Character designer Kazuya Nuri designed Ryunosuke and Susato to be "simpler and more stoic" than the most of the other characters, stemming from a personal distaste for adding character design elements that were irrelevant to the game's story. Thus, he made several suggestions, such as requesting that Ryunosuke's armband act as an attorney's badge of sorts (which did not exist in the era the games take place) and asking that the katana Ryunosuke is seen with be relevant to the overarching plot.