| Hiroyuki Kanno | |
| Native Name: | 菅野 洋之(Kanno Hiroyuki) |
| Native Name Lang: | ja |
| Birth Date: | 8 May 1968 |
| Birth Place: | Tokyo, Japan |
| Death Place: | Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan |
| Nationality: | Japanese |
| Alma Mater: | Hosei University |
Hiroyuki Kanno (菅野 ひろゆき, 8 May 1968 - 19 December 2011) was a Japanese video game designer who wrote and directed visual novels and eroge adventure games starting in the 1990s. Some of his most well-known games include Desire, EVE Burst Error (at) and YU-NO (at ELF Corporation), which had a major influence on the visual novel genre. His games often feature multiple narrative layers, such as different character viewpoints or overlapping mystery story arcs.[1] He was friends with Ryu Umemoto, who often worked closely with him and composed music for the games.[2] In December 1997, he founded Abel corporation and became its CEO. In 2011, Kanno died due to cerebral infarction and brain hemorrhage.[3] [4]
According to Anime News Network, YU-NO is "considered one of the most beloved narrative games in Japan, and its system of parallel storylines had a profound influence on storytelling in visual novels in the years since its original release."[5] According to ITmedia, the influence of Kanno, and YU-NO in particular, goes beyond visual novels and extends to modern Otaku works in general. The mangaka Tamiki Wakaki, for example, has cited YU-NO as an influence on the manga and anime series, The World God Only Knows. Other visual novel and manga authors who cited YU-NO as an influence include Romeo Tanaka, Poyoyon Rock, Jun Maeda, Type-Moon's Hikaru Sakurai, White Album 2 and Saekano author Fumiaki Maruto, and To Heart author Toru Minazuki.[6] According to RPG Site and DualShockers, Hiroyuki Kanno's work influenced later visual novels such as Fate/stay night and Steins;Gate.[7] [8]