#INTERVIEW: How A Manga Inspired Portrait Of Shohei Ohtani Made It On The Cover Of MLB The Show 22

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“INTERVIEW: How A Manga Inspired Portrait Of Shohei Ohtani Made It On The Cover Of MLB The Show 22”

Los Angeles Angels pitcher Shohei Ohtani took the 2021 Major League Baseball season by storm. Earlier this year, PlayStation and Sony San Diego announced that he would be the cover athlete for the MLB The Show 22 video game. In particular, the game’s MVP Edition includes a steel book featuring a drawn manga version of him on the cover.

Crunchyroll sat down with both PlayStation product development communications and brand strategist Ramone Russell and artist Takashi Okazaki to discuss the process of creating the steel book and drawing Ohtani.

Ohtani had a meteoric rise during the 2021 baseball season. “Shohei Ohtani had, in our eyes, the greatest single season in baseball history, one could say we had no choice but to put him on the cover,” says Russell. Ohtani hit more than 45 home runs and eight or more triples in the same MLB regular season. This feat has only been accomplished by five other players in MLB history: Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Jim Rice, and Jimmie Foxx.

These stats catapulted Ohtani to the top of MLB stardom and certainly caught Sony’s eye. Russell continues, “Every year, our goal for the cover athlete is to identify who has a great story to tell. If anything, it was the easiest decision we’ve ever made on selecting the cover athlete in any given year.”

Ohtani has a love for manga and anime, especially the baseball series, Major, by Takuya Mitsuda. This one, in particular, inspired him to pursue his baseball dreams. Over at Sony, the team thought it would be a great opportunity to see the worlds of baseball and manga collide to portray Ohtani in a unique way. Russell describes Ohtani’s accomplishments as superhuman-like, and so that’s how Sony approached the game’s steel book cover.

The steel book cover art for MLB The Show 22's MVP Edition

Sony San Diego tapped artist Takashi Okazaki to draw the cover, as the team was a fan of his art style for years. Okazaki also turned out to be a fan of Ohtani — it was a match made in heaven. The team wanted the cover to be bright and vibrant but also a little gritty to convey Ohtani’s duality of being a true two-way player: a rare case where a player excels at both pitching and hitting the baseball.

On the steel book cover, Shohei’s jacket is sculpted in the shape of a samurai’s garb. He also has a bat hanging over his shoulder, as well as a second one sheathed in his belt, symbolizing a pair of samurai swords. To top off the cool factor, his hands, bat, and baseball are wrapped in fire.

Okazaki said that from the beginning, he wanted the cover to have a strong symmetrical focus. He experimented early on how he wanted to draw Ohtani, explaining, “I tried some crazy ideas, like a six-arm Shohei wearing whole body armor.” After discussing the designs with Sony, the team eventually landed on the current design, which he very much loves.

“The cover went through a handful of revisions and it took about five months to complete. The end result checked off every box for us and Shohei, we couldn’t be happier with how it turned out,” says Russell. Okazaki humorously adds, “Now that I think about it, I went way extreme in the beginning, haha!”

The "Breaking Down the Wall" Trailer showcases Ohtani's duality

At first, Okazaki had no idea he was going to draw Shohei, saying, “He is a superstar in Japan, so I got a little nervous too.” However, he felt honored to do so and he can’t wait to see his own illustration printed on the steel book. The feedback from social media on the cover’s reveal was also positive, noting how flashy and creative it was. Over at Sony San Diego, it was incredibly validating to see the public react the same way the team had.

Russell says, “We are all incredibly happy, proud, and not too surprised by the feedback from everyone on the manga cover. Early in the process, we knew we had something special.”

MLB The Show 22 launches on April 5 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. The game will also be included in Microsoft’s gaming subscription service, Xbox Game Pass, upon release.

Disclaimer: Crunchyroll is part of Funimation Global Group, a joint venture between Sony Pictures Entertainment and Aniplex.

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