On this episode of SEGA Talk we dig deep into the history of the SEGA logo. What is Standard Games? What is Service Games? When was SEGA really founded and why is the SEGA logo blue? Find out on this episode of SEGA Talk!
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Never did get the Yank insistence that SEGA was American due to Standard Games as they really aren’t when you analyse everthing objectively. Sega of America is the newest one, and I see it’s often treated as the black sheep part of SEGA, though Sega Europe technically predates it but even calling the now defunct Standard Games American is a bit of a stretch because although it may have some limited operation in LA at one time, it was actually started in Hawaii – a land that is not only not geographically American mainland but actually has as much history with nations like Japan, Scotland (the nation that makes up the Northern part of Great Britain) and Polynesian figures from these lands etc.
Though it’s monarchy had successfully united the lands for just 80 years, the Hawaii Princess – Ka’iulani was not only the daughter of Archibald Cleghorn, the Scottish born (from Edinburgh) horticulturist and collector of customs, she also became the leading voice in the campaign that would restore the Kingdom of Hawaii after the monarchy was overthrown in 1893.
Looking at the current State Hawaiian flag – it uses the British-wide UK flag called the Union Jack (which is the blue and white Scottish saltire, the red and white saltire of Ulster and the red and white cross of the English national flags combined) which began to be first designed in the year 1606 – after James VI of Scots took over the English throne in the year 1603 along with the Scottish nobility – which began the process of what would lead to the political union between the two kingdoms of Scotland and England by 1707, so why is that you might ask?
Because the Hawaiian king had flown it out of respect for King George III and as a sign of friendship with Britain. During the War of 1812, Americans on the islands were unhappy with such a partisan act. … When Kamehameha commissioned a flag for the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1816, the designer incorporated the “Union Jack”.”
Interestingly though, Cleghorn, who is remembered particularly for all the planting of the banyan trees became a great close friend and advisor to the King Kalakaua and the Queen Lili’uokalani and also served as the Royal Governor of Oahu in the 1890’s.
When the famous Scottish author who wrote the most famous pirate lore – Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson met Cleghorn and his family after arriving in Hawaii on assignment for a US publisher. The Journalist Billy Kay detailed how Stevenson, then one of the world’s most famous writers following the success of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (also written by Robert) become an ally of King Kalakaua and the royalist movement and was also a regular guest of the Royal Household, where he had a lot of hospitality and drink and where he met Princess Ka’iulani when she was 13, the niece to the King.
But that aside, on SEGA itself, it’s most immediate direct antecedents would be Seizou (Nihon Kikai Seizou) and Goraku (Nihon Goraku Bussan) and Rosen Enterprises as well as Standard Games, so you could say analogically these four are like SEGA’s grandparents and most immediate relatives. That’s not to say there was never any American input also (of course there was – Stewart being another) but SEGA is quite a bit bigger than that and when we make this claim based on one element of SEGA, it’s useful to take it all into consideration and weigh everything up.
Good video though, and throughly enjoyed it, I don’t think there’s been one as in-depth as this before other than Jenovi’s one about Standard Games.
P.S. As well as Sega having some Asian root and a strong western heritage to a degree, if you’re wondering why the name ‘Service’ was used with the colour scheme etc, it was because at a time, SEGA made content for ‘Service men’ during the war effort – that was the core audience of who they made products for so the word ‘Service’ was used as part of the name to combine with games- i.e., ‘SE’ from service – to ‘GA’ from Games = SEGA.
It’s kind of like the Sikhs or Samurai’s motto of ‘to serve’ in both their military heritage.