The following info comes from a Famitsu interview with Yasushi Nirasawa and Tamotsu Shinohara.

"I used to play tons of RPGs back when 2D games were the norm. SMT was one of the games I enjoyed the most, and the demon designs drew by Kazuma Kaneko and the whole atmosphere of the game really drew me in. Being invited to join this project was a real 'I did it!' moment for me.

With Kamen Rider or the Super Sentai shows, I'm inherently designing suits or costumes that people have to get in. However, there's no need to worry about the needs of actors or actresses in video games, so in a way, I felt like I had been freed of that restraint in some way as I worked on the designs. It was still hard, though, and sometimes I'd basically just sit there for five days in a row before I could come up with anything good. It's a lot easier for things like Medusa or Asmodeus where you have an ample amount of imagery or text material to work with.

It was fun work for me as well. I was given free rein in my ideas and designs, and it was a lot of fun to see other people's artwork come to fruition as well. Hopefully players will have a chance to see all the demons in action." - Yasushi Nirasawa

"Generally we discussed things over video chat and the like, although at first they would send me ideas via email. They said 'We want you to contribute designs for a video game, and after I said I'd do it, I opened up the file and, wow, it was Shin Megami Tensei itself! If I had bothered to see what it was before accepting, I think I might've been too nervous to accept it.

With any of the demons, they have this majestic background behind them which can sometimes be difficult to work off of. Also, for demons like the Minotaur, there wre demons in previous SMT games with the same name, so I had to differentiate my own version from that, but at the same time I'm still essentially drawing a guy with a bull head.

To be honest, it was an honor for me, but also a tremendous amount of pressure. I had to think very seriously about how I could destroy people's expectations toward SMT in both a good and a bad way, and luckily I made it to the end without running away in the middle of it!" - Tamotsu Shinohara

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