If you know Ridge Racer, then you know Reiko Nagase.
She's the closest thing the series has to a mascot and was introduced as an unnamed character in the 1995 arcade title Rave Racer before being given an official name and enhanced status to coincide with the release of Ridge Racer Type 4 on the PlayStation 1 in 1998.
Nagase's elfin features and impossibly long legs have predictably led to her becoming a figure of attraction for many players, which is why, back in 1998, it caused quite a stir when the North American magazine Incite Video Gaming reported that her face was modelled on that of Kei Yoshimizu, the man who designed her.
"That's not a woman... that's a man, baby," claimed the magazine. "The Namco Girl's shocking secret will rock the video game community," it continued, adding:
"Meet Reiko Nagase. She's all that and a bag of silicon chips in the world of virtual vixens. She's got that ruffled Japanese schoolgirl look one minute, only bettered when she wiggles into a Namco bodysuit that leaves nothing to the imagination the next. Or so we thought. Then we uncovered the truth. Now, you may want to sit down for this one. Reiko Nagase is part man. It seems that the Japanese developer who "birthed" Reiko couldn't locate a woman's face for "her," so he had a quick shave, conducted a spot of eyebrow plucking, and scanned his own head in. Not since The Crying Game have we felt so strangely compelled to give our respective mothers a call."
Yep, Incite Video Gaming was a very '90s publication, in case you hadn't noticed.
This weird story has become part of video game lore and is even referenced on Reiko's Wikipedia page. Other publications from the time, such as the esteemed British magazine EDGE, also picked up on the report, citing it as fact.
It was after spotting the story in an old issue of EDGE that I decided to do some digging; it's the kind of gloriously bizarre trivia that I love tracking down and verifying. I was able to trace Yoshimizu-san, and gingerly popped the question – was Reiko's face really based on his, and did he really shave and pluck his eyebrows?
"This story was from an interview I did with a magazine at the time," he tells me. "The reporter asked, 'Was there a specific model (such as an actress or idol)?' I answered, 'No, there wasn't a specific model.' The reporter then asked me, 'So did you create it without any references?' and I answered, 'I used my own face as a reference.' In other words, I didn't use my own face as a reference for the character, but rather for the anatomy."
So there you have it; another case of something getting lost in translation. While Yoshimizu did consult his own face when creating Reiko's, it was purely as an anatomical guide, and not a one-for-one copy – Reiko's face itself is a totally original creation.