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Dragon Quest composer Koichi Sugiyama isn't happy just being a war crime denier, is anti-LGBT too!
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Having more money and power means you have a much greater reach to spread hate and bigotry.
Unless you think someone like Trump is equal in problematic influence to Joe Shmoe?
I feel like more attention needs to be drawn towards Square Enix working with this guy.
I wish someone like Kotaku or Waypoint would ask about it in interviews
I wish someone like Kotaku or Waypoint would ask about it in interviews
Well, damn it!
Thanks for the info, guys. :p
Except their activities as the English-only official website indicates, are mostly abroad where they try to get ads in American newspapers. A while ago, there was an attempt by nationalists to 'alter' history text books, but it failed with something like a 0.04% circulation rate.
Every interviewer needs to ask them about this, full stop, until he is fired or "retires" (he's 87 years old so he could just claim "retirement" if he is concerned about his trash image).
Of course, and again, I am not saying that this is done now. I am saying that Japan's original stance was to glance over World War 2. I am aware that it is a very small minority that believe in this type of nonsense.
That they're expressed or not in the video game is not the issue. This has been pointed out to you repeatedly.
The problem is that Sugiyama's fame and influence help fund war crimes denial and now, actively seek to sabotage life-saving laws for LGBT+ citizens of his country. This has gone far past 'personal views' towards 'actively campaigning on bigotry and hate and seeing results.' This is the reason folks choose not to contribute a cent to furthering his employment.
Yep, he should be treated in exactly the same way a hypothetical western composer working on a popular WRPG series who spreads holocaust denial on Twitter and gives money to European/US "identitarian" or white nationalist groups would be.
It sickens me the way Sugiyama and Square Enix have been given a free pass on this.
Dragon Quest is a very conservative series. They purposefully keep things in tradition with the old games. The battle system has remained relatively the same, the music is (usually) midi even when orchestrated version exists, there is no voice acting (thankfully the localization changed that for other regions). So they're not going to nix Sugiyama. He's there until he quits or dies. I would be (pleasantly) surprised beyond belief if I'm wrong.
He doesn't work for SE. Same as Yuji Horii (Armor Project) and Akira Toriyama (Bird Studio). All three have equal controlling rights of the DQ series. Square-Enix's role is more of an exclusive publishing contract with some rights ownership, but in the case for the music. They are pretty much wholly owned by Sugiyama. SE deciding to not work with him is not going to relinquish the music rights.
Same. Suddenly I'm conflicted on DQ11 and DQ is one of my favorite series ever. I never knew anything about him until today. ugh.
Thanks for pointing out another comment in a thread that was entirely different. She was engaging directly with the fans and ridiculing them, the DQ composer never even touched on Dragon Quest or Squeenix as a whole. Different situations that don't apply
Uhh sorry for not replying? Except not really because it was 4am -_- also, good way to twist the narrative guys... situations in that thread were completely different. I am not against the Squeenix composer being fired or not, I never even touched that subject. I was just saying we shouldn't sabotage the game for a single person's horrible actions
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Yuck. This guy's more of a liability than an asset at this point since his music isn't even good anymore. I certainly won't miss him.
Fuck this piece of shit and fuck Square Enix for continuing to help line his pockets.
Don't give me that shit about "it's just his personal opinions, guyz". Not only is this old bastard actively funneling money and resources into a movement that especially seeks to mold national consciousness into accepting and embracing a disgustingly whitewashed version of WW2 as a means to shore up ugly hyper-nationalism, but he's also helping to perpetuate insidiously harmful social rhetoric and norms against his fellow LGBTQ+ citizens, denying them their humanity and fucking chuckling with glee at the thought of harm befalling them. I don't need your goddamn tone policing on this subject matter. I will say with all due candour that the world will be better off if only in a relatively minuscule way if this man never wakes up again in the morning.
At least then it's minus one evil, wealthy, intensely bigoted nationalist financially supporting an evil cause and a lot of prospective and current Dragon Quest fans don't have to wrestle with the quandary of whether or not to even support a product they love.
Don't give me that shit about "it's just his personal opinions, guyz". Not only is this old bastard actively funneling money and resources into a movement that especially seeks to mold national consciousness into accepting and embracing a disgustingly whitewashed version of WW2 as a means to shore up ugly hyper-nationalism, but he's also helping to perpetuate insidiously harmful social rhetoric and norms against his fellow LGBTQ+ citizens, denying them their humanity and fucking chuckling with glee at the thought of harm befalling them. I don't need your goddamn tone policing on this subject matter. I will say with all due candour that the world will be better off if only in a relatively minuscule way if this man never wakes up again in the morning.
At least then it's minus one evil, wealthy, intensely bigoted nationalist financially supporting an evil cause and a lot of prospective and current Dragon Quest fans don't have to wrestle with the quandary of whether or not to even support a product they love.
Yep. Nothing's going to change until more pressure is put on by journalists. People are acting like this is just Dragon Quest, but it's not. It's an entire corporate attitude reflected here. "We don't want to rock the boat on one of our most profitable franchises" is absolutely the attitude of the folks at the top. They're hoping this will blow over, whether with death or a lack of noise, but it shouldn't.
