Whats with the first 2 comments? I've seen people typing like that in like 10 different threads...

Murderdolls

Justice prevails?

LISA FORWARDS

I would guess he's been told told to jump out before he gets kicked out. I wonder if they'll be able to lure Itagaki back or if they even want him back? He was probably their biggest asset so it would be a good idea to get him back if they can.

photoboy

"Ozawa is the Tecmo Labor Union leader and Ninja Gaiden 2 lead engineer"

look up that name on google images! i dare you.

mentalboy11

Itagaki has a law degree. Who would have guessed?

Tyrannical

You show The Man, Itagaki!

sits

@Lazarus2k8: ehh, what?
I believe Uwe Boll should make a movie based on all of this drama. Except without shittyness this time, lol.
BTW, does anybody know how to get FF3 to display certain characters like the ones in the press release above?

Pablos102030

As a fan of Tecmo, Ninja Gaiden, and Dead or Alive its horrid to see the people who put so much time and labor into these games get cheated out of overtime pay and special incentives. Some may not consider these games the best in the world but these people put time and effort into them and make them as best as they could and only to be cheated out by a crooked president is quite sad.

Hopefully these issues could be resolved in the coming future and I hope that maybe someday Tomonobu Itagaki can come back to Tecmo and start back work on Dead or Alive 5.

Stevetrop

Th ffcl prssr clrd thngs p fr m.

BoringJob

why d thy hv fnny nms

Lazarus2k8

Am i the only one that thinks of Edward Scissor Hands cutting up someones post when they get disemvoweled?

DarkGeneral

Hw ws my pst ffnsv nd/r dtc? Sms t b rndm dsmvwllng.

gss wn't sy tht sss r clrd p fr m ny mr by ffcl prss rlss. Wh knw?

Wll th fct tht ths s n Jpns dsn't hlp m. s tht bttr?

BoringJob

@Lazarus2k8:

Looks like that disemvoweling missed a spot. It's A E I O U and sometimes Y. Quick! Someone take out the 'y' in 'why' before we all die! Heh...rhymes.

Monger King

@Murderdolls:They were disvoweled for being stupid.

As for this, there's no way he could have been let stay, the mess with Itagaki is just the tip of the iceburg. He had to go and Tecmo's issues aren't even close to being over yet.

Foxstar Sixtail

@Murderdolls: They were offensive/idiotic comments so the vowels have been removed. Making them look even more moronic. I approve, it's sort of like a Dunce's hat.

TearsandScreams

Okay at the risk of being disemvoweled, I think BJ is getting picked on a little. He raised a good point, if you want to get at the meat of a thing especially in a document with likely PR spin like a press release, a translation might not cut it.

MyLittlePwny

lordy, shit must have hit the fan big style if this is the outcome...

gique

@vg0r: S shldn't sk n nglsh lngg st fr trnsltn?

K wll gss wht nt vryn n th wrld spks Jpns nd lt f ppl hr vst frm nglsh spkng cntrs, s why dn't y stp cryng bt th fct tht y dnt knw wht tht lngg mns, vn thgh t's th clsst thng t nvrsl lngg n th wrld nd jst ccpt th fct tht th wrld dsn't rvlv rnd y? hv n d wht t mns thr bt cld cr mr cs Ktk smmd t p fr m,nd tht's wht thy d.

'm skng fr th ctl txt, nt smmtn.
Smmtns mss thngs.

BoringJob

@vig0r:

its not the most used language in the world.

MyLittlePwny

stll cn't rd Jpns. Cn nybdy hlp brth t nd trnslt?

BoringJob

@DarkGeneral:
Yes.

I imagine a disemboweling with letters spilling out instead of guts...bloody letters.

