Post of the year material right here. Absolutely amazing.You sure about that? Let's review a few things here:
SirNinja Sugiyama Denied various wartime atrocities ever happened ⭕ Laughed at the suicide rates of LGBTQ teens ⭕ Shaped needlessly-harsh copyright laws for music in Japan ⭕ Used money to spread nationalist propaganda worldwide ⭕ Said some not-nice things about Sugiyama's death ⭕
As you can see, though at first we may appear to be equally immoral, we're actually quite different! Note the subtle differences between the two of us: I said "he won't be missed"; he's part of a group who denied that a mass murder/rape of Chinese civilians happened. There are some other small distinctions as well, such as him using his public television platform to laugh at the suicides of LGBT youth in Japan, versus me calling him "an abysmal person". Two sides of the same coin, really!
-_-
I think more about this and that's so true. People bring up that we must never had any loss to laugh at a death(which is already not true as I lost my dad to cancer just last year and he almost half the age of Sugiyama).
But... How an LGBT person who spent most of their life in a closet scared to death to be themself and had tried suicide and survived is supposed to feel about someone laughing about the suicide rate of LGBT people in a country we'd be denied even basic rights??
Our feeling of anger and relief is valid. We passed for too much to be ourselves. And those he laughed at passed for too much as well, to the point they were rather taking away their lives to keep living in a society that in fact wished them dead since their childhood. Imagine how they would feel??? If one of them was a DQ fan and was alive, how they would react to see the composer of a game that indeed might helped them live, making fun of the everlasting fear they had??
Think about those who are in the skin of those teenagers today. Think if they would be more angry at us for being angry at a man who made such vile statements about their existences or at us for being angry at such person and saying he's better dead than being praised and making fun of them.
As someone who's gay, asexual and nonbinary and lives in Brazil I also feel angry at people who are praised for, for a while, making me hate my existence to the point of almost ending my life. And if you say I'm as bad as them maybe you should try to have more empathy, or maybe you should read the text again.
I wish his family has the strength to endure his loss, and that people on the internet understand why there are people happy that he passed instead of using rhetoric.
I'll never forget the first time I heard DQ8's overworld theme -- it was the eve of my brother's ninth anniversary from a tragic overdose and emotions were understandably running high in our household, and from the first plucks of the harp I was immediately transported to this Jesus artwork my dad found solace in after his death. I'm especially terrible at describing the finer points of music -- an irksome weakness as a writer -- yet the way its boundless beauty summoned an otherworldly surge of emotions that night practically brought me to tears.
I'm hardly a religious individual, but over the next hundred hours I spent with that game, I hoped that with every harpstring and trumpet blare that he was, as I always do, watching over me.
I make no excuses for Sugiyama's activism -- it was especially hurtful that a man so essential to the awareness of game music and who inspired countless others in the industry (Hayato Matsuo, Yoko Shimomura, and Hirokazu Ando) used his fortune to cause great harm to the marginalized. It was a persistent point of guilt in my enjoying Dragon Quest: a series with nary a cynical bone in its body. Needless to say, the world is an objectively better place without him in it and I do hope those subject to his political crusades find their lives that much easier.
I won't even pretend Dragon Quest's musical fiascos measure up to even a tenth of the level of importance as the issues raised within this thread, but even if you were to disingenuously shrug off his abhorrent views and activities, his iron-grip upon the soundtrack and gradual lack of care towards the series negatively impacted the modern Dragon Quest experience. Dragon Quest XI's MIDI instrumentation is an abomination. The 3DS remakes are stripped of their orchestral tracks for the Western localizations. (And while I'm of the opinion DQ7's MIDI is actually solid, I absolutely refuse to play DQ8 without the symphonic score for obvious reasons.) The MIDI tracks recycled across the franchise -- and, by association, represent the series via numerous spin-offs -- frequently fail to convey the original compositions' majesty, not the least in their Smash Bros. cameos undermining the grand DQ11 stage.
