Kamiya says he insisted on keeping Bayonetta’s iconic glasses on, despite pressure from others

Bayonetta is one of gaming’s most recognisable faces thanks to her intricate design, personality, and the love and attention she had poured on her by the development team. Celebrating the series 16th anniversary, Hideki Kamiya, explained that he championed Bayonetta wearing her iconic glasses, despite some wanting them to be removed. Kamiya told the team that “Bayonetta’s glasses are just like her underwear – do not take them off at any cost.” Here’s some thoughts from the development team:

Hideki Kamiya

“When we were designing Bayonetta, our clients requested us to take off her glasses, and it’s true that I kept rejecting their proposals. But it’s also true that, on a separate occasion, Mr. Shimomura, who produced the cinematics, said ‘Bayonetta’s glasses are just like her underwear – do not take them off at any cost,” Kamiya said.

“Maybe it’s due to trauma, maybe there’s some other reason behind it, I really wanted to write an episode digging deeper into why she wears the glasses… Whatever the case, in all of the Bayonetta titles I created, the only man who ever got to see Bayonetta (Cereza)’s bare face was Luka,” he said.

Mari Shimazaki

“During the development of Bayonetta 1, when I was drawing up rough sketches of the character design, Kamiya appeared behind me out of nowhere and whispered: ‘Give her glasses.’ That’s how everything started. Later, whenever I was sketching rough designs for Bayonetta, he’d always come up to me saying ‘Why don’t you give her glasses?’ so it became a habit for me to always have a glasses layer ready in my designs. While the process of finalizing designs was sometimes a bumpy ride, I always had the glasses layer on standby,” she commented on her X account.