Even if you haven't heard of Toshiyuki Takahashi, aka Takahashi Meijin (The Great Takahashi), aka 16Shot, you've probably seen his likeness: Master Higgins from the Adventure Island series of games.  Yep, that's right!  The character was based on him and, if he had hair in the photos below, they'd probably look a lot alike.  Where'd he get the nickname "16Shot"?  Well, at one time, he had the fastest fingers in the world!  He could hit the button 16 times in one second, making him a master gamer, especially for shooters.  Even now, he's still pretty close to 16 taps per second.

Takahashi Meijin is the Man at Hudson's Japanese offices, and we here at the US offices wish we could bask in his glory. Recently, one of our boys got the chance to interview him in Japan...

Good afternoon, Takahashi-san. It is such a pleasure to meet you!

It's nice to meet you, too.

Do you speak English?

Absolutely not! (laughs) But you seem skilled at Japanese.

(We laugh. Our interpreter does, too) I'm curious to know, what were you first: A gamer or designer?

A gamer. That was how I became famous, really. Since I was already working for Hudson and celebrities are expensive, Hudson decided to use me to save money.

Really? You must have been busy. You promoted and worked on hundreds of games! So, what's the most memorable game you've ever worked on?

Adventure Island, for sure. It was originally an arcade game.

Is that so?

Yes. At the time, our own Mr. Ooyama was programming the Famicom (NES) version of Adventure Island. While he was doing so, our Vice President at the time (who is now our President), and I were taking a walk and we happened to pass behind Ooyama-san. I noticed what he was working on and the VP said, "You know, you are famous enough. Why don't we just put you in the game?" I never thought I would become a game character - it seemed impossible! Anyway, if it hadn't sold enough, that would have been that. However, it wound up selling over a million copies! I guess that's certainly something to be happy about. (Note: Adventure Island wasn't the arcade game but an adaptation of one.)

Many Americans think of WonderBoy and Adventure Island as being the same game. Is there any connection?

Yes. Originally, it was all WonderBoy but we just changed the main character to [Master Higgins] for the Advenure Island port. It's basically the same game. At the time, there was a single WonderBoy game. Adventure Island became a serialized version of it [Adventure Island, New Adventure Island, and so on].

Note: This is an old and confusing story. Adventure Island was an arcade port of WonderBoy which was developed by Westone. WonderBoy, in its original form, was ported to the Sega's SG-1000 Mark I console. The same game was also ported to the Famicom by Hudson, but because Sega owned the names, main characters, and the music, a new face was needed for the Hudson/Famicom port. The new face belonged to, of course, Takahashi Meijin. Of the original versions of the game, the most complete is said to be the Sega Master System version of WonderBoy. Both the Adventure Island and WonderBoy series went on to spawn several sequels which were completely different from each other.

Adventure Island went on to appear on the NES, TurboGrafx, MSX, SNES, and many other systems. WonderBoy went under many different names such as Monster Lair for the TurboGrafx 16 and Dynastic Hero which Sega basically allowed to Hudson port to the PC Engine/Turbo Duo. Ultimately, Hudson got the best of both worlds: They had developed Adventure Island into a series which sold over 10 million copies worldwide and they published Wonder Boy for their own PC Engine family.

Hudson is generally known (in the West) for its mascots. We all know Bomberman and Bonk. Some older gamers still associate Hudson with the TurboGrafx 16. What do Japanese people think of when they hear Hudson? Is it mobile games? Shooting games?

A long time ago, I'd say that Hudson was a shooting game company or a Famicom software company. These days, it's probably 50-50 or even 60-40 that we are a mobile company. I think it has to do with the cessation of the Hudson Caravan (that toured Japan in the summertime showcasing all of Hudson's games). It's been several years since the caravan finished and there are no more summer events. People used to learn a lot about us and our products at those events. Young boys and girls don't really know our products as console products any longer. I think they learn about us through their cell phones.

It's interesting that you say Hudson was thought of as a Famicom company. In the West, I don't think any gamer ever really thought so. For many people, Hudson is the company co-developed the TurboGrafx and introduced us to so many great games. We think of Bonk, Star Soldier, and all those legendary imports such like the Tengai Makyou series. So what is Hudson's legacy to the PCE?

The whole point of the PCE was to make a platform that was easy to develop for. Famicom's CPU was the 6802. The PCE processor was based on the Z80 (same as the Sega Master System and Sega Genesis). It's much easier for programmers to work on; it allowed for games to be developed more quickly. Another big advantage was the memory. We were no longer dealing with just ROMs but CD-ROMs. This gave programmers the freedom to do anything they wanted. We at Hudson believe that we had produced the ideal piece of hardware in the PCE. Plus, it was reasonably priced - well, maybe not, when you consider what the Turbo Express and CD-ROM drives went for.

(At this point in the interview, we pull out a Turbo Duo game pad which was armed with auto-fire switches) Ok, so people are interested in knowing (we show him the pad with switches at the highest setting), which is faster: You or the controller?

(laughs) Oh that! Of course, that's faster!

(We switch it to medium setting) How about if we do this?

Hmm...Here's what I can do... (He effortlessly taps out furious sixteenth notes with one finger on one button without even breaking a sweat. It was like Zeus showing you how he hurls a thunderbolt.)

Did you have to train to be able to do that?

Oh no, not at all. It comes naturally to me. See, at the first Star Force competition in 1985, there was no such thing as "16Shot." After the Caravan finished, I got a letter from a kid wanting to know about my speed, in other words, how fast I was. So, we measured it and thus... 16Shot was born!

Stay tuned for more Takahashi goodness! In the meantime, check out this awesome video of 16Shot destroying a watermelon with his incredible finger strength!