What’s In A Name? Origins of “Riz-Zoawd”

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Xseed is bringing Riz-Zoawd to North America under a less puzzling name, Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road. But, why did they name it Riz-Zoawd in the first place? I brought the question to Nobuo Nakazawa, Director of Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road.

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“Japanese have a tendency to like meaningless enumerations of letters and coined words. Riz-zoawd is something that we created with that in mind,” said Nakazawa. "So there is no meaning in the word. The reasons we decided to use it is because… it had a ring to it, the feeling of the word, and it sounded good to our ears are the main reasons.”

 

One mystery solved! We’ll hear more from Nakazawa and Xseed next week in our full Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road interview.


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