Maybe I'm pessimistic, but I don't think boycotting the game is going to do jack shit on a greater scale (but is 100% understandable on a personal level - absolutely support anybody skipping it because of Sugiyama). There's precedence for the series not doing well in the west. A boycott needs to include Square-Enix's library of products.
To be fair, the music has always been my least favorite part of the DW/DQ games, but that's mostly because I've only played the versions with shitty MIDI. Still, even at his best he doesn't hold a candle to Mitsuda, Uematsu, Shimomura, & Sakuraba. He relies too heavily on similar sounds and themes.
Even if every single member of ResetEra decided to not buy the game as a result of this revelation it wouldn't approach 'sabotage' for the game.
So at least you get to sleep easy.
So being anti LGBT isn't directly engaging fans..? And we should "sabotage" a game of a company continues to associate itself with this kind of shit.
As an LGBT fan of Dragon Quest, he's absolutely engaging with us when he laughs at our suicides. The distinction you're trying to make - whether it's on a political platform or a social media account during a one-on-one - is one that shouldn't matter.
User Banned (Permanent): Advocating child beatings, hostility in the thread, history of misogyny and accumulated infractions
They're problematic but I think the people and culture that you are raised in are a bigger influence than Trump.
If you were a boy being raised in the south in a racist family, and people in your community think calling people F**s and N*****s is funny, then you're going to adopt their beliefs. Now, if you were a boy being raised under me - that shit would not fly. I'd ground and even beat it out of you if necessary.
That's how I was brought up, when I was 5-6 years old I remember making a racist comment towards our maid and when my dad heard about it he flipped out and almost whooped my ass. Another time I was going to go buy Super Mario Bros 3 with my mom, but I made fun of a homeless person on the way to the store, so she punished me and I got no game. All these little things have a powerful effect on shaping the mind of a 5-year old - it teaches you wrong from right. If my parents accepted or celebrated what I did, I probably would be racist right now.
Like I said earlier, Square-Enix's role is more of an exclusive publishing contract with some rights ownership, but in the case for the music. They are pretty much wholly owned by Sugiyama.
SE could decide not to work with Sugiyama all they want but that won't do anything to relinquish is 1/3rd control over the franchise alongside Horii and Toriyama.
If you feel directly attacked sure, don't buy it. I have nothing against that. I was suggesting we should separate art from the artist but if you feel like you absolutely can't do it here, I can see where you're coming from
That's not really what I was talking about, I was illustrating why money/influence matters when you're talking about bigotry. We'd take all the bigots to task if we could, but since that isn't possible you focus on the big picture. And people like Trump have a massive effect on the climate of the nation they occur in. I don't think it's possible to argue against that.
Thanks for clarifying. In this case I hope with DQXII they will use someone else.
Why should we, though? This is a toy we're talking about. What makes it more sacred or important than one of its largest names funding terrible things and actively promoting hate towards and suicide amongst an already discriminated against demographic?
I hope this happens too. They need to acknowledge the situation.
Would it be possible (legally) for Square Enix to commission a new soundtrack for the western release?
You should hear how most trans and gay people are treated there.
Possible, probably, but the chance to happen.... zero....
Considering how long each mainline Dragon Quest game takes to come out. There is a possibility that DQXI is the last game Sugiyama actually works on. He's 87 years old, and there was a 5 year gap between the initial release of DQX (2012) and XI (2017)
So unless Sugiyama has written material in advance to be used for future games. The next DQ game being another 5 years from now would mean Sugiyama would be 92, and at that age one need to factor health being physically capable to do the work he does.
It's a matter of waiting and seeing what will happen.
User banned (permanent): homophobia
Don't care. I personally hate gay people too. I believe it is wrong to push progressive on to people. It us too political correctness
Kinda... Sorta...
Why not a journo who can actually speak Japanese?
jschreier and Patrick Klepek
the publications for which each of you work do excellent work on issues like this
have any of you considered pressuring square enix a bit about their relationship with this bigot and war crime denier?
the publications for which each of you work do excellent work on issues like this
have any of you considered pressuring square enix a bit about their relationship with this bigot and war crime denier?
1. Guy is a piece of shit.
2. Said piece of shit says a lot of really nasty things, especially about wanting certain individuals to die or kill themselves.
3. That's wrong, but it's fine to openly state that you can't wait for this guy to die, or to go kill himself because of that?
2. Said piece of shit says a lot of really nasty things, especially about wanting certain individuals to die or kill themselves.
3. That's wrong, but it's fine to openly state that you can't wait for this guy to die, or to go kill himself because of that?
It's fine if you guys disagree with me and feel like laughing at a post that had nothing to do with this and is out of context, but at least reply to me so I can see it and we can have a conversation -.- no need to act like high schoolers laughing at someone else's back. And honestly didn't think this would blow up the way it did, I never defended Sugiyama.
Thank you so much for actually being reasonable!
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Should he retire or pass away by DQ12, I wonder if people are ok with SE still using the main theme and other more prominent pieces but having a new composer rearrange these pieces. I don't see them discarding the overture.
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