This is so pointlessly individualist and also irrelevant. Why does it even matter if he gets more money? Who cares? He's not a major political donor, he has no power to really change anything- him getting more money, in a material sense, means literally nothing. Americans are kinda obsessed with this because they think that money = happiness or a 'better' life or whatever. But I don't really think that at all, so I don't care how much he does or doesn't accumulate, or think I have any personal responsibility.
I need some sources about him using money to fund LGBT hate campaigns. He funded a war crime denying ad in the Washington Post ten years ago. As I said, he's not a major political donor and he has no real political power. Yeah it's gross but the idea that someone buying a Dragon Quest game is essentially donating money to some huge right wing hate campaigns is so ridiculous. You might wanna check out all the shareholders for all the companies whose products you buy or services you use, cos I bet you will find many people who have donated significantly larger amounts of money to significantly larger campaigns which have actually made things worse for LGBT people. Especially with regards to anti gay marriage campaigns. This shit happens everywhere all the time.
And I'm not seperating the art from the artist, because it's pretty fucking separate already. He's not making autobiographical art where we're asked to empathise with him personally. He's composing pastichey and often mediocre music for a JRPG franchise. It's already removed from the core of the creative process, and his personal political views are obviously even further removed from that.
I am queer and I am fucking sick of being told what I can or can't like because of a combination of random bigots and intense moralistic Americans on social media. I am sick of restrictions being constantly placed on queer people. We can like what we like and not have to make fucking excuses for ourselves all the time. The world is homophobic and is something LGBT people face each day. The vast, vast majority of us have no desire to sacrifice the things we like in life, such as beloved video games, just to piss into the wind, trying to make a point that ultimately no-one is going to care about, about someone who has no significant material impact on anyone's lives.
I can hear worse stuff than Sugiyama's rants said in the pub any day of the week. I don't stop going to the pub because I have every right to be there, just as I have every right to play video games where parts are made by homophobes, or stuff that contains casual homophobia such as Persona 5, or any of the thousands of games and films that are similar.
Fine, you may think consumer boycotts are the way forward, and I think they're pointless. We'll agree to disagree. But don't shame me, or any other queer people, for liking things that you deem problematic. We're absolutely capable of thinking for ourselves, and many, many people have the capacity to acknowledge the problematic elements of something whilst enjoying the majority of it. And whether or not we spend money on it has nothing to do with how dedicated we are to LGBT rights, and to suggest so is incredibly offensive.
