Actor and musician Pierre Taki, who voices yakuza Kyohei Hamura in Judgement, has been arrested for suspicion of illegal drug use.
According to the Mainichi News, investigators searched Taki’s car and Tokyo home based on tips they had received. Nippon.com reports that no cocaine was found. However, Taki was arrested last night, and a urine test turned up positive results for cocaine.
Taki has admitted to violating the country’s drug laws and using a small amount of cocaine. Investigators are examining his mobile phone to discern more about his alleged drug use.
Sega has issued a statement, saying that as the truth was being confirmed it was going to stop selling the retailer and digital versions of Judgement Eyes. Sega apologised for any trouble that this causes, adding that it was considering what steps to take next.
If that were not enough (it’s not apparently!), Sega is also deleting tweets about Judgement.
販売自粛に伴い、『JUDGE EYES：死神の遺言』に関するツイート等は削除いたしました。何卒ご理解のほどよろしくお願いいたします。https://t.co/ET4m1CxJdz
— セガ公式アカウント (@SEGA_OFFICIAL) March 13, 2019
Last year, actor Hiroki Narimiya was replaced in Yakuza 4 due to his own cocaine allegations.
Japan has a draconian view of illegal drugs. In 2014, when popstar Aska of the wildly popular duo Chage & Aska was arrested for possessing MDMA, Universal Music Japan stopped selling the group’s music.
Moreover, Walt Disney Japan removed one of the group’s songs from a Blu-ray box set of Hayao Miyazaki’s work, as Studio Ghibli had animated the music video for the Chage & Aska song “On Your Mark.”
Besides Judgement, Taki also voices Olaf in the Japanese version of Frozen as well as the recently released Kingdom Hearts III. It will be interesting to see what Walt Disney Japan’s and Square Enix’s next moves are. Before becoming an actor, Taki was a musician, co-founding the popular synthpop group Denki Groove.
Comments
17 responses to “After Cocaine Arrest, Sega Halts Sales Of New PS4 Game”
Haha wtf a VA does a line of coke and they halt the entire game? Who is actually outraged or who would actually care to boycott that?
Outrage culture is not really a thing in the east, but like the article states Japan is known for extremely severe reactions & punishments when it comes to illegal drugs. Different cultures, different core values. Having an affair is severely frowned upon in the east as well & has also lead to severe punishments. Whereas western culture just throw that on the cover of gossip magazines & most people wouldn’t give a crap about it.
Lol “the east”. Those darn Orientals /s
Culture varies by country.
Obviously
Oh man. This better not affect overseas
I’ve pinged the local distributor to get a statement.
You’re doing God’s work
I love the title, I envisioned the actual Sega logo with cartoon hands and feet, pushing coke on a street corner.
A lil Sega logo being led away in handcuffs, while the sound of a toilet flushing repeatedly can be heard from Sonic’s apartment upstairs!
Does this mean the game suddenly became a lot more valuable?
Poor method actors got it rough
I mean, don’t all successful entertainers do drugs? They have such a heavy drinking culture over there, and allowed the Rurouni Kenshin dude to keep working after being caught with child porn, but this dude’s consensual interaction with nose candy can literally stop a AAA title from being sold?
The whole world needs to get on top of it’s unfounded view on drugs and their use. This is the ONLY period on history where humans have been ostracised from seeking mind altering experiences and it goes against the human compulsion to seek mind-altering states of consciousness (I mean video games play into that!).
Child porn is, unfortunately, a far less serious crime in Japan than illegal drug use.
*obligatory Rick James quote*
Man. I just finished Yakuza 0 for the first time last night and was really looking forward getting my hands on what the team were moving onto next. I guess I’ve got a pile of sequels to keep me amused for quite a while, but I hope Judgement finds its way here eventually.
Man, talk about throwing out the baby with the bathwater. And then throwing out the bath too for good measure.
How must that feel to have worked on a game for years, (?) gone through several crunches and tons of stress only for one guy out of hundreds to do a bit of coke and make it all for naught?
Drug use in Japan is EXTREMELY frowned upon. Strangely civilian perspective is far less draconian. My salaryman-esque straight laced Japanese father-in-law used to regale me with his childhood usage of ‘insert worst drug here’ and I’m like “whoa, we don’t even see that here”.
Rurouni Kenshin dude is a legit pedophile — Japan’s reaction is ^_^!
Game guy does a couple lines of coke — Japan’s reaction is >.<;
There is a serious problem with Japan.