MyLittlePwny

@BoringJob: K well guess what not everyone in the world speaks english and alot of people here visit from asia,so why dont you stop crying about the fact that you dont know what that language means,even though it's the most used language in the world and just accept the fact that the world doesnt revolve around you? i have no idea what it means either but i could care less cause kotaku summed it up for me,and that's what they do.

vig0r

Don't mess with Itagaki. Kinda surprise he resigned already, with this political mess at Tecmo and all of it is true. Time for Tecmo to reimburse for unpaid OT!

zerokoolpsx

@laencythe: okay, forgett about that, maybe ashcraft is working on a translation.... for whatever I know...

laencythe

@vig0r: from what I made out of his first post it previously read: "the official presser cleared things up for me"... someone care to explain how that is stupid, offensive, or whatnot?
oh, and chinese (mandarin) is the most spoken language on earth, followed by english and spanish...

but really, shouldn't there be a translation to the letter? it reads in japanese on my computer and I don't posess the skill to read that language...

laencythe

@Foxstar Sixtail:*sigh* His reasons..

Foxstar Sixtail

@MyLittlePwny:Brian has explained his raises for posting the complete untranslated document before and he has at times later provided a complete translation.

When you get the razor once, it's a warning. You don't keep pressing your luck, you learn to back off and leave well enough alone.

Foxstar Sixtail

@mentalboy11: You get better results with "Maria Ozawa uncensored"

I love Maria Ozawa

Who knows, maybe this will end up well. The bad guy's out, now it's time for the good(?) guy to clean his mess.

Sounds a lot like politics, in fact ;)

kryo

A borring legal document in Japanese is just as exciting as a borring legal document in English. Anything of interest in the document I'm sure is addressed in the topic since Ashcraft speaks Japanese.

Oh, and though diemvowelling may have seemed like a good idea at the time it's kind of annoying, especially when copy cats think it's funny. Try changing their avatar icon image to a dunce hat or something as punishment.

Tyrannical

@laencythe: Wow you understood it?

I'm Chinese and I don't think we have the most used language (spoken or written) in the world. I think it's still English.

Why was the guy disemvoweled anyway?

excaliburps

People who don't read japanese, try :
translate.google.com
I use it for translating all kinds of Chinese texts to English and you can mostly make out what it exactly means.
Include the link in your "favorites" and you can just copy/paste texts in there

@topic: I'm glad this sadistic boss got fired and his whole "exploiting the workers" has been brought out in public. This kinda stuff happens a lot and companies need to take responsability when it comes to this kind of corporate behaviour.
Power to the workers!

sander_dutch

@excaliburps: Looks like he said "The official presser cleared things up for me".

Is disemvowelling temporary? It makes my head hurt, as I (naturally) try to make sense of the disemvowelled rubbish.

As for the story, does anyone know how this impacts the court case? Are Tecmo still responsible?

duckmouth

@excaliburps:
In terms of most spoken languages, I believe it goes:

Mandarin, English, Spanish, Hindi/the language that only varies from Hindi in written form that I can't recall the name of right now. If you count written as well, Mandarin drops down to second or third and Japanese is somewhere below French. That's off the top of my head, I haven't looked it up in years so I could be completely wrong.

As for the actual topic, looks like shit is really hitting the fan at Tecmo now and this is probably only the first major head to roll.

TrjnRabbit

@mentalboy11: Who knew that Tecmo had a half-Japanese half-French Canadian porn actress on their staff?

*Insert DoA girl joke here.*

Zero_Beat

So...does this mean Itagaki's coming back?

KingBroly

It seems as though Japan is still in growing pains when it comes to merging with how the western world views capitalism and corporations. I remember hearing a news story that when Howard Stringer joined Sony it was still a popular custom for corporations for continue to pay former important board members and other high ranking officials for life, even well after retirement. Moral of the story, you only get paid if you work and you must be paid for hours you did work or get ready to face a lawsuit.

Quicksilver4648

For those of you who are curious, the document doesn't really say anything that important. Point 1 refers to the details of the change. Point 2 refers to the reasons for the change. Point 3 is the scheduled date for the change. Point 4 provides details about the new guy (Yasuharu Kakihara), such as his birthdate, age, hometown, and personal history.

kylenalepa

@laencythe: K well neither do i so i didnt know it wasnt chinese lol :D

vig0r

So does this mean Itagaki might once more resume his rightful title of the head of Team Ninja?!!?

