Grasshopper Manufacture president Goichi "Suda 51" Suda has confirmed that he will not be directing No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle. Suda has expressed a desire to act as a producer for a No More Heroes sequel in the past.

The directing job has been handed down to No More Heroes assistant director Toshihiro Fujikawa. The man's also got assistant director credits on Grasshopper Manufacture titles Samurai Champloo and Killer 7, so no worries there.

The good news is Suda 51 will still be writing the game's script along with taking on the mantle of executive director. Elaborating on the story, Suda 51 says that this time, it'll be more serious and will focus on a revenge-seeking Travis Touchdown:

There’s a series of Japanese movies called Jingi Naki Tatakai that are about the yakuza. They’re really famous in Japan — sort of the equivalent of The Godfather. They focus on the relationships between members of the Yakuza.

The subtitle for the second one is Hiroshima Shito Hen. That roughly translates to The Desperate Struggle of Hiroshima. Inspired by that, I wanted No More Heroes 2 to be The Desperate Struggle of Santa Destroy.

There’s a really intense fight in Hiroshima Shito Hen, and I wanted to sort of recreate that in No More Heroes 2.”

Another piece of good news is that XSEED Games and Marvelous are reportedly bringing No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle stateside come January 2010.

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