Tupac Casting In Stranger Than Heaven Came Directly From Snoop Dogg, RGG Boss Says

Nos ultimos dias, o assunto vem ganhando atencao. When the Stranger Than Heaven trailer at Summer Game Fest first revealed the inclusion of the late rapper Tupac Shakur in the cast, alongside other performers like Snoop Dogg and his son, Cordell Broadus, I immediately thought about Fred Astaire dancing with a vacuum.

Vale destacar que The infamous 1997 Dirt Devil commercial saw the musical star—who died nearly a decade earlier—dancing with a vacuum, setting off a national debate over the appropriateness of using someone's likeness posthumously. Tupac himself, now dead for nearly 30 years, has already been center stage in this debate, first following a 2012 holographic appearance at Coachella with rappers Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre, and subsequently over the executorship of his estate and his likeness adorning everything from T-shirts to NFTs.

When I asked RGG Studio head Masayoshi Yokoyama about the reveal, and whether or not they anticipated the skeptical response from a Western audience, he said, "In Japan, there isn't really so much sensitivity over this issue because this is something that's kind of part and parcel of the Japanese gaming culture for 20-plus years. There's been a lot of people who have modeled their characters after actors alive and passed away." After he said this, another person in the group interview chimed in saying, "Onimusha" to which Yokoyama laughed. This year's Onimusha: Way of the Sword is a reboot of Capcom's 25-year-old franchise, and it features a protagonist modeled after legendary Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune, who died in 1997. "Yeah, I can't say that out loud myself. Continue acompanhando pra nao perder as novidades.