Bikini-covered DD breasts and ninjas fighting ancient bone dragons are about as far-removed from a 16-bit football game as one could get, but such is the career path for Tomonobu Itagaki and his time spent at Japanese developer Tecmo. Originally brought on to handle the graphics for Tecmo Super Bowl, Itagaki's brash nature wasn't fully seen until he started on his own Dead or Alive series in 1998, which featured female characters with strategically-placed ""bounce"" physics and more than a passing resemblance to SEGA's Virtua Fighter, a series he has mentioned being a fan of. When Dead or Alive 2 arrived for the Dreamcast, the graphical leap gave Itagaki and Team Ninja plenty of attention, which in turn fueled the opinionated Itagaki to spout off on a number of topics -- a trend that hasn't seen any ebb since. After reviving Tecmo's Ninja Gaiden franchise and expanding the Dead or Alive games beyond just fighting games to include a mini-game-style adventure, the developer has become somewhat synonymous with generously proportioned female characters. Team Ninja is currently at work on Dead or Alive 5 for the Xbox 360.