Question as to Whether Suzuki is Displaced or Helping Someone who Is
We continue our coverage of the Japan disaster on Saturday with more good news and more bad news. The good news is we’ve learned that Yuji Naka and his family are safe in the country. Sonic Wrecks and Kevin Eva confirmed as much via a Facebook post Mr. Naka made earlier today. UPDATE: And Mr. Naka just posted the same message to his Twitter account:
My family and I are safe. Thank you for worrying about us.
Eva has also been in touch with Aaron Webber, who is chaperoning the Sonic 4 winners, as they took their trip to Japan this week, of all weeks. Webber says once the airports are back running, they’ll be on a plane back home:
With a little luck, we’ll be out of Tokyo as soon as the airports start up again, and the winners will be safe and sound.
In addition, TSSZ News can confirm Yu Suzuki, a legend within the halls of Sega and who was just in the United States for the Game Developers Conference last week, also appears to be safe. He Tweeted earlier today, but judging from the tweets he’s sent and the rough translation, we’re not sure if he’s been displaced from the disaster or if he’s helping someone who is, though we’re leaning toward the latter:
Sanriku 越喜来 living in Ofunato “Suzuki hawk” who knows about the safety of Irasshaimashitara, thank you for your help.
Suzuki grew up in Japan’s Iwate prefecture, which is Japan’s northeast, so even if Suzuki wasn’t displaced, he may have a lot of friends and family to worry about.
There is bad news, and this could be quite bad. On Saturday, an explosion was reported at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plants. The BBC has video. The explosion does not appear to be a direct precursor to a reactor meltdown, though radiation is leaking from the sites, and officials are concerned a meltdown is possible. For that reason, the evacuation around this plant has been expanded to a now over 12 mile radius, including the area where a second evacuation around a second nuclear plant was already underway. The death toll consensus appears to be over 1,000, and there are worries entire towns have been wiped off the map, potentially elevating the number of missing into the tens of thousands.
On that, Sports Interactive’s Miles Jacobson tweeted today saying they and Sega will be donating proceeds they receive in the Football Manager Handheld game from yesterday to next Friday to a Japan disaster relief fund. Jacobson will also ask Apple to do the same with their cut of the profits.
Finally, the initial tsunami did make it to the United States west coast and some coastlines were damaged. Sega’s US community team did tweet yesterday that their San Francisco office was unaffected by the impact or any evacuation.
Certainly the concern now is what will happen with those compromised nuclear plants. Any meltdown certainly has the potential to make this a more serious problem than it already is for Japan’s people. We will update when needed.
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@sonic_kun
thanks for the good news :]
Hell yeha.I was so worried for him,Prope,Sega and Nintendo that I surprised myself.
Note to avoid misunderstandings: I do care about all the other peoples and I typed the first comment before reading the article.
As a soldier from Shadow the Hedgehog might say: “Mr. Naka is okay!”
Thats a relief, I can’t believe that an earthquake AND a tsunami hit Tokyo.
Of all the countries in the world to have a devastating disaster, such as this one, it had to be Japan. Thank God they’re all safe.
Wonder how this is going to affect Sonic Anniversary.
@serpx
People are missing and your worried about video games?
@anyone, “On Saturday, an explosion was reported at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plants.” will this affect the U.S. and/or the rest of the world.
@Serpx
yeah thats the biggest worry in Japan
Good that Naka and Suzuki are safe.
@ RagtimeSonic: Well, I’m pretty sure that the earthquake was what caused the wave. If an earthquake happens in/near water, it’s definitely gonna effect the water.
Grow up guys, there’s obviously more to worry about. I’m just wanting to know his this affects Sonic Anniversary, don’t be ignorant.
@Crackers
Yeah I know, I just couldn’t believe that it had an effect like this.
@serpx
Now is not the time for that, there are countless lives at risk.
I’m sure serpx wasn’t trying to be insensitive on purpose. For all you know he could have been trying to lighten the mood. Plus this is a SONIC news site and no offense to Tristan but it isn’t really a ‘serious’ place for real-world news in my opinion.
If you guys REALLY care about the people in Japan then make a donation. Serpx could have made a donation already, you don’t know. Never assume anything.
Whens the time for that, next week? It’s okay to worry about other things, jesus christ.
@serpx
I don’t know when the time is, just wait… something will come up because there are only a few months left.
@serpx
I was wondering along those lines too. “I wonder if WSJ won’t come out next week, for that matter what of Negima? Aw man, I’m gonna be waiting forever for my 3DS games now.” That’s not to say I don’t care, it’s just that without knowing anyone over there personally, I worry about my interests. I also wondered about any celebrities and game designers (& their families) I knew, for my interests. I care, but that’s there and this is here, I have no money to donate, so I’m just gonna do nothing and continue my day like normal unless I think of my interests, and then I can at least think about the suffering people.
PHEW! glad he’s ok…i wonder if the sega building in japan got affected O_o.
omg why a freakin’ nuclear plant!? man all these disasters are screwing with japan up… jesus, god must hate japan now x(
Not to attack your point, SpeedDemon, but this is a major world event that has potential to get worse and, depending on what happens with the nuclear plants, could impact Tokyo. Would you feel different if we knew, for example, *not* everyone directly connected with Sega were safe? What if it were Yuji Naka? Takashi Iizuka? What if, God forbid, Aaron Webber and the contest winners aren’t accounted for?
On something as profound and far reaching as this, even if the connection to what we love is minimal, we have an obligation to “throw the scripts away,” to speak, and keep people informed. Maybe it’s not totally related to the usual fare here, but it’s the right thing to do. We have readers in Japan–we even have a reporter in Japan, for God’s sake.
For reference, we did this when Michael Jackson died, too. We could, for all I know, be back to normal on Monday, and I am planning to try that depending on how this evolves. But if one of the impacted reactors does indeed meltdown between now and then, all bets are off.
-T
I personally think you did well with covering this Tristan, good job.
thank god he’s OK
otherwise there’s no 20th anniversary of Sonic’s birthday
@Tristan Oliver I agree with you, 100%. Some kid out there doesn’t want to watch CNN or BBC to get their news and watch news sites like this to get their information. Sad, but true.
Is it sad that I actually did actually worry about Yuji Naka and co when looking at the news? Its like this tssz news segment was made just for me weirdly enough. Thanks
Shadow Remix and I are currently located at the naval base in San Diego, and both of us were actually AT the docks on one of the naval ships, getting ready to depart on a day cruise when the tsunami was predicted to hit our area. All it did was delay the departure for an hour (We were scheduled to leave at 0900, but forced back to 1000). Waters were a tad choppy, but it looked nothing worse than what you would see on a windy day.
People mentioning Video games in a situation like this is disrespectful to say the least.
It’s a video game site. It’s not like anyone’s giving the middle finger to japan by mentioning what the initial purpose of the site we’re on right now is. Everyone’s worried for Japan and to suggest that anyone here isn’t because of something so small and trivial is childish.
@Jak
Pal, this is a website dedicated to video games. The people who come to this website are looking for info related to video games. And since Japan is the holy ground of video games, what do you think they’d be worried about? “Oh God, thousands of people are dead!”, is a line that isn’t exactly necessary anyway.
It is neccessary as much as I love video games and even as this is a Videogame site you shouldnt mention games at least in this topic, and your making fun of thousands of people are dead is unbelivably idiotic you wouldnt say the same thing if you lived there. you should show some care and stop being ignorant, its called EMPATHY.