Well, this is just plain terrible.
A new report in the Japan Times has revealed that one of the country’s most popular composers is a fraud.
Mamoru Samuragochi, who helped produce the scores for the Resident Evil and Onimusha franchises, has confessed that someone else has been writing his arrangements for the past decade. This includes what he called his finest achievement, a piece entitled “Hiroshima Symphony,” which was dedicated to those who lost their lives in the 1945 atomic bomb disaster.
He also didn’t write “Sonatina for Violin,” a piece that’s supposed to be featured at this week’s Winter Olympics in Sochi. Samuragochi’s lawyer told the press that the “modern Beethoven” couldn’t be more apologetic. He “deeply regrets” what he’s done and offers no excuse. Samuragochi is deaf; hence, the comparison to Beethoven.
The composer opted to come clean after a documentary aired on NHK featuring Samuragochi touring the tsunami-devastated Tohuku region. During this program, he met with the survivors and was even shown creating a requiem for a little girl who had lost her mother.
…yeah, at that point, it’s getting pretty sick. Time to come clean.
Not what the Japanese game industry needed
Samuragochi’s work obviously wasn’t restricted to video games, but it’s really not good news. Many are claiming that Japanese game productions are lagging in the quality department, as compared to the best Western games. Doesn’t help to know that one of their best composers didn’t even write his own stuff.
