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Moa's persona, a nicobar pigeon, sometimes wearing a crown.
Hato Moa (玻都 もあ) is a manga artist, scriptwriter, game developer, pigeon king, and occasionally translator from Osaka. She is the creator of the critically acclaimed visual novel Hatoful Boyfriend. Her avatar is a nicobar pigeon. Her real name and face is anonymous.
WEB: hatoking.com
Twitter: moa810
Birthday: April 7th
Gender: Female
Hatoful Boyfriend[]
Hatoful Boyfriend is the first game developed by manga artist and writer Hato Moa—author of the series Vairocana and a former Dengeki Comic Grand Prix honoree—under her dōjin circle PigeoNation Inc. As she had no experience with game development prior to Hatoful, Moa initially wanted to start with a visual novel, as she believed it was an easier game type for amateur developers to make; the format also allowed visuals to easily accompany her stories, something that she, as a manga artist, was accustomed to and viewed as being necessary in her work. She first came up with the concept for Hatoful as a 2011 April Fools' Day joke. Despite her lack of familiarity with the genre, she initially intended to create a parody of otome game stereotypes.
Birds in particular were used as a theme due to Hato's fondness for pigeons. However, this was also partially due to Hato's prioritization of writing over illustrating, as the use of bird photographs instead of hand-drawn sprites allowed her more freedom to focus on the script. The first incarnation of the game was created over the course of half a day and posted as a browser game made with Adobe Flash; but due to strong word of mouth from social media it was taken down after immense traffic caused the web server it was hosted on to crash on two separate occasions. Following the unexpected popularity of the Flash game, development began on a longer visual novel using the FamousWriter game engine.
Most of the technical aspects of development—game direction, scripting, and programming—were handled by Hato alone, with fellow artist Damurushi assisting with some minor aspects of the script and art direction. Despite this, most of the roughly seven-month period Hato spent developing Hatoful from a one-off April Fools' gag to the finished product was dedicated to the construction of the narrative.[57] Hato's approach towards the game's writing was "to create something that seems ridiculous and crazy at first glance, but that once you look into the world, you would fall into the depth." However, resolving the darker elements of the plot, particularly the Bad Boys Love scenario, with facts established in the quickly conceived and largely comedic pilot proved to be difficult for her, with inconsistencies in the overall timeline becoming a major concern. During the writing process, Hato admitted that she was critical of the scenarios she had written and constantly doubted whether the final product "turned out well", later remarking in a postscript written for the game's official guidebook:
- "...because I made the final game based on the character outlines on the April Fool’s site, which I came up with in half a day, I can’t deny that it might seem that the way [the plot] is structured is no good in some way. Otome route aside, when I was writing the scenario for the BBL route it seemed that no matter how I tried I couldn't get my head clear and into writing, so I caused myself grief every day. In the end, I finally managed to reach what I felt was a point of compromise, but I wonder how it was? My only hope is that the player themselves can enjoy the game."
- —Official Fanbook[[src]]
Other Works[]
A Moa in her natural habitat.
Prior to Hatoful, Moa has worked on the manga Vairocana as the author and writer.
She has, additionally to the above, written the screenplay and the art for the Hatoful Boyfriend Drama CDs, as well as the Hatoful Boyfriend manga, the Focus On The Hawks manga, Kazuaki-kun's book, Absolute Zero, and the Hatoful side-story TORIARUKI manga.
Most notably, she has provided the main character design for 9 Deadly Killer Pussies and Murder By Numbers.
As for her other most notable work, Moa has written the first comprehensive Japanese translation for Toby Fox's Undertale.
Trivia[]
- Moa's name is in honor of the extinct bird from New Zealand, the Moa.
- She has written several books dedicated to her (and Damurushi's) experiences in the USA, back when she visited the states for Otakon. No English translation for them has been made, but they can be, as well as some of Moa's other manga works, purchased from her Amazon. She has also written a book about Finland in this fashion.
- She is a big fan of RPGs, hence all the references to it scattered through Hatoful. A lot of her art tends to focus on fantasy settings.
- According to the not-wholly-Hatoful-related Okosan manga, Damu and her have been roommates.
- The headmaster of St. Pigeonation's, Mino Ichijou is a nicobar pigeon, which is possibly a reference to Moa's doujin circle name and logo, Pigeonation.
- Her favorite character in Hatoful is The King.[1] Her favorite character design, however, was Neg Dantalion.[2]
- Both Damu and Moa are fans of drag queens. Moa is a fan of RuPaul's Drag Race.