1. Koichi Sugiyama was a Japanese composer, conductor, and orchestrator.
32 Facts About Koichi Sugiyama
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Koichi Sugiyama was best known for composing for the Dragon Quest franchise, along with several other video games, anime, film, television shows, and pop songs.
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Classically trained, Sugiyama was considered a major inspiration for other Japanese game music composers and was active from the 1960s until his death from septic shock in 2021.
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Koichi Sugiyama was a council member of the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers, and Publishers, board member of the Japan Institute for National Fundamentals, and honorary chairman of the Japanese Backgammon Society.
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Koichi Sugiyama was active in politics and activism, promoting ideas such as Japanese nationalism while denying Japanese war crimes.
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Koichi Sugiyama was born in Tokyo, Japan, on April 11,1931.
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Koichi Sugiyama attended the University of Tokyo and graduated with full honors in 1956.
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Koichi Sugiyama then went into the reporting and entertainment sections of Nippon Cultural Broadcasting.
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Koichi Sugiyama joined Fuji TV as a director in 1958.
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Koichi Sugiyama left the station in 1965 to become a freelance director but had begun concentrating solely on musical composition and orchestration by 1968.
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Koichi Sugiyama assisted Riichiro Manabe with the composition for Godzilla vs Hedorah, composing the record single of the soundtrack and conducting for some of the tracks.
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Koichi Sugiyama wrote the 1976 single Heart Dorobo for the Japanese pop trio Candies.
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Koichi Sugiyama started composing for the PC-8801, and was working for Enix at the time.
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Koichi Sugiyama was one of the first video game composers to record with a live orchestra.
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Koichi Sugiyama subsequently held the "Family Classic Concerts" annually in Japan until 2019.
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From 1987 to 1990, Koichi Sugiyama continued to compose for various other Enix games.
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Koichi Sugiyama served as a sound producer on 1991's Master of Monsters, composed by Hayato Matsuo.
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In 2005, Koichi Sugiyama was holding a series of concerts in Japan with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra with music from Dragon Quest VIII, as well as his classic compositions from the past.
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Koichi Sugiyama composed the score for Dragon Quest X and its expansions, as well as Dragon Quest XI.
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Koichi Sugiyama composed more than 500 pieces of music in the 35 years he was involved in the Dragon Quest franchise.
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Koichi Sugiyama's non-work related hobbies included photography, traveling, building model ships, collecting old cameras, and reading.
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Koichi Sugiyama has opened a camera section on his website, and founded his own record label, SUGI Label, in June 2004.
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Koichi Sugiyama composed the fanfares for the opening and closing of the gates at the Tokyo and Nakayama Racecourses.
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Koichi Sugiyama was given the Order of the Rising Sun, 4th Class, by the Japanese government in 2018 before being named a Person of Cultural Merit by them two years later.
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Koichi Sugiyama died from septic shock at the age of 90 on September 30,2021.
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Koichi Sugiyama was a Nanjing Massacre denialist, stating that the facts regarding it were "selective" in nature.
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Koichi Sugiyama was a board member of the Japan Institute for National Fundamentals.
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In 2012, Koichi Sugiyama wrote an editorial saying that he thought Japan was in a state of "civil war between Japanese and anti-Japanese".
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Koichi Sugiyama further thought that the demands of the Japanese anti-nuclear movement to immediately dismantle all nuclear energy facilities without offering any alternative solutions would affect the country's ability to defend itself.
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In 2015, Koichi Sugiyama made an appearance on the Japanese Culture Channel Sakura television program Hi Izuru Kuni Yori where he was shown agreeing with views shared by Japanese politician Mio Sugita who said there was no need for LGBT education in Japanese schools, as well as dismissing concerns about high suicide rates among the community.
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Koichi Sugiyama added that the lack of children born from LGBT couples was an important topic to discuss, suggesting that Japan was more empowering to women than South Korea.
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Koichi Sugiyama later recanted his statement by saying that LGBT couples have existed throughout human history and he supported the use of governments to occasionally help them.