Politics & Power Quote by Nobuo Uematsu

There is a quiet candor in Uematsu's envy: not a tourist's wide-eyed praise of America, but a working artist noticing the social machinery that lets “fun” happen out loud. He frames it as cultural observation, yet the real charge is personal. “I’m jealous” turns a polite comparison into a confession about constraint - the kind you absorb until you forget it’s there.

The line also telegraphs a professional context. Uematsu built much of his reputation scoring worlds of exuberance and release, especially in game music that invites players to feel big emotions without embarrassment. When he admires Americans for “pursu[ing] fun,” he’s not just talking about parties; he’s pointing to a cultural permission slip: be goofy, be loud, perform joy publicly, and let enthusiasm count as sincerity rather than childishness. In Japan, “reserved” isn’t simply shyness; it’s a social ethic that values harmony, restraint, and reading the room. That can produce elegance and depth, but it can also make pleasure feel like something you earn privately, not something you claim collectively.

His phrasing - “really know how” twice - signals fascination with effort. Fun isn’t accidental; it’s a practice. The subtext is that he wants some of that practice for himself: not to become American, but to borrow a freer mode of self-expression. Coming from a composer whose work often gives people permission to emote, the envy lands like a small self-portrait: the architect of catharsis wondering what it’s like to live inside it.