I'll readily admit that I don't know the first thing about Japanese copyright law, so it's very possible not all the issues raised above will be solved with his death. But dead the man is, and now with the awful stain of bigotry and nationalism washed off the series, it's my hope moving forward that whoever takes his place not only channels what made his earlier compositions so good, but ensures every one of the iconic pieces that defined gaming music -- be it the unbridled joy of the Main Theme, the endless scope of Adventure, and the ethereal grace of Heavenly Flight -- is treated with the respect and dignity they deserve across the globe.
As Neiteio said, Dragon Quest's music is ours, and as I've done over the past two years, I choose to engage with it in the memory of my brother: a man I guarantee never so much as heard the name "Dragon Quest," yet whose passing reminds me to cherish life every day. The never-ending journey of kindness persists in the series' heart, and where Sugiyama failed, I'll continue channeling that for the sake of my goals.
I agree with this. There's a couple of tracks here and there that stand out, sure, but DQ music has been stale for a LOOONG time and I'm almost certain he had some kind of rule that DQ music isn't allowed to even SOUND orchestral so I hope games are allowed to sound better now especially if Hayato Matsuo IS the one to succeed him.Dude peaked around DQV (Tower of Death is an all-time game theme) and people give the DQVIII OST more credit than it deserves because the symphonic shit didn't get added until the Western release, the Japanese version was pretty close to the trash from XI.
Hopefully the series gets new blood and someone with an actual creative vision that extends past aping classical motifs
I would guess the reactions to his death in Japan are like if John Williams died in America, except if John Williams was also a homophobe and war crime denier. I can't imagine our reactions would be very different if I'm honest.
You sure about that? Let's review a few things here:
SirNinja Sugiyama Denied various wartime atrocities ever happened ⭕ Laughed at the suicide rates of LGBTQ teens ⭕ Shaped needlessly-harsh copyright laws for music in Japan ⭕ Used money to spread nationalist propaganda worldwide ⭕ Said some not-nice things about Sugiyama's death ⭕
As you can see, though at first we may appear to be equally immoral, we're actually quite different! Note the subtle differences between the two of us: I said "he won't be missed"; he's part of a group who denied that a mass murder/rape of Chinese civilians happened. There are some other small distinctions as well, such as him using his public television platform to laugh at the suicides of LGBT youth in Japan, versus me calling him "an abysmal person". Two sides of the same coin, really!
-_-
You sure about that? Let's review a few things here:
SirNinja Sugiyama Denied various wartime atrocities ever happened ⭕ Laughed at the suicide rates of LGBTQ teens ⭕ Shaped needlessly-harsh copyright laws for music in Japan ⭕ Used money to spread nationalist propaganda worldwide ⭕ Said some not-nice things about Sugiyama's death ⭕
As you can see, though at first we may appear to be equally immoral, we're actually quite different! Note the subtle differences between the two of us: I said "he won't be missed"; he's part of a group who denied that a mass murder/rape of Chinese civilians happened. There are some other small distinctions as well, such as him using his public television platform to laugh at the suicides of LGBT youth in Japan, versus me calling him "an abysmal person". Two sides of the same coin, really!
-_-
good postI know the phenomena is not new and will probably happen until the end of time, but I'm always bewildered at the "what sort of unethical monster gets happy over one less person around to spread evil in the world?!" takes in these threads. I'd be boggled by it even if my understanding of morality was only that of a grade-schooler, but it's especially crazy that the refrain is so common on Leftist Bastion Website Reset Era Dot Com™. I totally get not wanting to celebrate anyone's death for your own mental health reasons (there are probably some emotionally unhelpful aspects to taking glee in loss of life), but thinking it's some innately immoral response to understand and agree with the simple equation of "1 less bad person in world = net positive" is bonkers.
I'd like to see some of the reactions from people in the industry in Japan. I don't expect any of them to do anything other than praise the deceased, but would be interesting to see who won't mention him at all.
Right now I'm mostly curious about Yuki Horii's statement, as he seems to be a pretty decent guy and has written some cool stuff in regards to LGBTQ characters.
