Graphics Designer for Yo-Kai Watch, Professor Layton, etc
Could you introduce yourself and share what you did at Level-5 Abby, as well as what you’re currently up to?
Hello, I’m Matt Matoba. It’s easy to remember because it’s basically Matt twice. I was responsible for most of LEVEL-5 ABBY’s logos and some other graphics too, having worked with them for about 3 years as a graphic designer. (My last name was Glickson at the time, I’m credited here in Yo-Kai Watch 3 as the Localized Logos Designer.)
First I applied as a full timer and was rejected, then I was contacted and offered a full time position role which I rejected, then finally started working with L5 as a designer. At first, it was meant to be one project only but then the next thing came up and they interviewed me again. I worked continuously with them for several years, but never again was offered full time by them. Instead, I had to re-test at each go.
Apparently, every time, they interviewed multiple people and had multiple other logos made, but they said I always beat the opposition. But if I’m honest, I figure they always did that to get me to charge less and work harder. If I’m wrong, it means every time I was better than the competition, so I’m OK with that interpretation, too.
As this continued, I handled whatever graphic needs came up. At one point, LEVEL-5 ABBY pitched several shows to Nickelodeon, for example, so I helped with those too. (They had gorgeous character models created.)
As for what I’m up to now- I’m a co-founder of MATOBA, an agency based on the ideology of the Eames. It’s a LOGOWORKS and a detective agency, which are much more related than you’d think. As for graphics, a recent example is Match Mondo and Millenium Family. We created the English logos and covers. A recent grail find was the first place trophy card from Honolulu. Detective work pays, graphic design doesn’t. It doesn’t credit either.
In fact, despite it being contractually promised to me, I was uncredited for my work on YKW3. After I learned the game was to be patched, I requested that the omission be fixed. To make it easier on them, I also pitched how I could fix several graphic errors in the (then) final release, amortizing the cost of visually patching. L5 requested proof that I wasn’t credited in the form of recording my 3DS. (Good thing I was a player of the game! What if I wasn’t?) Anyway, I recorded the credits and sent it over.
They promised to patch in my credit for the Friday-after-release patch. They forgot. I petitioned heavily, especially since all of ABBY was forgotten. Months and months later the credits were fixed. However, since the 3DS servers are down, the game no longer features my credit.
So anyway, detective work pays. And it’s only non-sad cases, too! I’ve been finding Pokemon trophies and cards, mostly. It’s been bizarre and complicated. I travel to various conventions and events and locate hard to find “holy grail” items for collectors.
Uh, but it’s harder to talk about. I’m allowed to share what I do, but the middle part is the interesting part, and that’s the part that gets complicated. One time, I was tasked with finding prizing from a player no one could reach.
I learned he streamed occasionally on Twitch, so when he next aired, I joined his Twitch chat and managed to communicate the whole deal over the game. Fun! Stressful. His chat kept telling me to quit wasting his time while he himself was super interested.
When I find things for clients, I’m almost always allowed to photograph them, so I try to use the occasion to document rare things that people might not otherwise see. The work takes me all over the globe. Most recently, my company went to Hawaii for Pokemon’s World Championships. Was fun!
How did Abby differ from Level-5 International America?
ABBY and LEVEL-5 IA were entirely separate teams. (Literally separate companies in separate buildings.) ABBY was, more or less, in Santa Monica, near Riot’s studios. L5IA was in Torrance. They’re both chunks of LA, essentially, and are about 20 minutes to 1hr and 20 minutes apart, depending on traffic.
ABBY did everything for LEVEL-5 that Treehouse does for Nintendo. We/they did localization, translation, marketing, and also sometimes really granular stuff like replacing certain textures. I know way less about IA, but from what I saw they handled the coding end of things. (We handled some of that, but mostly graphics, text, vocal, and the rest.)
Unfortunately, I can’t be much help here, since I’m limited to knowing, mostly, the things I was involved in. It was always shocking to me that ABBY and L5IA could co-exist, and their people seemed to barely know ours either. I met a few in the final days when the company fell apart, and they seemed to be in similar positions.
From what you remember, how big was the team at Level-5 Abby during your time there?
Really, really fluctuating. Always around a dozen, maybe 15-20 at the height, and 1 at the, uh, valley. When they first launched, it was just Yukari Hayakawa, essentially. She was Akihiro Hino’s right-hand in America. It fleshed out into a reasonable team of 10 or so. This is around when I first interviewed, was offered a position, and turned it down.
