Akihiro Hino

Akihiro Hino
日野 晃博
Hino in 2015
Born	(1968-07-20) July 20, 1968 Ōmuta, Fukuoka, Japan
Occupations	Game designer game producer scriptwriter
Years active	1989–present
Notable work	Dark Cloud series Professor Layton series Inazuma Eleven series Ni no Kuni series
Title	President and CEO, Level-5

Akihiro Hino (日野 晃博, Hino Akihiro) (born July 20, 1968) is a Japanese video game designer and businessman. Starting his career as a programmer in the 1990s, he later took on roles in writing, design, directing and producing. He founded Level-5 in 1998 and remains its president and CEO.

Biography

Hino began his career in the video game industry in the late 1980s at the now defunct Japanese developer Riverhillsoft, specifically on the OverBlood series for the original PlayStation. Hino acted as the lead programmer on the first OverBlood, and was subsequently promoted to lead designer and director for the sequel, OverBlood 2.

Hino founded Level-5 in October 1998. Since the creation of Level-5, Hino has designed, planned and produced several of the studio's released titles, Dark Cloud, Dark Chronicle and Rogue Galaxy for the PlayStation 2, Jeanne d'Arc for the PlayStation Portable, and Professor Layton and the Curious Village for the Nintendo DS. He also directed Square Enix's Dragon Quest VIII.

Recently, Hino once again assumed designing and producing duties for Level-5's titles, White Knight Chronicles for the PlayStation 3, and the next two Professor Layton games – the Diabolical Box and the Unwound Future, both for the Nintendo DS, and Inazuma Eleven for the Nintendo DS, and Dragon Quest IX, also for the DS, which is his studio's second collaboration with role-playing video game powerhouse Square Enix.

Works

Year	Title	Role
1989	Burai: Jokan	Programmer
1992	Prince of Persia	Programmer (FM Towns version)
1994	Doctor Hauzer	Programmer
1996	OverBlood	Programmer
1998	OverBlood 2	Director, game designer, story
2000	Dark Cloud	Producer, game designer, story
2002	Dark Chronicle	Producer, game designer, story
2004	Dragon Quest VII	Director
2005	Rogue Galaxy	Director, producer, game designer, story
2006	Jeanne d'Arc	Producer, game designer
2007	Professor Layton and the Curious Village	Producer, designer, story
	Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box	Producer, designer, story
2008	Inazuma Eleven	Producer, designer, story
	Professor Layton and the Unwound Future	Producer, designer, story
	White Knight Chronicles	Director, producer, designer, story
2009	Inazuma Eleven 2	Producer, designer, story
	Dragon Quest IX	Director
	Professor Layton and the Last Specter	Producer, designer, story
2010	Ni no Kuni: Dominion of the Dark Djinn	Story
	Inazuma Eleven 3	Producer
2011	Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask	Producer, designer, story
	Inazuma Eleven Strikers	Producer
	Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch	Game design, story
2012	LBX: Little Battlers eXperience	Producer, designer, story
	Time Travelers	Producer
	Mobile Suit Gundam AGE	Producer, designer, story
	Layton Brothers: Mystery Room	Producer
	Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney	Story
	Inazuma Eleven GO Strikers 2013	Producer
	Fantasy Life	Producer
2013	Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy	Producer
	Yo-kai Watch	Producer, designer, story
2014	Wonder Flick	Director, producer
	Yo-kai Watch 2	Producer, designer, story
2015	Yo-kai Watch Blasters	Producer
2016	Yo-kai Watch 3	Producer, story
2017	Layton's Mystery Journey	General director, designer, story
	Snack World: Trejarers	General director, designer, story
2018	Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom	General director, story
	Snack World: The Dungeon Crawl - Gold	General director, designer, story
2019	Yo-kai Watch 4	Producer, story

External links

• Akihiro Hino at IMDb
• Akihiro Hino at MobyGames