Yuji Naka has been arrested

 Yeah, this is happening!

This just in; Yuji Naka has been arrested. That's right; superstar director of smash hit game, Balan's Wonderland, has been arrested because of just how ungodly terrible that game was. Such to the point where he needs to offer reparations to the people of the world that were subjected to it. Over the next few years he'll be transferred to various international prisons on a rotation basis so that he can serve time for every country in which Balan's Wonderland was sold- wait, no I'm hearing reports that wasn't the reason why Yuji got booked. (Shame, I guess that's going to be an upcoming conviction.) In that case, I can only assume he was brought down by the Sega guard dogs as he attempted to break into their offices and rescue the Sonic franchise from the hands of the genuinely confused Sonic Team that have been playing hot potato with it for the past two decades. No? Not that either? Then what in the name of the speed god Savitar, did Yuji get the cuffs for?

Insider trading? Wha... really? Is the man who created Sonic really so hard off for cash? Of course, as with most people who cheat in life, it's actually the somewhat gifted who choose to take shortcuts in order to maintain or push forward their prestige; but still! It's such a boring crime to get arrested for! If I ever got under investigation for insider trading, I would absolutely book it down to the local bank to get a more interesting 'bank robbery' charge on my rap sheet. Anything to give me that 'street cred' down in the clink. (I hear you have to attain certain levels of cred in order to wear the finest clothes... or am I thinking of Sleeping Dogs?) It's just embarrassing is what it is! It's such a blue collar crime you might as well hand in your artist's card on the way in, because you have no right calling yourself a starving artist on the way out. I know Sonic embodies 'sticking it to the man'; but still I think Yuji missed the point with the stupidest grift imaginable.

But how did this inside trade work? Simple; back in 2020 a company called Aiming were revealed to be the ones behind a new Dragon Quest project called 'Tact'. Now despite the fact that Dragon Quest is one of the most boring well-known fantasy properties to come out of Japan, this game was a crappy mobile grid based action game and thus was destined for the big bucks. So much so, that anyone who was invested in Aiming at the time would be thrilled about the sudden windfall of interest surrounding the latest developer to stumble upon the infinite money glitch of life called 'develop a terrible mobile app that leeches off a well-known brand'. And wouldn't you know it, Yuji Naka just happened to be one of those investors during that announcement! He reportedly just happened to have 10,000 shares in the company which he bought literally just before this announcement! 

Quite the foresight, Past Yuji had, to suddenly choose to invest in a company which, as far as I can tell, had never worked with a publisher before, had never made anything for a huge brand like Dragon Quest before, and hadn't released anything for three years before Dragon Quest Tact. They were relative nobodies before that surprise international game announcement. I guess Yuji just threw a dart at a board and got lucky! Well, either that or... more likely... he had a contact on the inside who tipped him off to the announcement before it went public, and Yuji really thought he could come up with a damn good reason why he found Aiming so worthy of his investment money. Maybe he just really liked the name? 'Aiming'- how modern-sleek and goal oriented! Yes- with a brand like that I imagine they just vacuum up the investment money every quarter from all angles!

Obviously I'm being excessively facetious; this is an adorably clear cut case of insider trading; assuming that the facts presented are indeed accurate, and our man is probably going to have to pay a hefty fine out of his pocket for being a naughty trader. But I can't imagine much of anything will come of this. I'm not sure how the Japanese courts treat Insider Trading, just by the merit of their societal norms I'd imagine it's harsher over there than it is here. (People there have a 'favoured enemy' bonus against corrupt businessmen) But he's something of a known name, and the second your name hits headlines it's game-over for legal ramifications. They'll never be able to keep Yuji in the brink; his weird fans will be on the case of any organisation who so much as attempts to peel a page off the book to scrunch up and throw in his general direction.

Whatsmore, I can't imagine Sonic's Freedom Fighters allowing their literal father creator to rot in prison without mounting an breakout attempt of their own. Imagine if that was one of their own locked up- oh wait, in Forces Sonic himself gets locked up for half a year without anyone coming to back him up simply because the Freedom Fighters were too busy watching the world fall to pieces whilst they stood around and felt sorry for themselves. In fact, Sonic's Friends were so useless that players had to write their own OC into the narrative in order to bring Sonic back into the story, just so those numbskulls would remember how insanely fragile and pathetically weak all of Eggman's vast forces are. As well as the game Sonic Forces, that too.

Heck, if I were a true cynic; I might even propose that Yuji Naka himself ratted out his activities to the police at this specific time so that his Icarus-like descent from grace could serve to distract some Sonic fan's attentions away from the recently released Sonic Frontiers. A game from the brand he invented published by a company he is no longer on good speaking terms with. But this is pure speculation, I'm pretty sure if Yuji really wanted to draw attention to himself he'd just paint himself blue, glue some paper spikes to his back and run down Akihabara completely nude screaming "Gotta go Fast! Gotta go Fast! Gotta go Faster, Faster, Fasta-fasta-faster!" Alas, seems the man hasn't quite reached his breaking point yet and this is just an honest to goodness money-making scheme. What a shame.

Personally, I have no love for grifters and even though I struggle to care all that much about an Insider trading case, this situation is endlessly funny to me for no other reason than who is involved. I hope the next super-star developer to get arrested just does something a little more flashy, like Randy Pitchford hijacking a plane so he could perform a magic trick to disappear all the passengers out of it before its emergency crash landing in the desert- that's the kind of panache I want to see! In many ways, I'm being harder on Yuji for being so boring with his crime. Still, at least this gives me hope that at sometime, maybe soon, perhaps the cogs of justice will turn to arrest Ken Penders for his many crimes against the world of Sonic and the core of art in general.