Between the notes: A chat with The Last Guardian's Composer Takeshi Furukawa

Six years ago, I started my short but intense career as a freelance video game journalist taking courage and contacting Takeshi Furukawa for an interview. Takeshi is none other than the composer of one of the most intense and heartful soundtracks you can find in the video game industry: the score for The Last Guardian. The third game of Fumito Ueda and his team, genDESIGN, is something that never ceases to amaze me and for its fifth anniversary, I had the pleasure to have another chat with Takeshi, this time digging together behind the scene of the most iconic moments of The Last Guardian.

The following interview is a full transcription of a podcast we recorded on December 2021, spending an hour chilling together and talking about this incredible game that somehow kept us connected since its release. I have been guilty of failing to finish editing the video version all this time. Partly because my video editing skills are quite limited and a bit because a series of extraordinary events brought me here keeping me away from the keyboard for quite a while.

Ghosts and Devils: Jin Sakai, my great grandfather and me.

Ghost of Tsushima, the new IP by Sucker Punch, is finally out and now everyone can enjoy the story of Jin Sakai and his journey to save his home from the invaders. I had the pleasure to review the last big exclusive of Sony for this generation and one of the great things I experienced during the process is the many common points that this fictional adventure has with a real historical episode of my homeland. It put me in a unique position 'cause I found myself emotionally overwhelmed by a game that I approached with no expectations in this respect. This game brought back family memories shared by most of the sons of my land, some of those memories still hurt my people, others shaped a legendary legacy.

Warm-hearted thoughts for my quarantine

I'm in self-isolation since Monday 16th. At the end of that day, I started to feel very bad: my head was heavy, I was shaking, feeling cold. Soon after the fever came up and for the next three days my body's temperature raised up to 39,1 degrees. I lost the smell and taste, the cough was chocking me. Never felt so bad like this in years.

I'm still waiting to have a test, to understand if I'm one of the 528.000 persons in the world who have been infected by the COVID-19. In the meantime, most of the main symptoms are gone. I'm recovering fast, thanks to the love of my wife and some warm-hearted thoughts of strangers.