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  #1  
Old Nov 1, 2019, 12:09 AM
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Nicolaas Hamman Nicolaas Hamman is offline
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Could this be her twitter account: https://twitter.com/ma20040301 ?

They have the same name, and all their tweets relate to the game MONSTER STRIKE (for which Kumatani doesn't seem to be credited, but it's possible she worked on something other than music).

It seems most of their likes relate baseball (from what I've seen) and I don't know if Kumatani has any relation to the sport.

Assuming the kids in their profile picture are her children, they do resemble her when placed against her picture from RocketBaby. Maybe I'm just seeing what I want to see...
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  #2  
Old Nov 8, 2019, 12:58 PM
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dissident93 dissident93 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nicolaas Hamman View Post
It seems most of their likes relate baseball (from what I've seen) and I don't know if Kumatani has any relation to the sport.
She did compose for one of the Sega baseball games, didn't she? But it seems like the account is dormant, so it doesn't seem like we can ask the account if its her.
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Old Nov 8, 2019, 01:31 PM
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Nicolaas Hamman Nicolaas Hamman is offline
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I'm not so sure it's dormant. Their most recent liked tweet is from Oct 31st of this year.
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Old Nov 15, 2019, 04:01 PM
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Oh, I didn't check the likes. In that case, somebody should ask them.
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Old Nov 13, 2020, 04:12 AM
Overacting Neophyte Overacting Neophyte is offline
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I've always kind of lowkey wondered about if this particular scenario was a possibility, but by total chance I stumbled upon something that might actually hint at what Kumatani has been up to since leaving Sega.

Dave Darlington, a sound engineer who worked on Sonic and the Secret Rings and Sonic Colours, has a gallery on his website of himself in the studio with various musicians he's worked with. He has one image that seems to be taken around the time of Colours, and it's of him with, I quote...

Quote:
Sonic the Hedgehog Team

Ken Tokoi, Atsushi Kosugi, Fumie Tokoi
So this is either a typo, or it implies that Kumatani and Kenichi Tokoi ended up getting married.

Honestly, it would be a pretty happy ending to her abrupt departure from Sega. It would definitely explain a few things and make sense considering how often the two worked together at Sega, and how Tokoi kind of carried her torch after she left. Most notably, Colours was apparently done after she had left the company, and all of her contributions were collaborations with Tokoi. Hmmmm...
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Old Nov 13, 2020, 04:40 AM
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Nicolaas Hamman Nicolaas Hamman is offline
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Hmm, that seems to parallel Mariko Nanba somewhat. She dropped out of the composition scene about the same time as Kumatani, and her Facebook profile does make it very likely that she was married to Tomoya Ohtani.

I don't think Nanba was confirmed to have left SEGA, but she is under what seems to be the "non-SEGA" section of sound creators for MARIO & SONIC AT THE OLYMPIC WINTER GAMES on the DS. Kumatani is there as well.



The difference of course being that Nanba seems to have returned to sound design, what with Space Channel 5 VR: Kinda Funky News Flash! and The Rub Rabbits!/Kimishine & Akadoko LIVE+. Perhaps it's possible Kumatani will return as well, but it seems silly to think the parallels would run forever.
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Old Nov 13, 2020, 05:31 AM
Overacting Neophyte Overacting Neophyte is offline
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Finding out Nanba and Ohtani were married is what made me start to wonder, actually. I started paying more attention to track-by-track credits and noticed just how often the two worked together, and I was halfjokingly like, "Heh, were they dating or something?" And then I found out here that apparently they legitimately are married, which was simultaneously sweet and a little funny because of that. And then that made me start to wonder about Tokoi and Kumatani. But since the two of them are so private and there's not really much to go off I didn't feel totally comfortable speculating about their personal life, plus I kinda wondered if it'd be wishful thinking.

But if people who know and work with them personally straightup refer to her as "Fumie Tokoi", that definitely means there's something there, IMO.

I'd love if Kumatani did more freelance music for Sega again, she's by far one of their most underrated and underappreciated composers and she's so talented I'm sad and surprised she never did any freelance work for other devs. But I'm just glad to know that at least she's still out there presumably living peacefully.

On a related note, Sonic at the Olympic Games has a new remix of My Sweet Passion and I'm pretty sure Kenichi Tokoi is behind it, so there's that. (Throw It All Away also has one and it's very obviously Senoue, but I'm having a moment here!)

Last edited by Overacting Neophyte; Nov 13, 2020 at 05:33 AM.
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  #8  
Old Jan 26, 2021, 02:02 PM
InsertDankMemeHere InsertDankMemeHere is offline
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So, I assume it's a similar situation to Miki Higashino? She got married and quit composing for games in order to raise her kids? Bummer, she wrote some of my favorite tracks in the Sonic series.
Hope we get to hear more stuff from her someday.
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