Brain Age's Dr. Kawashima Refuses All Game Royalties

Feb. 1 10:36 AM by Alicia Ashby

Both Brain Age titles have sold millions of units worldwide and feature Dr. Kawashima's digitized floating head, so you'd think he was turning a pretty penny off of software sales, right? Well, wrong. According to a recent AFP article, Dr. Kawashima is absolutely uninterested in taking even a single yen from Nintendo.

Asked whether he ever thought of taking the royalty money and moving to a tropical island, Kawashima simply said: "I wouldn't know what to do there. If I had such time to spare, I want to do my research."

Indeed, it seems like nothing gets in the way of work. When for instance he decided last year to lose 20 kilogrammes (44 pounds), he just cut down on food, he says, adding: "If there is time for physical exercise, I want to use it for research."

Kawashima became interested in brains when he was a teenager, saying that he "wanted to put my brain in a computer so it would be around to see the last day of humanity".

You know, if a character acted exactly like this in some anime or manga story I was following, I would find him a little implausible.