| Shinya Kumazaki | |
| Native Name: | 熊崎 信也 |
| Native Name Lang: | ja |
| Birth Date: | May 21, 1979 |
| Birth Place: | Gifu Prefecture, Japan |
| Director of the Board[1] | |
| Years Active: | 2002–present |
| Works: | Kirby series BoxBoy! series |
is a Japanese video game director, game designer, HAL Laboratory employee, and painter who is the current general director of the Kirby series and voice of King Dedede.
Born in the Gifu Prefecture in 1979, Kumazaki studied at the Kanazawa College of Art and the Suidobata Fine Arts Academy.[2]
Kumazaki first joined HAL Laboratory in 2002, where some of his early roles included debugging the game and designer for Kirby Air Ride (for the levels) and Kirby Canvas Curse (for the battle with the final boss Drawcia). His first game as director came in 2008 as the Nintendo DS remake Kirby Super Star Ultra where the original game was further expanded to include four additional sub-games.
In 2010, he was working on the built-in software for the then-new Nintendo 3DS system when he was roped in to the development team the then unfinished Kirby Wii game; under his supervision the development team eventually managed to incorporate elements from the three unfinished concepts for the project and the game was finally released as Kirby's Return to Dream Land.[3]
Since then, Kumazaki has helmed the role of Director and later, General Director for various main Kirby platformers, including Kirby's Dream Collection 20th anniversary compilation (2012), (2014), (2016) and Kirby Star Allies (2018). In addition, he has worked on the drafts of the box comics of the BoxBoy! series games since 2016 and is the voice actor of King Dedede of the Kirby series, a callback to Masahiro Sakurai’s role as voice actor of King Dedede in .
As general director of the Kirby series games, Kumazaki considers "devices, maps, and tough boss battles" the essential components of quality action games. Kumazaki is also well known within the Kirby fandom for incorporating lore (the most notable being the Ancients first mentioned in Kirby's Return to Dream Land by Magolor) and backstories of various characters and unifying the canon of the series through the pause screen descriptions of various bosses and interviews.
As of 2021, Kumazaki is also in the Board of Directors of HAL Laboratory.
Kumazaki used to own a pet cat by the name of Tom; he sampled the voice of Tom for the voice of the final boss of (2016). The cat died in 2017, aged 17.[4]
Kumazaki also maintains his own personal blog and a public Instagram profile. In his free time Kumazaki creates digital paintings of cosmic horror art, commonly depicting original subjects with occasional renditions of Kirby bosses.
| Year | Title | Role(s) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | Communication debugging | ||
| 2003 | Kirby Air Ride | Designer | |
| 2005 | Kirby Canvas Curse | ||
| 2006 | Otona no Joshiki Ryoku Training DS | Special thanks | |
| 2008 | Kirby Super Star Ultra | Director | |
| 2011 | Kirby's Return to Dream Land | Director, voice actor (King Dedede) | |
| 2012 | Kirby's Dream Collection | Director (with Tatsuya Kamiyama) | |
| 2014 | Director, voice actor (King Dedede, Shadow Dedede) | ||
| Kirby Fighters Deluxe | |||
| Dedede's Drum Dash Deluxe | |||
| 2015 | Kirby and the Rainbow Curse | Special thanks | |
| 2016 | BoxBoxBoy! | Box comics - drafts | |
| General director, voice actor (Dedede Clones) | |||
| 2017 | Bye-Bye BoxBoy! | Box comics - drafts | |
| Team Kirby Clash Deluxe | General director, voice actor (King D-Mind) | ||
| Kirby's Blowout Blast | General director, voice actor (King Dedede) | ||
| Kirby Battle Royale | |||
| 2018 | Kirby Star Allies | General director, voice actor (King Dedede, Void Termina) | |
| 2019 | Kirby's Extra Epic Yarn | Character supervisor | |
| BoxBoy! + BoxGirl! | Box comics - drafts | ||
| Super Kirby Clash | General director, voice actor (King D-Mind), ending song lyrics | ||
| 2020 | Kirby Fighters 2 | General director, voice actor (King Dedede) | |
| 2022 | Kirby and the Forgotten Land | General director, voice actor (King Dedede), theme song lyrics | |
| Kirby's Dream Buffet | General director | ||
| 2023 | Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe | General director, voice actor (King Dedede) |