Pbombas

Woo! So long, you corporate scumbag! I pretty much figured this guy was either going to quit, or be removed by the board.

PissedPS3Fan

Sounds about right. Finding a scapegoat is becoming quite popular over here in japan.

INDIGOVENOM

I knew Itagaki was on point the whole time. Good on you, Itagaki, good on you!

Knoxximus (360/PSN)

damn that guy is pwned I foresee jail time

lilaliendog

"disemvoweled". This is the first time I've seen it. Quite clever. I like it.

On topic, I hope that the new president helps Tecmo's focus get back to making enjoyable games.

peteer02

Itagaki pwnage continues as Tecmo Clan head ninja commits hara-kiri.

NoahSteam

Finally, I hope they continue to sue the DUMB A$$!

zzt711

wsh wd jst g bck t bnnng ppl nstd f dsmvwlng thm. Drvs m crzy tryng t fgr t wht thy sd n th frst plce... nd jst wsh sm f ths ppl wld g wy nwy.

...

Just kidding. Keep on trucking.

...

On topic though, this isn't the face of a man I'd painted as the bad guy in this whole ordeal. He looks so innocent and wholesome.

"Personal reasons"? Yeah... like "I'm kind of an asshole"... doesn't get much more personal than that.

I don't really wish to see his life screwed up by all of this... I mean, I don't know all the ins and outs... he could be something of a pawn too for all we know. But it's looking more and more like Itagaki's got a solid case in all this.

At least it seems more and more like the workers themselves have a solid case for compensation. Hate to see people getting screwed out of well-earned funds.

dv8godd

Another white collar criminal...

Yah, anyone who can make Itagaki out to be some gallant hero of the people means you are really scum (not that Itagaki is that bad, but he's hardly as nice and charitable as say, Will Wright).

art_zombie

Well, without Itagaki I don't see how Tecmo would survive for much longer. Pretty much all their best games were produced by him, so without true DoA and Ninja Gaiden games I'm not sure how the company can instantly recover from this mess.

fenderfuel08

@MyLittlePwny:

Maybe not the most used language ,but the characters in Japanese are the same for Chinese so that would sort of make the statement true.

yomachaser

Bring back Itagaki, pay your employees fairly, DO NO SCREW UP Helena's move set for DOA 5 and all will be forgiven.

Fabrice

lol all this asshat is running away from the legal suit. 40 bucks says the yakuza (either hired or receiving money from tecmo's stock) is gonna follow him for screwing up tecmo.

maraxusofk

It's blatantly obvious that Yoshimi Yasuda fucked up, bigtime. I can't wait to see how this is all going to turn out.

dead_red_eyes

@laencythe: Guess the disemvoweler took BJ's blurb along the lines of a "This is not news" comment. Both statements could be taken as "Hey Kotaku, whatever you took the time to post is of no use to ME, don't be wasting my time with your poor judgement." Probably doesn't help that the stupid first post whetted the razor's taste for blood.

Back to topic...resignation? What shame. What ever happened to the good old seppuku? Wonder if the Board of Directors received a pinky along with the resignation. That's the least I'd offer to someone that employs Teams of Ninjas.

kftgr

@dv8godd: It's always the innocent-looking ones you need to watch out for. :/

But seriously, I imagine this means Itagaki will get hired back for DoA 5 and NG 3. Are there any other games that Tecmo does? I honestly can't seem to recall them doing anything else in recent years.

GhostWhoWalks

@mentalboy11: I already did, and I loved what I saw.

kagebutsu

That guy is getting out of the hot kitchen, but not without his pants being on fire.

Ryodestined

Good lord, now this is some juicy drama. Can't wait to see the court verdict.

VengefulRonin

@GhostWhoWalks: "It's always the innocent-looking ones you need to watch out for. "

Good point.

dv8godd