Hirokazu Hamamura

Hirokazu Hamamura (born February 8, 1961) is a Japanese magazine editor and businessman best known for his long association with video game publishing in Japan. Born in Osaka Prefecture, he studied in the Literature Department of Waseda University, and while enrolled he worked part time at Sofmap and Comptiq. After graduating in 1985 he joined ASCII Corporation, where he edited Login and Famitsu, became vice editor-in-chief in 1990 and editor-in-chief in 1992. In 1996 internal discord at ASCII led his predecessor as editor-in-chief, Fumitaka Kojima, and others to leave and found Axela, but Hamamura stayed with ASCII. In 2000 he became president of Enterbrain, and in 2002 he handed the editorship of Famitsu to Katsuaki Katou while keeping a strong influence through his personal column at the back of the magazine. He is also a director of Kadokawa Group Holdings, Kadokawa Group Publishing, Kadokawa Games and Walker Books, writes under the pen name Hamamura Tsūshin, and often comments on the game industry when news media cover it.