Dragon Quest has been made with the trifecta of creator Yuji Horii, composer Koichi Sugiyama, and artist Akira Toriyama from the very beginning over 30 years ago, but unfortunately they’re not getting any younger.
Dragon Quest series executive producer Yu Miyake answered some questions during Square Enix’s 38th annual meeting of stockholders. [Thanks, @michsuzu.]
Q: I became a stockholder simply because I like Dragon Quest. However, with Yuji Horii-san being 64-years-old and Koichi Sugiyama being 87-years-old, I was wondering if they’ll be okay for the future. How do you see Dragon Quest in five, ten years from now?
Yu Miyake, Dragon Quest series executive producer: “Both Horii-san and Sugiyama-sensei are doing great [laughs]. We recently hit the 30th anniversary, but they’re doing fine and working as usual. Sugiyama-sensei has been saying ‘So the next one will be the last one, huh,’ while at it. The most important thing for the Dragon Quest series is having Horii-san, Sugiyama-sensei, Akira Toriyama-san work together.
I have thought about what’s next, but I try not to think about it [laughs]. All the fans say they want to see Horii-san and Sugiyama-san continue making it, but I’ve been thinking about all kinds of things like what to do when they’re not longer able to do so, but I’ll just say that I haven’t given it some thought for now [laughs].”
Dragon Quest first released in May 1986 for the Famicom. It had Yuji Horii as its designer and scenario writer, Akira Toriyama as the artist, and Koichi Sugiyama as the composer. The three have been an integral part of the Dragon Quest series since then.
