Showing posts with label yukawa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label yukawa. Show all posts

A Farewell to Hidekazu Yukawa (plus a round-up of all the Dreamcast games he starred in)

Yesterday, Yahoo News Japan reported that Hidekazu Yukawa, the senior managing director of Sega Japan during the early part of the Dreamcast's life, passed away from pneumonia in June of last year at the age of 78. His family had kept this sad news private until now, but it is reported that Yukawa had been sick for the past 5 years (source). Our condolences go out to his family and friends.

Yukawa is nothing short of Dreamcast royalty, so this sad news has understandably led to many words of tribute from fans (and even former colleagues, such as Yuji Naka) across social media. 

Yukawa became an overnight success in Japan after starring in a series of very amusing and surprisingly honest commercials (watch them here) where he rises up from the depths of self-doubt (and being bullied by PlayStation-loving children) to spread the good word of the Dreamcast and lead the fight as the senior managing director of Sega Japan. This bout of fame resulted in Yukawa's image being used on Dreamcast console boxes (pictured below), merchandise (such as the Yukawa keyring also pictured below) and print adverts.
Photo kindly taken for us by KingMonkey
We too wanted to pay tribute to Mr. Yukawa, and thought we’d do it in the best way the Junkyard knows how - by geeking out about Dreamcast games! After all, what's a better way to pay tribute to Yukawa than to boot up the console that he championed so mightily, and play one of the multiple games he starred in? Here they are:

Former Managing Director Yukawa's Treasure Hunt
Let's kick things off with Yukawa's very own Dreamcast game. This simple game was released exclusively in Japan near the Dreamcast's launch and was tied into a short-running competition. The game has you play as Yukawa himself, with the aim being to dig up various tiles to complete puzzles that make up images of Dreamcast-related memorabilia. During March 20th 1999 and April 11th 1999, players could submit their victories online to be entered into a raffle to win real-life Dreamcast goodies, or even ¥10,000. 

The servers for the game have since been shut down, so there's sadly no longer any prizes to be won, but the game is still playable. In fact, it's also now playable in English thanks to a team consisting of SnowyAria, EsperKnight and Mr. Nobody, who released a translation patch for it back in April. Go here to get that patch, and for a more in-depth breakdown about the game, check out Tom's article on it here.

Shenmue and What's Shenmue
What's a better game to contain a cameo of the man that sought to spread optimism about the Dreamcast than the game that was touted to save the console: Shenmue? Well, Yukawa makes multiple secret appearances in Shenmue, and a much more prominent one in the promotional demo What's Shenmue: Search for Yukawa (former) Senior Managing Director.
Image credit: Phantom River Stone
I always thought that Yukawa's inclusion in the regular version of Shenmue was limited to him appearing on a point of sale display for batteries in the Tomato Convenience Store. But thanks to a great article on Phantom River Stone, I learnt that Ryo can actually meet Yukawa twice, although certain conditions must be fulfilled first... 

Yukawa Prepaid Cash Cards Are Not Worth $90

...unless of course they have $90 on them and are unexpired.

I'm not one to post ebay auctions, but I thought this was a unique enough one to mention and the seller offered a high res image worthy of sharing. The auction is for a set of six QUO prepaid cards featuring Senior Managing Director of Sega Hidekazu Yukawa. During the Dreamcast days, Yukawa appeared in commercials, had his own video game and appeared on a variety of products such as phone chotchkies and the aforementioned prepaid cards.

Middle row, right column is my fave

While I myself have a variety of other Sega things that I would rather blow my money on, I invite any Sega fan who reads this to buy it just so that said buyer can give us high res scans of each card.

The seller's image is great, but I'm looking for something so high res that I can just print it on heavy card stock and have essentially the same thing but at no cost. ;) Until then, enjoy the image above.

Wonder how these cards were distributed? Check out this nifty article on Yukawa's Sonic Adventure Sweepstakes!

12/16 Update: The cash cards are still unsold. However this item was just sold to me for $14.50. I already had the Yukawa Dreamcast box, the Yukawa game and the Yukawa What's Shenmue? demo, so a phone dongle was the next obvious purchase.