He’s still working while the rest of us are counting the days until retirement.
At 84 years and 292 days, what do you expect to be doing? We imagine we’ll have a walker, eat tasteless food and spend our afternoons yelling at those pesky kids in between numerous naps. No where in this fictional future scenario do any of us see “RocketNews24 writer” as our job title nor do we expect to become Guinness World Record holders for oldest Japanese “news” reporter. But if you happen to be the music composer for the Dragon Quest series, you might look at the official world record certificate you just received and call us super lazy.
Koichi Sugiyama was recently recognized as the oldest video game music composer as he is currently hard at work creating the iconic tunes of the soon to be released Dragon Quest XI. Sugiyama is quite familiar with the series as he has worked on all the Dragon Quest games dating back to the very first one in 1986.
【祝】DQシリーズの楽曲を手がける作曲家すぎやまこういちさんが、84歳292日で「最高齢でゲーム音楽を作曲した作曲家」としてギネス世界記録に認定!DQ11でも新曲を作曲中!めざせ記録更新! #すぎやまこういち #DQ30th pic.twitter.com/KYiyW4ezh9
— ドラゴンクエスト宣伝担当 (@DQ_PR) September 5, 2016
He’s also been responsible for many other hit songs, anime themes and music in commercials working on projects such as Magic Knights Rayearth and Cyborg 009.
そうか、すぎやまこういち先生は「世界最高齢でゲームミュージックを作曲した作曲家」としてギネス認定されたのね! 84歳292日。素晴らしい! pic.twitter.com/zitVVHnSDa
— 佐久間真理子🌗 (@sakumariko) September 4, 2016
His passion appears to be Dragon Quest as he has tirelessly composed and arranged the music for each game in the series. If you ever find yourself humming a tune from one of the games, you now know who to thank for it. Although if you are a true fan, Sugiyama is already a name you know very well. At 85 years young, he still has plenty of time left to continue pursuing his video game music passion, and with such high life expectancy rates in Japan, how awesome would it be to play a game with music created by a centenarian. We hope that we have the pleasure of listening to hours and hours more of his iconic work!
Source: My Game News Flash
Featured image: Twitter/@DQ_PR
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