Let he who is without a paid editorial in the Washington Post cast the first stone.You sure about that? Let's review a few things here:
SirNinja Sugiyama Denied various wartime atrocities ever happened ⭕ Laughed at the suicide rates of LGBTQ teens ⭕ Shaped needlessly-harsh copyright laws for music in Japan ⭕ Used money to spread nationalist propaganda worldwide ⭕ Said some not-nice things about Sugiyama's death ⭕
As you can see, though at first we may appear to be equally immoral, we're actually quite different! Note the subtle differences between the two of us: I said "he won't be missed"; he's part of a group who denied that a mass murder/rape of Chinese civilians happened. There are some other small distinctions as well, such as him using his public television platform to laugh at the suicides of LGBT youth in Japan, versus me calling him "an abysmal person". Two sides of the same coin, really!
-_-
You sure about that? Let's review a few things here:
SirNinja Sugiyama Denied various wartime atrocities ever happened ⭕ Laughed at the suicide rates of LGBTQ teens ⭕ Shaped needlessly-harsh copyright laws for music in Japan ⭕ Used money to spread nationalist propaganda worldwide ⭕ Said some not-nice things about Sugiyama's death ⭕
As you can see, though at first we may appear to be equally immoral, we're actually quite different! Note the subtle differences between the two of us: I said "he won't be missed"; he's part of a group who denied that a mass murder/rape of Chinese civilians happened. There are some other small distinctions as well, such as him using his public television platform to laugh at the suicides of LGBT youth in Japan, versus me calling him "an abysmal person". Two sides of the same coin, really!
-_-
Sakurai already tweeted earlier:I'd like to see some of the reactions from people in the industry in Japan. I don't expect any of them to do anything other than praise the deceased, but would be interesting to see who won't mention him at all.
Right now I'm mostly curious about Yuki Horii's statement, as he seems to be a pretty decent guy and has written some cool stuff in regards to LGBTQ characters.
I'll never forget the first time I heard DQ8's overworld theme -- it was the eve of my brother's ninth anniversary from a tragic overdose and emotions were understandably running high in our household, and from the first plucks of the harp I was immediately transported to this Jesus artwork my dad found solace in after his death. I'm especially terrible at describing the finer points of music -- an irksome weakness as a writer -- yet the way its boundless beauty summoned an otherworldly surge of emotions that night practically brought me to tears.
I'm hardly a religious individual, but over the next hundred hours I spent with that game, I hoped that with every harpstring and trumpet blare that he was, as I always do, watching over me.
I make no excuses for Sugiyama's activism -- it was especially hurtful that a man so essential to the awareness of game music and who inspired countless others in the industry (Hayato Matsuo, Yoko Shimomura, and Hirokazu Ando) used his fortune to cause great harm to the marginalized. It was a persistent point of guilt in my enjoying Dragon Quest: a series with nary a cynical bone in its body. Needless to say, the world is an objectively better place without him in it and I do hope those subject to his political crusades find their lives that much easier.
I won't even pretend Dragon Quest's musical fiascos measure up to even a tenth of the level of importance as the issues raised within this thread, but even if you were to disingenuously shrug off his abhorrent views and activities, his iron-grip upon the soundtrack and gradual lack of care towards the series negatively impacted the modern Dragon Quest experience. Dragon Quest XI's MIDI instrumentation is an abomination. The 3DS remakes are stripped of their orchestral tracks for the Western localizations. (And while I'm of the opinion DQ7's MIDI is actually solid, I absolutely refuse to play DQ8 without the symphonic score for obvious reasons.) The MIDI tracks recycled across the franchise -- and, by association, represent the series via numerous spin-offs -- frequently fail to convey the original compositions' majesty, not the least in their Smash Bros. cameos undermining the grand DQ11 stage.
I'll readily admit that I don't know the first thing about Japanese copyright law, so it's very possible not all the issues raised above will be solved with his death. But dead the man is, and now with the awful stain of bigotry and nationalism washed off the series, it's my hope moving forward that whoever takes his place not only channels what made his earlier compositions so good, but ensures every one of the iconic pieces that defined gaming music -- be it the unbridled joy of the Main Theme, the endless scope of Adventure, and the ethereal grace of Heavenly Flight -- is treated with the respect and dignity they deserve across the globe.
