Milano’s Odd Job Collection is one of those out of nowhere sort of announcements. A PlayStation game from 1999 returning in 2025? It reminds me of the old PSOne Imports titles that appeared around 2012 and 2013, like Killer Bass and Yakiniku Bugyou. To learn more about the game, its original development, and its return, Siliconera spoke with creator Ryuichi Nishizawa about the title ahead of its worldwide debut.
Jenni Lada: When first developing Milano’s Odd Job Collection for the PS1, how did you come up with the idea behind it?
Ryuichi Nishizawa: The project was originally planned together with producer Yoshihisa Shimada from Victor Interactive Software. By coincidence, both he and I had 11-year-old daughters at the time, and we wanted to make a game they could truly enjoy.
Girls of that age tend to be a little more mature than boys. Rather than adventures or battles, they’re often interested in fashion, interior design, and expressing their individuality.
They also start seeking a connection with the world around them earlier than boys do. So we decided to create a game starring a young girl who dreams of independence — someone discovering what it means to live on her own and find her place in society.
We even had our daughters playtest the final build, so you can actually find their names in the ending credits. (laughs)
How does it feel seeing Milano’s Odd Job Collection becoming a worldwide release so long after its debut?
Ryuichi Nishizawa: Toward the end of development, our producer Mr. Yoshihisa Shimada took the game to Sony Computer Entertainment to present it. When he came back, he told me they said, “There’s no market for games for 11-year-old girls.” We both laughed and said, “Well, they’re probably right!” — I still remember that moment vividly.
In reality, SCE was right — the game didn’t sell very well at the time. However, later on, people began to appreciate the high quality of its pixel art animation, and since only a small number of copies were shipped, it gradually became a rare collector’s item.
The game was originally made for children, so we designed the UI with large text and lots of Japanese on screen. That made it extremely difficult to localize into English, and given the limited sales, the game remained a Japan-only release.
That’s why I’m genuinely happy to see it finally released in English today. As the global market has grown and pixel art has come to be recognized as a true art form, I’ve often thought, “I’d love for more people to experience this game,” because I’ve always believed there’s no other title that condenses pixel art so richly into one experience. I especially hope players will enjoy watching Milano’s everyday animations — doing laundry, cooking dinner, or feeding her cat. They’re small moments, but full of heart.
I also remember hearing that the game might have been difficult to release in North America, since having a young girl working part-time jobs could be seen as child labor under their regulations. That cultural difference makes it all the more amazing that the game can now reach a worldwide audience. I still remember that conversation and can’t help but smile.
While initial imagery for Milano’s Odd Job Collection is very bright and colorful, its story is actually quite deep considering our lead is getting by while living alone for a period of time. How do you balance that family-oriented and serious element with the lighthearted ones?
Ryuichi Nishizawa: The game depicts a young girl living on her own, but I don’t think what she truly wants is independence itself. What she really wants is the feeling of growing up a little — of trying to act like an adult. At that age, there are so many things you still can’t do. You might share a room with your little brother or sister, but you imagine how nice it would be to
have a room of your own. You only get a small allowance, so you can’t buy everything you want — but you dream, “If I had a part-time job, I could buy this, or maybe that.” This game came from that kind of childhood daydream.
So, instead of focusing on the hardship of working, we wanted to show that step by step, you can expand your own little world through your own efforts. That was the emotional center of the game.
And of course, none of it would have been possible without Maki Ohzora, the illustrator and animator. Her characters have a certain transparency and warmth that makes it easy for players to project themselves onto Milano. Her sense of color and animation direction shaped the tone of the entire game — balancing the cheerful surface with a quiet sense of maturity underneath.
Maki drew hundreds of key frames on paper, which were then digitized by multiple staff members to create the enormous amount of pixel animation seen in the game. I still remember the designers working through the night to bring those scenes to life.
Cozy and wholesome are game descriptors that get used quite often in the last few years, and Milano’s Odd Job Collection is being promoted as that sort of title now. How do you feel about that?
Ryuichi Nishizawa: To be honest, I only recently learned the term “cozy game.” (laughs) Back then, there really weren’t many slow-life simulation games like Milano’s Odd Job Collection. Around the same time, Victor Interactive Software was also releasing Harvest Moon titles in Japan, which I think were among the first games to truly define the slow-life genre. [Harvest Moon was later re-named STORY OF SEASONS following Victor Interactive’s acquisition by Marvelous Entertainment and American publishing shifting to Marvelous USA.]
The fact that we were able to create a game about a young girl living a gentle, non-violent life was largely thanks to the environment at Victor Interactive Software. They had the insight to recognize that there could be an audience for games without combat or competition. At another publisher, I suspect our proposal might have been rejected entirely. We didn’t set out to make something revolutionary — but looking back, maybe it was more avant-garde than we realized at the time. (laughs)
Afterward, our producer Mr. Shimada kept pursuing games for girls, and went on to create multiple hit titles that helped open up a new market. So hearing people say that Milano’s Odd Job Collection was ahead of its time and may have been an early example of what’s now called a cozy game — that’s honestly a great honor. I hope that players today can feel the same gentle warmth we tried to capture back then.
Milano’s Odd Job Collection will come to the Switch, Switch 2, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and PC on December 9, 2025.