Kawano Junko

Kawano Junko (河野純子) is a writer, illustrator and video game producer formerly employed by Konami Corporation.

Early involvement with Suikoden
Kawano Junko is said to have first joined Konami in 1992. When fellow Konami newcomer Murayama Yoshitaka was picked to develop a game for Konami's planned video game console, she began collaborating with him. This game was scrapped in the early stages of development.

Kawano, Murayama, and ten other employees were instead assigned with developing Konami's first games for Sony's upcoming console, the PlayStation. With the pick of making a baseball game, a racing game or an RPG, Murayama and Kawano decided to reopen their RPG project.

An illustrator for Konami, Kawano performed illustrations for the first Suikoden as well as the illustrations for the series of Suikoden novels. She is stated to have been the lead designer for the original Suikoden in 1995.

Following Suikoden, Kawano worked on Twinbee RPG as part of the planning team as well as the lead designer. In conjunction, she would serve as a cover illustrator for several Twinbee CD releases. She also worked on Dolphin's Dream (Diver's Dream in Europe) with both games seeing a 1998 release. Additional Kawano character designs were used for two sets of cards in the Gensosuikoden Card Stories CCG in 2001 and 2003.

Continued career with Konami
In 2001, Kawano worked on the game Shadow of Destiny (Shadow of Memories in Japan) as a planner, writer, 2D designer and character designer. She also made a credited cameo as the voice of a cat. Following the release, Kawano mentioned that she would like to form a series from the title, using different characters, but these plans never came to fruition.

2004 saw Kawano take the reigns of the Suikoden series, being chosen for the producer spot for Suikoden IV as well as that of lead writer. She also held the same level of control over Suikoden Tactics. She also held the position of Motion Capture Director for Suikoden IV.

Since then, Kawano has been given a 'special thanks' from the US localisation team for Suikoden V as well as being credited as a producer in the Japanese release. She has also worked on 2008's Time Hollow for the Nintendo DS as a character designer and director and served as director for the 2010 Nintendo DS title Zac and Ombra: Amusement Park of Illusion.

She was rumored to be working on Suikoden VI based on small comments made on the now-defunct Konami School Blog but had no involvement in either Suikoden Tierkreis or Gensosuikoden Tsumugareshi Hyakunen no Toki.

Post-Konami work
Kawano left Konami in 2015. In April 2019, she was announced as the lead character designer for the mobile game Arca Last: the World that Ends and the Fruit of the Diva, for Fuji Games.

On July 24th, 2020, Kawano was revealed as the lead character designer for the upcoming title Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes.