[Mercury]

"Jimita" is credited for Sound Program in Sonic 1



and thanks to the secret credits their full name is revealed as 久保田　浩.



Those kanji translate to Hiroshi Kubota, and a Hiroshi Kubota is later Special Thanked in Sonic CD's credits, and credited as a sound programmer in Ristar.




So we can with high confidence conclude that Jimita's real name is Hiroshi Kubota.

I was reading his Sega Retro article, however, and the picture caught my eye because the kanji for the name were different.



(Of course, it's not impossible that someone can change how their name is written, but it is suspicious.)

So I looked up that Hiroshi Kubota, and found his biography and profile at the Yamaha Music Foundation site. Using Google Translate to read his bio, it says he was born in Obihiro, Hokkaido ans it also has a conspicuous lack of any mention of Sega, Sonic, programming, or the "Jimita" moniker, but goes on about his albums, singles, and other accomplishments. This other profile says he was born in 1952.

In addition to the different name, I find it just a little strange that a musician with a successful career that started in 1984 would find themselves years later programming for a Sega Genesis game, but again - nothing's impossible.

However, the Sega Retro article also linked to jimita.com, website for Jazz Pianist Hiroshi Kubota. Here, the "Jimita" moniker is embraced, of course. And then when we Google Translate the profile page, it says he was born in Kitakyushu, Fukuoka Prefecture Yahatanishi District in 1965. His timeline page mentions joining Sega in 1989/1990 after university and meeting Masato Nakamura of Dreams Come True in 1991. The site also has other sections dedicated to programming and old microcomputers. But there's no mention of having popular albums or anything to connect this Hiroshi Kubota - who is without doubt the Jimita of Sonic 1 - with the other.

Also, compare their pictures. Jimita's:



And the imposter Kubota:



Sadly, Jimita's site also discusses his debilitating disease, another thing that's not brought up in the other man's profile. Though they are both jazz pianists named Hiroshi Kubota, it's clear at this point that it's nothing more than an odd coincidence and that 窪田　宏 is not "our" Hiroshi Kubota.

If we can agree on this, then of course the Hiroshi Kubota article needs to be amended, and a note added to it saying something to the effect of "not to be confused with this other guy", to foreclose future confusion.

Also, Jimita's site has contact info. As the man who programmed Nakamura's music into the system, he would certainly be a fascinating subject for interview, if such a thing could be approached respectfully.

[Black Squirrel]

Feel free to make the necessary changes. IIRC virtually all of Sega Retro's developer pages are based on original research - on the whole it's mostly right, but there's a lot of educated guessing as far as aliases go.

[Mercury]

Okay, done... sort of. I can't get the picture to update for some reason.

Does anyone else have a hell of a time with the Sonic/Sega Retro wikis? For me they are almost completely borked, with pages loading maybe only 30% of the time. I have to stop and refresh constantly, and they always hang with a spinner. It's been like this for months and months on every browser and device I use.

[JaxTH]

Mercury, on 18 July 2014 - 12:59 AM, said:

Okay, done... sort of. I can't get the picture to update for some reason.

Does anyone else have a hell of a time with the Sonic/Sega Retro wikis? For me they are almost completely borked, with pages loading maybe only 30% of the time. I have to stop and refresh constantly, and they always hang with a spinner. It's been like this for months and months on every browser and device I use.

I click on to another page, then backspace and everything loads fine after that.

[Black Squirrel]

Mercury, on 18 July 2014 - 12:59 AM, said:

Does anyone else have a hell of a time with the Sonic/Sega Retro wikis? For me they are almost completely borked, with pages loading maybe only 30% of the time. I have to stop and refresh constantly, and they always hang with a spinner. It's been like this for months and months on every browser and device I use.

Oh yes. I'm always clicking links two or three times and fighting page loads. I was told it was CloudFlare's crappy servers in Europe, which in turn is used to keep the spambots at bay.

I've nagged a lot about this but not much happens.



p.s. thumbnails take a long time to update but they do happen.

[Overlord]

Yeah, Cloudflare has issues in Europe. Just one of those things, unfortunately. Do the stuff and wait a while, things sort themselves out eventually.

[Black Squirrel]

Alternatively if it hangs for more than a few seconds (I.e. more than what you'd expect for a page load and your status bar is stuck) click again. That's what I do - probably overloading the server but it works almost every time. I find the reload button on its own (in Firefox at least) doesn't make much of a difference and you sometimes get situations where you're forced to wait. Yes this stuff has become second nature after so many months, although if you bypass CloudFlare like Andlabs used to do with fancy trickery there'll be no problems at all.

I think it kills productivity and frightens people from contributing, but I don't pay for or maintain servers so

[Mercury]

Black Squirrel, on 18 July 2014 - 03:27 AM, said:

Oh yes. I'm always clicking links two or three times and fighting page loads. I was told it was CloudFlare's crappy servers in Europe, which in turn is used to keep the spambots at bay.

Well this sucks, but at least now I have an explanation. I'm just glad the forum part of the site doesn't have this issue!