Onimusha writer Noboru Sugimura dies

TOKYO--Noboru Sugimura, best known as cofounder of Flagship and the scriptwriter for Capcom's Onimusha series, died February 25.

Sugimura cocreated Flagship in 1997 with Capcom's Yoshiki Okamoto. The company creates storylines for games, and Sugimura contributed to many of Capcom's titles, including the Onimusha series, Resident Evil 2, and Clock Tower 3. Outside of the game world, Sugimura is known for his work on Power Ranger-style films, such as Kamen Rider ZO and Ninja Sentai Kaku-Ranger.

Yoshiki Okamoto, president of development studio Game Republic, offered his thoughts on his former cohort's passing.

"I was very surprised by the news. He was an extremely energetic person, and I thought that he would live a lot longer than me," Okamoto wrote in his online journal. "When we stumbled on the storyline for Resident Evil 2, I was introduced to a scriptwriter who was a real fan of the first installment. And that was Sugimura. As you may know, our encounter lead to the establishment of Flagship, which functions as a pipeline between the video game industry and scriptwriters.

"I've met with Sugimura even after I left Capcom and cut my ties with Flagship. I had recently asked him to do a new script for an upcoming game from Game Republic and I was looking forward to working with him again."

Noboru Sugimura was born in 1948.