“Up until very recently I really felt someday I wanted to make a sequel to Okami, and there were others who wanted me to as well,” he said.

“But then the other day I heard the announcement that someone else would be making a sequel and now I’m just not interested in it any more. Once someone else touches a world that you yourself created it stops being yours. There is no point in making a sequel when the world doesn’t belong to you.

“Viewtiful Joe is probably all I’ve got left. That story is incomplete so I’d like to finish it someday. But that would probably be the most difficult one to do [laughs].”