Atelier Ryza Producer Reiterates How the Team Was Surprised by the Love Surrounding Ryza’s Now Legendary Thighs

Recently, the head of Gust and producer of the upcoming Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & The Secret Key, Junzo Hosoi, was interviewed by the Japanese outlet Inside.

Nothing new about the game itself is stated, but Hosoi reiterated a particularly humorous admission regarding the prominent thighs of the trilogy’s heroine. Our team’s Ryuji translated the following exchange:

Interviewer: Incidentally, when Ryza uses a key, she has a glorious display of her thighs, huh?

JH: Ah, that. That was a special touch by the production team. (laughs)

Interviewer: It’s not often that a game character is famous for her thighs, is it?

JH: Everyone often mentions thighs, but no developer at that time, or even now, is particular about them. No one ever thinks about going, “let’s show how great our character’s thighs are!”

Interviewer: Really!? So you mean you didn’t intend to do that, but it caught everyone’s attention?

JH: It was thanks to the help of Toridamono-san, who was in charge of character design. I wanted to make Ryza a different type of protagonist from the already-existing Atelier series.

When creating a character, the design can change in many ways, so I asked Toridamono-san, “Why not make her wear a skirt?” and I guess that must’ve triggered an epiphany because it seems he was thinking of making Ryza wear a skirt from the beginning. (laughs)

• Check out numerous enticing and wholesome promotional illustrations for this upcoming finale to the trilogy.

Hosoi did provide surprised remarks about the reception to Ryza’s thighs back in 2019, but the recency of this question and the astounded answer is still pretty funny.