Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami just started his own game development studio called Tango.  Looks like he's got some decent staff members already too.  Former art director for Square Enix Ryosuke Aiba, artist Naoki Katakai from several Capcom games, and most importantly music composer Masafumi Takada of Suda 51/Grasshopper fame, wow!

So we have Akira Yamaoka bounce from Konami to Grasshopper and Masafumi Takada from Grasshopper to Tango.  Yamaoka's now working for the killer7/No More Heroes guy and Takada is employed by the Resident Evil guy.  Neat!

There's a countdown to Mikami's next project on this site.  I so can't wait to see what it is.

That's great news about Takada. I was a little worried there that he'd be stuck freelancing for licensed pachislot games and the like instead of the cutting edge/bleeding edge projects where he so excels.

Excellent news, thanks for heads-up Mike!

The site just launched about an hour ago.  It's just a fun little Flash game that's designed to recruit people for Mikami's new company Tango.  Should have known it would be something silly, seeing as how it launched at midnight on April 1st in Japan.  The game is called Harakiri and you basically cut a guy's head off and see how far you can make it fly.  The gameplay instantly made me think of Mortal Kombat's "Test Your Might" minigame.  Fun stuff.  SAFE!

The music on the site is kinda catchy.  I'm wondering if it's Takada's first contribution for Tango.

http://mikami-project.com/