NWVault has interviewed ADK, the author of Kunoichi 1 (English version) 1.9 and Kunoichi 2: The Temple on the Mountain, which are Hall of Fame modules. They talk about his inspirations for choosing a particular setting, as well as the protagonist's specific gender (female), many aspects of the storyling, including somewhat drastic imagery as far as the bad guys are concerned. The questions are large in number and here's one of them, with an answer:

2) What drew you to create your unique, oriental themed setting, with a female protagonist in mind, no less?

I chose to get away from the traditional D&D or other RPG settings so I could have the liberty of doing something that I can really call my own. It all started when I played Kareta as a PC in my PnP (pen and paper) D&D games. I gave her (like each of my characters) a lot of background. Throughout the years I’ve became quite fond of Kareta, a character with complex emotions and situations to deal with. So it all started with her.
As for the female protagonist, at the beginning, it was due to language complications. My mods are done in French first then I translate them to English, (not without help, mind you) The French language is more complex than English in many ways, so I could not do a mixed mod. I had to choose the gender of the PC, and it ended up being female.

Read the rest (http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Interviews.Detail&id=305) at NWVault.