In truth, it was mostly due to Ms. Hayakawa’s behavior. (I’m too exhausted just thinking about it.) She gave me their office address and as soon as I was done working at my film merchandise job I drove as fast as I could through hellish LA traffic to meet her.
I get to the horrible office park with no parking. I couldn’t go up the elevators. Locked. And she wasn’t answering her phone or email or even the receptionist. Eventually, too much time passed. I was late. Finally, a response. “Where are you?”
She was at a restaurant, having never mentioned this to me. I drove to meet her some 15 minutes away. (Not bad by those LA standards, but still really annoying.)
We had a pleasant meal. In truth, I had already been passed over. The job I had wanted went to someone else. However, that person’s recruiter needed to take maternity leave, so they wanted to offer a role to me wherein I would function rarely as designer and mostly would handle anything needed. The recruiter suggested me for several reasons, but Yukari told me 2 stood out-
1) My Japanese was amazing. (It wasn’t, but thanks!)
2) My Whisper impression was amazing. (It was.)
Truly, none of that is why I said no. I said no because I already had a stable job (I thought) and because I could tell I would be sad working under Yukari, like on a day to day, in my heart place.
When we finished eating, we returned to the office, and this is when and why I realized I couldn’t work there. Yukari asked me to sit in a meeting room with her and we spoke, discussing the job and what it entailed. I asked about the day to day. She explained I’d have to do some of everything, which I deeply believe is important. She explained who I’d work with, which was two people in particular.
Then, explaining she wanted to familiarize us, she left and had each of the people join me in the room, one at a time, for about 15 minutes each. To be clear, they didn’t interview me, they had no questions for me, and they had no direction for or from Yukari.
They seemed more confused than I was. In short, I was placed in a room with strangers and told to make it less awkward, as this would be my life now. I think and hope I did make it less awkward, but that is certainly not my job. (Although it is sometimes now, as I also interview people on occasion.)
So something like 10 people.
After ABBY had mostly closed, they had a single employee stay behind to collect mail and sit in a chair. Holy crap. It was awful. He was a nice person and I would let phone calls run long so he didn’t have to spend so much time alone. I wish he, I, and the rest could’ve at least been public about the closure. Instead, he had to sit there in silence, literally taking out trash.
Ah, speaking of the team, I do have more memories. When I was sat in the room with the first person during my interview at the ABBY office, I remember being asked what my favorite Yokai was. At that time, business was good, and ABBY’s business cards were nice.
Every employee had their favorite Yokai on the card, and I think they were spot glossed, although it might just be my pearlescent memory. I answered Gachadokuro, it wasn’t named Gutsy Bones yet. Later, when times weren’t steak good, and were instead ramen lean, the business cards got kinda plain, and just had the same all-purpose key art for everyone.
I still keep up with some members of ABBY. We have dinner over Kula, sometimes. Many of them are very happy and doing things that use their energy well.
How did Level-5 decide what games Abby would localize?
They’d find the raccoon with the least will to live, throw it on a highway, and then read the Rorschach test that was left over. Whatever game it most resembled, that was the one.
They had very poor workflow in this area, in my opinion. There was no hard answer, other than what did well in Japan.
From the time of American YKW1-3, the answer was certainly Yo-Kai Watch. After 3, the answer was varied, with focus on Snack World as the next wide IP. After that, focus was on the HD for Mobile series of Layton remakes. Before YKW1 ABBY did very little- it was essentially founded for the purpose of successfully moving YKW to the states.
Are there any particular examples of contributions to Level-5 projects you’re proud of?
Yo-Kai Watch 3’s logo. I worked myself to the bone on that thing. I was funky poor while I made it. On the homestretch, I finished it over a sleepless night then went to an 8 hour shift creating for a Netflix licensee. While at work, I was asked to make several last minute changes to aspects of the logo. To do it, as soon as lunch on my Netflix-adjacent job started I began editing the YKW logo. Stressful.
However, I love how it came out. I’m proud to death of my work there, and I don’t feel ashamed when I see it next to other YKW logos. On the day of release, I drove to my local used video game store. They let me stand behind the counter, in front of the 3DS shelves, and take a photo with the game, my game.
Iwata-era Nintendo is my lifeblood, and I personally told Reggie Fils-Aime as soon as I got the YKW3 job. (I ran into him on purpose at the Game Awards that year. I hugged him, perhaps too hard, but then his wife told me to keep looking after him, so either the love was understood or someone was drunk.) My point is that I couldn’t have been prouder to make something on that glorious fucking console, on that IP, with those companies.
