Today Sega announced it Yakuza executive director and producer, Toshihiro Nagoshi, resigns from the corporate board. However, he will stay with Sega.
As reported on Game Biz, Nagoshi will leave the board from April 1, when the new Japanese financial year begins. He retires as Sega’s chief creative officer but will work as a creative director.
There is speculation online in Japan that Nagoshi was ousted in the aftermath of a controversial remark he made last year and seems to be mocking Puyo Puyo esport players. The producer said they seem to be eating meat bowls with cheese. The term chiizu gyuudon gao (Cheese ー ズ 牛 丼 顔) or “face cheese bowl face” has spread online. Shortened to chiigyu (チ ー 牛) or ‘cheese meat’, this slang term is used to refer to people who live in the countryside, look very young, wear glasses and do not have much ambition. It’s a negative, mocking term to ridicule people who may not be considered ‘cool’.
Nagoshi apologize for the comments and said: ‘Since the comment is aimed at players who give everything to play a Sega title, Puyo Puyo, and because it polluted all the sports, I’m very sorry. It was truly inexcusable. ”
The famous producer still appears in Sega’s YouTube Live Streams (photo above), so Nagoshi may retire for other reasons. Hopefully he can focus his energy more on that Yakuza games and not corporate politics.