As Neiteio said, Dragon Quest's music is ours, and as I've done over the past two years, I choose to engage with it in the memory of my brother: a man I guarantee never so much as heard the name "Dragon Quest," yet whose passing reminds me to cherish life every day. The never-ending journey of kindness persists in the series' heart, and where Sugiyama failed, I'll continue channeling that for the sake of my goals.
You sure about that? Let's review a few things here:
SirNinja Sugiyama Denied various wartime atrocities ever happened ⭕ Laughed at the suicide rates of LGBTQ teens ⭕ Shaped needlessly-harsh copyright laws for music in Japan ⭕ Used money to spread nationalist propaganda worldwide ⭕ Said some not-nice things about Sugiyama's death ⭕
As you can see, though at first we may appear to be equally immoral, we're actually quite different! Note the subtle differences between the two of us: I said "he won't be missed"; he's part of a group who denied that a mass murder/rape of Chinese civilians happened. There are some other small distinctions as well, such as him using his public television platform to laugh at the suicides of LGBT youth in Japan, versus me calling him "an abysmal person". Two sides of the same coin, really!
-_-
This thread does not align with that recent age poll. Lots of people in here have clearly never lost anybody close to them. Childish behavior.
You sure about that? Let's review a few things here:
SirNinja Sugiyama Denied various wartime atrocities ever happened ⭕ Laughed at the suicide rates of LGBTQ teens ⭕ Shaped needlessly-harsh copyright laws for music in Japan ⭕ Used money to spread nationalist propaganda worldwide ⭕ Said some not-nice things about Sugiyama's death ⭕
As you can see, though at first we may appear to be equally immoral, we're actually quite different! Note the subtle differences between the two of us: I said "he won't be missed"; he's part of a group who denied that a mass murder/rape of Chinese civilians happened. There are some other small distinctions as well, such as him using his public television platform to laugh at the suicides of LGBT youth in Japan, versus me calling him "an abysmal person". Two sides of the same coin, really!
-_-
You sure about that? Let's review a few things here:
SirNinja Sugiyama Denied various wartime atrocities ever happened ⭕ Laughed at the suicide rates of LGBTQ teens ⭕ Shaped needlessly-harsh copyright laws for music in Japan ⭕ Used money to spread nationalist propaganda worldwide ⭕ Said some not-nice things about Sugiyama's death ⭕
As you can see, though at first we may appear to be equally immoral, we're actually quite different! Note the subtle differences between the two of us: I said "he won't be missed"; he's part of a group who denied that a mass murder/rape of Chinese civilians happened. There are some other small distinctions as well, such as him using his public television platform to laugh at the suicides of LGBT youth in Japan, versus me calling him "an abysmal person". Two sides of the same coin, really!
-_-
banger postYou sure about that? Let's review a few things here:
SirNinja Sugiyama Denied various wartime atrocities ever happened ⭕ Laughed at the suicide rates of LGBTQ teens ⭕ Shaped needlessly-harsh copyright laws for music in Japan ⭕ Used money to spread nationalist propaganda worldwide ⭕ Said some not-nice things about Sugiyama's death ⭕
As you can see, though at first we may appear to be equally immoral, we're actually quite different! Note the subtle differences between the two of us: I said "he won't be missed"; he's part of a group who denied that a mass murder/rape of Chinese civilians happened. There are some other small distinctions as well, such as him using his public television platform to laugh at the suicides of LGBT youth in Japan, versus me calling him "an abysmal person". Two sides of the same coin, really!
-_-
DeepL translated post from Mitsuda's facebook:I'd like to see some of the reactions from people in the industry in Japan. I don't expect any of them to do anything other than praise the deceased, but would be interesting to see who won't mention him at all.
Right now I'm mostly curious about Yuki Horii's statement, as he seems to be a pretty decent guy and has written some cool stuff in regards to LGBTQ characters.