Otherwise, generally speaking, the 2nd to last version of everything I made is what I was most proud of. I’d often do something that stood out near the end and then meet rejection since it veered too much from either the Japanese original logo or the base text. That’s not a 100% true thing, but there’s a lot of work where I liked other versions better.
In particular- I liked the final variants I made for Snack World the most, as they had the most creativity. I also liked some of my larger designs for Katrielle Deluxe.
All that aside- I try my absolute hardest to always make something I’m proud of, and I’m proud of everything that went out. No Daniel Craig DVD’s for me, yet. (I can’t find the story, is that known anymore? He once said that he did films he was ashamed of for being bad, such as Tomb Raider, and would turn them around or hide them at rental stores.)
Do you have a favorite Level-5 IP?
Yo-Kai Watch, undeniably. But I sincerely love Layton, LBX, and most of their work. But the answer isn’t because I worked on it. (I worked on YKW, Layton, SW, and more.) YKW is the only thing I’ve ever seen come close to obscuring Pokemon.
Its dominance in 2014 in Japan was tangible. Arcades blasted YKW dance music and lenticular cases of YKW mints fell from children’s pockets, fat as we all were. YKW had so much different… stuff! And I’m a collector and youkai fan at heart. (Hey, why didn’t we spell it Youkai Watch? Because of the Pokemon accent…)
Layton holds a special place to me as one of the first really good DS titles and one of the first good 3DS titles that I personally had. It was fantastic to see the burgeoning console that was the DS finding its strength with unique new titles. (The selection at the start was a bit rough.) The hamster sim was always charming to me too.
LBX was a personal favorite because I deeply enjoy Gunpla and would love if they could take my orders and attack and buy me soda and affect global politics. Also, certain editions came with a real gunpla in the game’s case. Nice.
When did Abby start developing the Yo-Kai Watch 3 localization?
Boring answer, sorry, but YKW3 localization started right after YKW2 localization ended, and so on. More bizarrely, it came out way later than its Japanese release, making our version the most powerful, as it combined all the elements from prior games.
Before Yo-Kai Watch 3’s release, did the team anticipate the poor sales due to the game releasing so late into the 3DS’s lifespan? What was the atmosphere like after release?
The short answer is no, but it’s not that simple. To start, I don’t agree that its poor sales were related to the timing of the 3DS’s lifespan, or at least that wasn’t the feeling. The answer is pretty long, and very tied to the ABBY shutdown, so I elaborated more in the next question.
As for the atmosphere at ABBY after YKW3’s disappointing release, well, it’s what you think.
Things weren’t immediately over, but a spiral certainly happened. Things were bad. Work was important- ABBY needs a win. Work was important- we can’t screw up.
All the tropes you might expect happen, and things got rough. The work environment was terrible… People were extremely unhappy with “management,” but this basically always meant Yukari or the decisions from HQ. In fact, please look up the glassdoor reviews. They were a lot. I personally saw some of the things they mention.
Greedy choices made due to loss caused more loss. That sort of thing.
Can you give more insight into how Abby’s shutdown happened?
Surely! First off, the stuff said here is a good prep:
There were so many reasons it happened, and so much was obvious from a distance, and yet it all still exploded on impact. Like birds out of cannons.
No one reason caused it to shutdown, outside of fucking up too bad.
The first reason was severe mismanagement of YKW. I’d like to point to one very specific reason, which is L5 removing Nintendo as a producer on YKW after the series’ release. In this moment, I no longer remember if it was after 1 or after 2, but it should be a matter of public record.
Nintendo asked for a large portion of YKW’s profits in return for publishing the game, a typical set up for this sort of thing. In short, it meant that Nintendo helped advertise the game in return for a cut. L5 felt they, uh, wanted more, so they axed Nintendo. (To be specific, they thought the cut was too big.)
I’d compare this to Marvel Studios trying to fire Robert Downey Jr because he cost too much. However, RDJ was always paid a percentage, meaning he could never earn more than they did, or more than his portion, based on agreements.
To go back to YKW/Nintendo: I am unaware of the actual percentage they took. (I feel I heard 30% one time, but I’m really not sure.) But it doesn’t matter. If they took 50%, it’d still be worth it. Because Nintendo’s advertising more than doubled the user base.
Reggie Fils-Aime himself did a YKW spot, and YKW was in Directs. It went from a multiple title per game franchise to not even mentioned in their updates.
