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Friday, August 24, 2018

Namco Taiko Blog (24 August 2018) - A Midsummer's Taiko Team Graduation


The No.11 intern is here for a Taiko blog Friday update, whose tones are quite different from the usual fanfare. We come to know, in fact, that long-time Taiko Team member Takemoto (タケモト) is graduating from his position in the series' dedicated development team, leaving us fans with one final message for all of us to see.

Takemoto has joined the Taiko Team in 2006 as a programmer, during the development of the 9th Taiko no Tatsujin arcade title. Since then, he has had a lot of programming credits in both the console and arcade front, as well as quite the resumee for the series' public relationship with its everlasting fanbase, being one of the main curators of the official Twitter feed as well as one of the main tech guys/hosts in the past Taiko no Tatsujin official livestreams.

As mentioned by Takemoto himself in his final message, he has also attended several public events with Etou as a representative of the Taiko Team as a whole; among these are the Taiko-related tournaments (the AC13-era one, the Huis Ten Bosch cup, the World Championship of 2016 and the Tenkaichi Otogesai edition), the World Hobby Fair/JAEPO/Reitasai outings and several AC0 Asia firmware launch events! It's from these events that he was more than glad to see the series being received with such a positive energy from whoever attended each outing, a side of his former job that is credited to motivate Takemoto's work along the years.

Even if he's quitting his work on Taiko games, Takemoto has still some unfinished business with his Taiko experience as a player, one of these involving him passing the Splatoon 2 Medley's Ura Oni, the very last mode charted by Takemoto himself in his (admittedly small) notecharter portfolio.

I (Lokamp) can just speak for myself in sending the man some thanking words for the work he has done across the years for helping to shape the Taiko no Tatsujin series as a whole in what it is nowadays, but chances are there are still many behind-the-scenes contributions that Takemoto might have done for the immediately-future things that the latest games are preparing for the future.

Until then, though, ... Audiòs!

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