I was shocked to hear that Mr. Koichi Sugiyama, the creator of not only Dragon Quest but also many other famous songs, passed away. I first met Mr. Sugiyama shortly after I joined Square, when we worked together on a game called "Hanjuku Hero 2", and I was able to type his music and incorporate it into the Super Nintendo. I had just turned 20 years old. I still remember how kind and sometimes strict he was with me when I didn't know the right from the left. I still remember well the times when I went to Mr. Sugiyama's house to pick up music sheets or to show him the progress. His house was like a dungeon in a video game. I never once made it from the entrance to the music room (the top floor, we called it the boss room at the time) without getting lost. Whenever I did, I would call out loudly, "Excuse me, teacher, I'm lost," and he would always come downstairs. "I can see him going back to his room with a big smile on his face and saying, "Mitsuda-kun is directionless, isn't he? I'm very sad to think that I won't be able to listen to his music anymore. Thank you so much for your hard work. I wish you all the best.
Lmao. This is perfect.You sure about that? Let's review a few things here:
SirNinja Sugiyama Denied various wartime atrocities ever happened ⭕ Laughed at the suicide rates of LGBTQ teens ⭕ Shaped needlessly-harsh copyright laws for music in Japan ⭕ Used money to spread nationalist propaganda worldwide ⭕ Said some not-nice things about Sugiyama's death ⭕
As you can see, though at first we may appear to be equally immoral, we're actually quite different! Note the subtle differences between the two of us: I said "he won't be missed"; he's part of a group who denied that a mass murder/rape of Chinese civilians happened. There are some other small distinctions as well, such as him using his public television platform to laugh at the suicides of LGBT youth in Japan, versus me calling him "an abysmal person". Two sides of the same coin, really!
-_-
Ehhhhalways raise my eyebrows at people who tromp into threads like this to say nothing but 'wow! rip to such a good guy' then peace out
Yeah those posters are almost more of a red flag to me than those going OMG STOP SPEAKING ILL OF THE DEAD. Almost.always raise my eyebrows at people who tromp into threads like this to say nothing but 'wow! rip to such a good guy' then peace out
On the other hand, I've lost queer friends of mine to suicide. Sugiyama can go fuck himself.This thread does not align with that recent age poll. Lots of people in here have clearly never lost anybody close to them. Childish behavior.
Finally a reason to use the bookmark functionYou sure about that? Let's review a few things here:
SirNinja Sugiyama Denied various wartime atrocities ever happened ⭕ Laughed at the suicide rates of LGBTQ teens ⭕ Shaped needlessly-harsh copyright laws for music in Japan ⭕ Used money to spread nationalist propaganda worldwide ⭕ Said some not-nice things about Sugiyama's death ⭕
As you can see, though at first we may appear to be equally immoral, we're actually quite different! Note the subtle differences between the two of us: I said "he won't be missed"; he's part of a group who denied that a mass murder/rape of Chinese civilians happened. There are some other small distinctions as well, such as him using his public television platform to laugh at the suicides of LGBT youth in Japan, versus me calling him "an abysmal person". Two sides of the same coin, really!
-_-
Don't mean to add to your notifications blowing up, but fuck me, this is incredible.You sure about that? Let's review a few things here:
SirNinja Sugiyama Denied various wartime atrocities ever happened ⭕ Laughed at the suicide rates of LGBTQ teens ⭕ Shaped needlessly-harsh copyright laws for music in Japan ⭕ Used money to spread nationalist propaganda worldwide ⭕ Said some not-nice things about Sugiyama's death ⭕
As you can see, though at first we may appear to be equally immoral, we're actually quite different! Note the subtle differences between the two of us: I said "he won't be missed"; he's part of a group who denied that a mass murder/rape of Chinese civilians happened. There are some other small distinctions as well, such as him using his public television platform to laugh at the suicides of LGBT youth in Japan, versus me calling him "an abysmal person". Two sides of the same coin, really!
-_-
I'd like to see some of the reactions from people in the industry in Japan. I don't expect any of them to do anything other than praise the deceased, but would be interesting to see who won't mention him at all.
Right now I'm mostly curious about Yuki Horii's statement, as he seems to be a pretty decent guy and has written some cool stuff in regards to LGBTQ characters.
I doubt any prominent Japanese developer will say anything negative about this dead fascist.
Luckily, he was incorrect in that assessment.DQ's character designer Toriyama (Akira)'s comment on Sugiyama's death is also making the rounds: "I thought of him as a magician who had eternal life."