In even other words- Any percent of something is better than 100% of nothing.
Had localization of Yo-kai Watch 4 begun before Abby closed? Considering the amount of work that needed to go into the localization of 3, do you think Level-5 would bother localizing 4 in the future?
I am so, so sorry to have to give this answer, but the truth is none. Perhaps not literally none- some emails were flung around, the announcement of YKW4 being localized was serious. But nothing of major value or content was localized.
Localization of 4 was mostly due to the push from several internal staff who deeply loved the series.
YKW3’s failure was too severe, combined with SW’s, and a generally declining game state.
Shortly after the announce, we all knew it was cancelled. (4.) Wasn’t the intent to lie ever.
Regarding whether I think they’ll bother in the future- sorry, I know they won’t. I’d love to be wrong, but I’d bet money I’m not.
Are there any game localizations that were started and canceled during your time there?
Sure, YKW4 for one, hah.
The Nick pitches I mentioned were started and full canceled, of course.
Otherwise, there were probably some projects that were started that I’m unaware of, but nothing major to my knowledge. (We didn’t try to localize anything too interesting that was canceled.)
This may be out of your territory, but why are some characters given dub names while others keep a more literal romanization of the name? What was the deciding factor?
Anything other than game is only official til the game says otherwise. The names in the dub often served as a good starting idea, but they had 0-1% weight on the names made official. It was a lot like when a book writes new canon, and it counts, until the movie says otherwise. Or how Netflix Daredevil is like, sorta happened?
The teams who made dub names were mostly unrelated to the game teams, and were entirely different people.
The dub had little to no say over game choice, ABBY did that.
Although, and this is pretty cool, ABBY sometimes let people in the community name Yokai. Names mostly came from internal meetings or literal translations.
From what you know, were there any plans to make mobile ports of the second Layton trilogy?
Plans seemed based on the sales of the first trilogy, but also, based on a couple of things that didn’t go as planned:
1) ABBY and IA were suddenly closed and without public notice. (See Destructoid’s article from the time.) This pooched the snooch, deeply and without amend. I was personally tasked with creating the HD Mobile Layton logos before that happened, and the logos after I no longer was on the project still incorporated my work. (Among other things, I made that top bit with the stuff.)
2: Covid ended plans for a lot.
Generally speaking, how would you say your experience working at Abby was?
Similar to being an unappreciated Mother. If I had to guess.
I was so proud of my work, but it constantly felt like a funnier writer than me thought of the worst most frustrating shit they could think of, for that company to put me through.
Unfortunately, I think it seems I’m still quite sore on this point. I’m unsure I can bring myself to say more, but if I can, I will.
What are your thoughts on Level-5’s current upcoming projects, and how they are handling localization (seemingly outsourcing it to other companies)?
Holy fuck… well, they’ve started using AI over designers, so it seems I’ve lost a particular job. It’s weird- everyone around me has been afraid of this, and I really didn’t think it would hit me this soon.
That said, I’m fine with AI replacing my work, that’s not why it bothered me on the latest work. It bothers me because… it isn’t time yet. AI isn’t better than me- yet. But it makes fine work, and for free. Fine-for-free is the latest model.
I hate it.
When the camera was invented, painters began experimenting with new techniques, and non-literal painting. Why do what a machine can?
In this case, it’s like AI is a shitty flip phone camera. I don’t mind being replaced once it’s good, but it’s dumb to do it now.
The reason I don’t mind being replaced is that I’ll do what those painters did- I’ll do something else. Art isn’t any one thing.
Thank you so much for accepting this interview! Do you have any closing words for Level-5 fans?
What a fantastic game. Thank you for enjoying this amazing series! I’m extremely lucky to have earned the time to work on it. I’m thankful for the luck it took to reach that opportunity and the skill it took to grab it.
Erika Harlacher is super nice! (The VA of Hailey.) We’ve worked on other things since. (Danganronpa, mainly.)
Stephanie Cheng of ABBY was an amazing artist and underused.
Marlene Sharp of ABBY was always enthusiastic.
One time, I spilled a ton of orange juice. I’m really sorry about that. By the time I noticed, it was already, like, 3-4 whole paper towel rolls worth. At that point, I full figured screw it and just looked at it with that kinda dumbfounded “oh hwat?” look. I really apologize. I like orange juice.
Matt Matoba’s Socials:
Twitter/X – https://x.com/mattglickson
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mattmatoba/
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