid* shirt.

Tadashi Konan (born 1974) is a Japanese entrepreneur and the founder of The King of Games, an apparel line which has collaborated with Nintendo several times. A T-shirt based on the original Metroid was released in the early 2000s. Konan gave an interview to the Metroid Official Site on February 2, 2003. An unofficial English translation was published by Shinesparkers on February 26, 2021. It can be read here.

Biography[]

Konan founded The King of Games in 2000 in collaboration with his own private graphic design team, Editmode Graphics. He was working for Loftman Co., a Japanese apparel brand at the time. An online shop for The King of Games was set up in 2002. The storefront was located at Enpukuji-mae-cho 280, Teramachi-dori, Takoyakushi Shimo-Ru, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto City. This is now the location of an anime-themed cafe shop.

Konan considers Nintendo to be a "comfort brand" for him. In his childhood he played with Game & Watches and Famicom games, as well as cards and hanafuda (Japanese playing cards) manufactured by Nintendo. He enjoyed many of the games he played, citing Super Mario Bros., Ice Climber, Donkey Kong and Wild Gunman as examples.

He played Metroid in elementary school and found it difficult, but persisted until he completed it as he secretly wanted to see Samus Aran in her bikini. He later enjoyed Metroid II: Return of Samus and Super Metroid, in particular for their worlds and music. Konan felt he would be ready to play Fusion since it remained a side-scrolling game, and was excited to play it on his Game Boy Player. Regarding Metroid Prime, he mentioned that he would challenge himself to complete the game, although first-person games make him feel motion sick.^[1]

The King of Games[]

KOG 02 img04 — Konan wearing the *Metroid* shirt. The caption says "Metroid T-shirt".

When Konan started The King of Games, he had a chance to work with Nintendo when he was assisting a customer who happened to be an employee. They wore a shirt with a Nintendo logo from the Space World trade show. Konan recreated the shirt's design and presented it to Nintendo, which was rejected. He adjusted the design and sent it to them in the Spring, and they approved it in October of 2001 or 2002. Coincidentally, his design was accepted around his birthday. Once the web store was created, he found that many King of Games customers shared his emotional attachment to Nintendo.

The King of Games sold a Metroid shirt that featured the game's logo on the front and sprites of Samus Aran Spin Jumping in an upward curve. The back of the shirt features the English Emergency Order and sprite of Samus crouching, which is only visible on the Famicom-only Samus Data Screen. Variants of the shirt replace the crouching sprite with those of Samus without her helmet, in her Justin Bailey or the aforementioned bikini.^[2] Yoshio Sakamoto had one of these shirts and wore it at one point. Asked why Metroid made sense to add to his lineup, Konan said that it is one game among many that players think fondly of, and one of the major titles from Nintendo. It was also a highly requested design from customers since he started The King of Games.^[1]

The King of Games has gone on to make shirts based on Splatoon, ARMS and other Nintendo franchises.^[3]