direct shift from the dark tone of the Siren series, Toyama used the similar premise of a protagonist getting involved in a crisis in a strange town. The world's fictional language was seen as another potential problem when appealing to the Western market. A central theme in the story was Kat's growth as a character through her hardships, acting as a metaphor and medium for commentary on the modern class system and examining a stagnating world system. The Japanese title Gravity Daze was designed to both communicate the game's gravity-based premise and give an impression of strangeness. The long subtitle was meant to be impressive, with Toyama using the subtitle for Dr. Strangelove for inspiration. Due to production deadlines, the team had to cut much of the intended later narrative. Toyama based the main protagonist on characters from American comic books such as Batman. The choice of a female protagonist proved difficult to implement, as research at the time showed games with female leads selling less in the West. Kat's personality was based on Toyama's own view of the world and ways of talking with people. Kat's young age factored into this; while young protagonists were a norm in Japan partially due to the culture of purity surrounding them, in the West having a young protagonist was contentious for multiple reasons. After consulting with Western Sony staff, it was decided to keep the female Kat as the main protagonist, with Sato designing Kat so she would appeal to a wide audience. To make Kat more appealing, Sato chose simple and well-known story tropes for Kat's storyline—such as her amnesia, solving a central mystery, and helping Hekseville's people—in addition to allowing players to hear Kat's inner thoughts during conversations and story cutscenes. Sato greatly decreased the amount of violence from the first draft while preserving the meaning of story scenes. A cited example of this was a scene where Sid came upon Kat bathing; while in the game Sid slipped and fell, in the original draft Kat would have kicked him, a style of physical humor common in Japanese anime but seen as unpopular overseas. The Nevi were designed to combine geometric shapes with the "feeling of life". The minor characters of Kat's cat and Raven's crow companions were intended to evoke history through their appearance and lack of expressive features. The art director for Gravity Rush was Yoshiaki Yamaguchi, who