Today in kind of a kuso mitai na shō:

It was nice to see some flag waving this
year that wasn't part of an insurrection. 

Finally, a reason to care about the Olympics! Ok, fine, I don't not care about the Olympics. Like I recognize the importance of a shared, universal experience, particularly in these fraught and divisive times. That's super, except that it's still a sports thing and if I'm being honest, my attention span sort of flatlines at the mere mention of athletics. But this year the opening ceremonies used video game music for the Parade of Nations where competitors from each country march in waving their flags.

While a fan of video games, I'm not sure I see the connection to the Olympics. Like, gaming isn't an Olympic event and as much as I'd love to say that my hobby constitutes a sport, it doesn't. If chess isn't a sport, neither is gaming.

What? I just...I just feel that if you can do it from a seated position it's not a
sport. Huh? What's that? Yeah, the luge is on your back, thank you very much.

Regular people? Definitely not.
Awesome people? Absolutely. 

But the Olympics are being held in Tokyo and Japan is to video gaming as America is to reckless gun ownership: we didn't invent it, but we're the best at it. Anyway, between the the scandals, sexism, drug tests, Holocaust jokes and the pandemic, it's been a real kuso mitai na shō (it means shitshow...kinda). And I guess I'm just glad to hear a story that isn't about what a debacle it's been even if regular people probably didn't notice that the Kazakhstani were marching to The Crystal Theme from Final Fantasy.

Don't...don't even look it up, just
trust me when I say it's pretty bad.

Cool, finally going right. Except. So the original composer for the music for the opening ceremonies, a man called Oyamada Keigo, who goes by the stage name Cornelius, stepped down because some interviews from the 90's surfaced where he talked about bullying fellow students when he was in school. He later apologized, but goddamn, he did some pretty heinous stuff, so it's probably (definetly) for the best that he resigned. It's a little unclear if any of his music was used, but at least video game scores are safe, right? Free from any tinge of scandal? 

Above: Composer Koichi Sugiyama, seen
here probably muttering to himself that the
Nanjing Massacre never really happened. 

So the first piece used is Roto's Theme from the Dragon Quest series. It's, well, we'd probably say "iconic" but that word is super-overused, and kind of dumb, so let's just say it's a classic. The whole series' score is among the best and most recognizable in all of gaming, and given the massive success of and affection for, Dragon Quest in Japan, it makes total sense that they'd borrow it for the ceremony. It's the Japanese gaming national anthem. But that brings us back to the "except." It makes total sense that they'd borrow the score except for the fact that composer Koichi Sugiyama is an ultra-nationalist warcrimes denying shitheel and right-wing talkshow host.

So maybe his music wasn't the best pick for the Olympics? Thankfully, the Parade of Nations was in Japanese alphabetical order so China, the country Sugiyama contends wasn't the victim of Imperial Japan's warcrimes--even though it totally was, of course it was, we have pictures, stop lying about it. Anyway, China ended up as number 109 in the parade, which I think was somewhere in Sonic the Hedgehog territory, but it still seems like they could have grabbed something from Zelda or The Moon Theme from Ducktales.

Incidentally, while not rising to the level of warcrime,
the Sonic games are something of a mixed bag.