1UP: What made you finally decide to leave Square altogether? Was it just that you wanted more creative freedom or you didn't want to be tied down to Final Fantasy projects specifically? Or maybe you didn't like the direction the company was going in when they merged with Enix? What made you want to break out and form your own company like Dog Ear Records and Smile Please?

KY: [In Japanese] This is probably the question that everyone wants to ask the most...

NU: [In Japanese] The answer's not going to be that exciting.

KY: [In Japanese] I haven't even asked it yet. [Laughs]

NU: It's not exciting at all. I don't even know if you're going to be convinced with it. It's because the SquareEnix office moved from Meguro to Shinjuku.

1UP: Uh-huh.

NU: And I never really liked the Shinjuku space, and I was so comfortable being in Meguro. Where [Reiko and I] live is actually farther away from Meguro, so to go to Shinjuku and make that commute even by car would be over an hour, and it just wasn't the right place for me. I felt whenever I stepped out of the station in the center of Shinjuku, I felt I lost direction, and it's always crowded and you can't breathe the clean air. Compared to Meguro, that wasn't the environment that I wanted to be in.

1UP: I accept that answer.

NU: One alternate answer I can give that would make it a bit more legit and business-oriented is that as I moved up the ladder and it became more of a seniority thing, I got pulled into a lot of meetings during the day, and I never got to spend time focused and concentrating on making music. So being grabbed in different directions and not being able to spend time within the company to make the music, I lost the concentration. My decision was "do I want to stay at a company that's going to require a lot of non-creative time" or "do I want to continue to make music?" So continuing to make music was what I wanted to do and what I decided to do.

1UP: That's the answer that all the artists inside of us want to hear.

NU: But the truth is the first answer. It didn't feel right walking into the office because there was so much going on. It was never a relaxing area.

1UP: ... How did you feel about what happened with Sakaguchi-san?

NU: [Long pause] No matter what happens in the future with the company of SquareEnix and with the individual Sakaguchi, one thing that's not going to change is that he is the father of Final Fantasy. He made the series. And it was a difficult time when he left Square -- at that time it was still Square. As an individual myself, as someone who creates content, not purely for business purposes or making money or gaining profit from something I create as a content creator, it's really hard to say this, but I really don't think Final Fantasy should have been made after Sakaguchi-san left the company. Square the company owns Final Fantasy the property, so it's really up to them what they decide to do. But me personally, that's what I thought when he left the company. And I think at the same time that they started to change the direction of the company. We weren't sure who was in charge of what. It meant a lot of things if we look back at that time when he left and maybe soon after he left. There were a lot of changes, and it was probably a turning point for the company. I don't know if there has been another turning point within SquareEnix the company, but that was definitely a moment that meant a lot of different things.