Note sull'episodio
In this episode of re:Play, Greg Off sits down with Kyoko Yamashita — founder of Cassis Communications, XSEED co-founder, former SVP of Marketing Communications at Enhance, and the credited cultural consultant on Forza Horizon 6. For 30 years, Kyoko has been the person Japanese studios call when they need someone who can hold both sides of a creative conversation at once, usually without ever putting her own name on the box.
From a bilingual LA-to-Tokyo-to-LA upbringing to a paralegal job at Honda to a 1997 leap of faith into a tiny Squaresoft US office, Kyoko traces the whole arc. Along the way she led PR through Final Fantasy VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, and Kingdom Hearts, produced the first US Final Fantasy orchestral concert at Walt Disney Concert Hall, co-founded XSEED, spent a decade helping Tetsuya Mizuguchi grow Enhance from three people to a global publisher, and became the first credited cultural consultant on a AAA Western production set in Japan.
In this episode:
- Growing up bilingual on two continents — and how it became the backbone of a 30-year career
- The corporate class called "Cyberspace Law" that led to Squaresoft
- Day one at Squaresoft: two manila folders, HTML for Dummies, and a "hit a million or we shut it down" mandate
- The real origin of Kingdom Hearts — a shared elevator in a Meguro office building
- Co-founding XSEED and launching Cassis Communications
- The "female ninja" nickname from her Team Ninja and Tecmo years
- A decade at Enhance shipping Rez Infinite, Tetris Effect, and Humanity
- Becoming the credited cultural consultant on Forza Horizon 6 — and what that job actually is
- Why "help me help you" is the honest answer to almost every cultural-consulting question
Originally recorded remotely on August 6, 2026, this episode is a long, generous conversation about being the person who makes big things possible from behind the scenes.
Links & References
- Kyoko Yamashita on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyokoyamashita/
- XSEED / Marvelous USA — https://marvelous-usa.com/
- Enhance — https://enhance-experience.com/
- Playground Games — https://playground-games.com
- Kingdom Hearts — https://na.square-enix.com/kingdomhearts
- Rez Infinite — https://www.rezinfinite.com/
- Tetris Effect — https://tetriseffect.game
- Humanity — https://humanity.game/
- Forza Horizon — https://forza.net
- Ninja Gaiden — https://teamninja-studio.com/ng/de/
- Pole Position — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pole_Position_(video_game)