Search KoopaTV!

Translate

Thursday, October 7, 2021

Dragon Quest Composer Koichi Sugiyama Dies of Septic Shock

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - That's upsetting!

World-famous and allegedly planetary crisis-causing Dragon Quest series composer, Koichi Sugiyama, died at 90 years old in Japan of a septic shock on September 30, as announced earlier today by Square Enix. It was apparently kept a secret for a week so the family and close friends could hold a private funeral and farewell ceremony. A company-wide event will happen later on, but Sugiyama's family would like for people to leave them alone, pretty much, and not send them anything, including condolences. So KoopaTV will refrain from that.

I would note, however, that sometime after June 10, 2016 and by June 27, 2016, Sugiyama's website already made him out to be looking dead with this black-and-white photo banner that wasn't there before then, so I think he was prepared for his death years in advance:

Sugiyama Koichi Dragon Quest composer black and white grayscale photo
That September 29, 2001 references something else. I believe it's how long his site's been around.
It's a coincidence he died pretty much exactly 20 years later.


I strongly believe that the only time you should use a greyscale photo in this age of colour photography is if you're dead or eliminated from something... or if you're printing something, such as in a newspaper and don't want to pay for colour ink. And Sugiyama has experience with that (black-and-white printing in a newspaper) in the past, though shame on him for having it be in the FAKE NEWS Washington Post and giving them money at all. (I don't think he was a direct funder of the advertisement, however.)

Anyway, even at 90 years old, he was still living an active lifestyle. He was earning awards (the 2020 Person of Cultural Merit award in Japan), was working on the soundtrack for Dragon Quest XII (and we have no idea how far he got with that before getting a game over), and got what's probably the biggest honour of his life by having his music featured at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics Opening Ceremony—even if FAKE NEWS hit piece writers make that out to be some awful international scandal.


That loser of a “journalist”, Jake Adelstein, tweeted this nasty message out that I won't embed here, but you can click this to read it if you'd like. It's the sort of hatred-spewing you'd expect from his ilk upon hearing about the death of someone he has a grudge against. Lots of other people seem to be very happy about Koichi Sugiyama's fatal septic shock as well, though KoopaTV isn't. I'm a pro-life writer. You can get pro-death views on other websites (and even more on toxic social media). Or in the comments section, if you're into that.

Sugiyama's music will continue to live on, both in composition and in legacy. The tunes he's been using since the Famicom continue to be heard today, and he was a big help in having decent-sounding videogame music early on that assisted in the genre being taken seriously by the general public without them laughing at you that you listen to videogame music. There's still a way to go, but a much shorter way thanks to his contributions. Here's an appropriate sample for the occasion. You can see some people, including myself, independently came to that YouTube comments section (and others) to remark on the composer's passing:




The orchestral concerts he was associated with will still go on. At least, the ones that have already been scheduled, such as this on November 7 and this on November 14. Fortunately, Sugiyama wasn't supposed to be the conductor of these, just the composer, and that's been done. We don't know if there'll be new concerts organised, who will compose for future videogames, or how rights management to Dragon Quest music will work from now on. I figure this'll be clear in short time, since Dragon Quest music is a very on-going and active thing that won't stop.

In somewhat related news, I have an update on Dragon Quest X Offline. It'll be available on the PlayStation 4, 5, Switch, and Steam. ...Still no word of it existing outside of Japan, however. It'll release, at least in Japan, on February 26, 2022. Apparently, Tokyo Game Show 2021 was pretty much a waste of time. I didn't watch it, since I... anticipated that outcome. So not much else to report there!



Ludwig would've gone into much further detail about his views on greyscale imagery, but his succinct summary should be enough. That's arguably the most controversial thing in this whole article, though, because greyscale profile pictures are shockingly common for living people. Is there some kind of aesthetic trend that Ludwig just can't comprehend? When you're alive, you have full colour. When the life is drained out of you, then you lose that colour. Makes sense. There are whole videogames around that concept. Why would living people willingly go around and apply greyscale pictures to otherwise colour photographs? Ludwig isn't sure why Sugiyama would do that other than him accepting his upcoming demise five years before it happened, which probably means he was a very depressed old man, despite his work and accolades. There must be a lot to Koichi Sugiyama that is still unknown and may never be known. What aspects of his psyche haven't been explored, and are completely overlooked by popular hate-based depictions of him? ...Okay, perhaps Ludwig did go into much further detail by abusing this article footer space...

4 comments :

  1. Aw man, my condolences to his family and peers. He made great music and his impact upon the game industry will not be forgotten. At the very least we can take comfort knowing he lived a long and rich life, now it’s time for him to see some (ahhh) New Horizons. Goodbye Mr.Sugiyama and god bless you.


    Also, F all those Twitter losers. No matter how much you hate someone, I don’t think there’s ever a reason to cheer a death. It’s one thing to be happy about it, but to actively encourage others to feel the same is just disgraceful. The average person isn’t a modern hitler just because they have a different opinion than you.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Sugiyama's family would like for people to leave them alone, pretty much, and not send them anything, including condolences. So KoopaTV will refrain from that."

      I suppose that doesn't include KoopaTV's commenters/readers/players.


      I didn't want to overpower Sugiyama's death article with negative stuff about how a lot of people hate him, so I hope I had a good balance of sentiment and content here.

      Delete
    2. Well I’m not sending them actual tangible condolences so I think it’s fine. Suigyama may have plenty of political haters but far more people are willing to overlook/don’t care about that for his music. Yes good balance, balance is key.

      Delete
    3. Some people also dislike him for his music policies!

      Delete

We embrace your comments.
Expect a reply between 1 minute to 24 hours from your comment. We advise you to receive an e-mail notification for when we do reply.
Also, see our Disclaimers.

Spamming is bad, so don't spam. Spam includes random advertisements and obviously being a robot. Our vendor may subject you to CAPTCHAs.

If you comment on an article that is older than 60 days, you will have to wait for a staffer to approve your comment. It will get approved and replied to, don't worry. Unless you're a spambot.