Later, as producer, she oversaw the development of several Sega video games, including the critically successful Skies of Arcadia.

[4] After entering college, she felt indecisive between pursuing studies in art or archaeology, since she carried an interest in Egyptology.

[5] The industry piqued Kodama's curiosity as she rarely went to the arcades and felt her unfamiliarity with the medium would make it a good way to challenge herself.

[5] She originally thought she was going to be working on advertising and graphic design, but after seeing the game development department, she felt that would be fun as well.

[1] Kodama received small requests to design assets for other projects on a daily basis, such as the dragon from Miracle Warriors: Seal of the Dark Lord (1987) and an enemy for the SG-1000 port for The Black Onyx (1987).

She enjoyed the way Star Wars took elements from Japanese and Asian culture and infused it with a science fiction setting.

[2][5] One of the key design philosophies for Phantasy Star was to do things differently from existing RPGs, particularly the Dragon Quest series which she believed was too simple and pure of a fantasy world.

[8] Phantasy Star was a critical and commercial success and a benchmark title for both the industry and the RPG genre.

[4] Beyond working on the Phantasy Star series during the Sega Genesis years, Kodama created artwork for other Sega games including Mega Drive versions of Sorcerian (1987), SpellCaster (1988), Altered Beast (1988), Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle (1989), Mystic Defender (1989), Shadow Dancer: The Secret of Shinobi (1990), Sonic the Hedgehog (1991), and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (1992).

[3] Kodama soon became a producer at the Sega Wow division and led the development of Skies of Arcadia, which released for the Dreamcast in 2000.

[2][9] Kodama has stated that Skies of Arcadia along with the Phantasy Star series were her favorite projects she worked on.

[15] A memorial message dedicated to Kodama was included in the end credits of the Sega Genesis Mini 2, which was released on October 27, 2022.

[16] Addressing inquiries by IGN and Famitsu, Sega confirmed that Kodama had died on May 9, 2022, at 58 years old,[17][18] and initially refrained from a public announcement to respect her family's privacy.

The Next Level called her one of the first female video game artists, and Nintendo Power dubbed her the "First Lady of RPGs".

[2] While Kodama did not design her games strictly for a female audience, she avoided including elements that treat women unfairly.

[21] Although Kodama no longer drew art assets directly for her games, she did paint and make handcrafts and accessories in her free time.