by 
On Friday, 12th January 2024, the head of Mitchell Corporation and industry veteran Roy Ozaki passed away. He was born in Kobe on 31st December 1950 and was 73 years old.
This is the first public news of his death – the delay was due to waiting for permission from his family and colleagues to report it.
You might recall Roy Ozaki from this article on Mitchell's game Puzz Loop, in which I said he makes for a great interviewee, "since he holds nothing back. It's a character trait which made him a tough businessman, and Mitchell Corporation – which he inherited from his father – developed an interesting portfolio during its glory days."
In September 2013, over two days, I was lucky enough to spend time with Mr Ozaki, interviewing him about his life and career, culminating in 7 hours of material for my books. Conversations took place in the car, at restaurants, at a mountainside inn, and at Mr Ozaki's home. His longtime friend Kouichi Yotsui, creator of Strider, was with us. The interview had been suggested by my guest editor Matt Sephton, who also supplied many of the questions.
Mr Ozaki experienced a stroke several years prior, and said he'd lost the ability to enunciate clearly. Despite this, the uncut interview came to 21,000 words spread over 40 pages, and would need heavy trimming.
One of the anecdotes cut was Mr Ozaki describing the medical crisis and his battle to move physically immediately afterwards. I had left it out, not wanting to display such a personal moment of vulnerability, but I'm mentioning it now because it speaks to what a fighter Mr Ozaki was.
He'd faced off gangsters while at Data East, challenged Electronic Arts' copying of Puzz Loop, and endured years of software pirates. Something like a stroke and partial paralysis was not going to keep him down! Roy Ozaki was a formidable man, and his maverick personality shone through in his business decisions and many recollections.
It was a wild two days; Mr Ozaki was one of those legendary, larger-than-life businessmen who you just sort of assumed would be around forever.
When asked if he wished to share a few words about his friend, Kouichi Yotsui reflected on both Roy himself and the broader Ozaki family history:
"Roy was a charming company president with a sharp wit. He wasn't bound by conventional thinking, and he would crack jokes while getting to the heart of the matter. He was an intelligent, good-humoured, and down-to-earth hippie. I heard that the Ozaki family once owned extensive land in Tsukui, near the Santa Ryokan where John stayed. The family produced prominent politicians, and there is even a memorial museum dedicated to them."
The full interview is a bit long to repost, but below are a series of amusing or interesting excerpts from Mr Ozaki's answers, woven into a single statement. They give a hint of his tenacious spirit.
"I used to teach children in high school. I came to Tokyo, I didn't have money, and a buddy of mine worked at Data East. At that time Data East was number one and had just started making LaserDisc games. I wrote the scenario and the voice scripts; I was a voice director. They paid me so well that I quit going to school."
"When Koichi Niida and I started [Mitchell], and we didn't have money, there were six distributors of Capcom coin-ops in Japan. We were one of the six. One month's credit was 50 million yen, right? That's how we started. Then the next year it would be one million US dollars. After a couple of years it would be two million. So I can order Capcom products to sell them. With Street Fighter II, we made a lot of money. I sold to the USA, I sold all over the world. Capcom had their own department; one guy I met, he says, 'Roy, you keep doing this, you're going to have the North and South Pole, that's it!' Which meant nowhere. And I said, 'You should have known I was selling to all these places I wasn't supposed to!' <laughs>"
"My uncle, he's rich, he said, 'Roy, you're getting fat. You started working?' <slaps belly> His idea was that if you're fat, you take customers to restaurants, working for sales. He says, 'Roy, I'm glad you're getting fat.' You can't take a person to a steak dinner and eat salad. If the guy loves to drink whiskey, you stay with the guy until four o'clock and drink whiskey. You can't say, 'I can't drink.' That's why I'm a good salesman."
"My partner Niida, he's been with me for years. We didn't want the company [Mitchell]. But my father was already dead. He didn't leave any money to run it. My mom said, 'Do you want to run the company?' No! It was involved in the shipbuilding business, and that wasn't for me. I happen to be a year or two older than Niida, so he said, 'Why don't you be the president?' I said I don't want to be. He said, 'I won't run away' - and so I became the president. We went around Europe, we went around the USA. We used to have meetings. He knows what I say, I just pretend that I'm translating. I say, give me a minute, I have to explain to him. I don't have to explain to Niida! <laughs> I need time to think, but I don't want the opponent to know that. So the best way is to say, let me translate, I can't make a decision on my own. <laughs>"
"My partner Niida, I trust him with my life. He was the youngest branch manager at Data East, in Osaka. When you're selling coin-op stuff, gangsters were always coming, because people would buy their calendar. One that costs like 100,000 yen! The gangsters came in, and Data East had 11 employees in Osaka. They were scared. [We] sat with those two, in the office, for 10 hours! They gave up and went back home. Most companies would buy the calendar."
"My great uncle was the first mayor of Tokyo; he was in parliament for 63 years. My great cousin, he was a Supreme Court Judge. So I'm the only odd one in my family. This is the Ozaki Museum. <gesturing to historical building> My family is famous for making democratic movements in Japan."
For further material, this excellent interview by Chaz Seydoux preceded and helped inform my own interview. It's well worth a read.
One of the last things Mr Ozaki had asked me was to spread the word that his company's portfolio was available to license. And indeed, in the years after, we would see Cannon Dancer / Osman resurface. As for the current situation, as explained by Kouichi Yotsui: "Roy's old email address is sometimes used by his son, Shinichiro, but Mr Koichi Niida has full authority over the IP management and company liquidation of Mitchell Co., Ltd."
Despite the melancholy of his passing, I take heart in the knowledge that Mr Ozaki had led a full life and did things in his own uncompromising way. He spoke his mind, he stood his ground, and he made sure to enjoy the elaborate ritual of the business deal.
Roy Ozaki is survived by his only son, Shinichiro Ozaki.