Celebrate Pride Month 2021 with Square Enix
We want to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community, support amazing charities and name our Pride mascot too! Here’s how you can get involved.At Square Enix, we are committed to growing our global solidarity and strengthening a supportive, inclusive culture. In that spirit, today marks the start of Pride Month, and we’re continuing our drive to support and celebrate the LGBTQ+ community with a range of Pride Month engagements…and we want you to join us.
Name Our Pride Mascot
Last year we introduced our charming Pride Mascot designed by legendary artist Toshiyuki Itahana, known for his beautiful art style within the FINAL FANTASY franchise. The character represents “diversity and freedom” and received an incredible reception from you.
We didn’t create our Pride Mascot simply for the beautiful art style - they also symbolize something greater than our logo or words can convey alone. The character and what they represent is important, not just during Pride month, but all year round - and to emphasize that, we want to give them a name.
More specifically, we want YOU to give them a name. Here’s how:
To submit a name for consideration, please reply to our tweet at this link or below:
While this isn't a competition, we hope you'll take some pride (heh) in permanently bestowing a name to our wonderful mascot. Please be kind, and consider the meaning as described by Itahana-san:
“The character represents diversity and freedom, with its multitude of colours being the diversity aspect and the trainers and wings that allow it to travel anywhere symbolizing freedom. I designed this character hoping that the world can become even more free and diverse in the future.”
Our team at Square Enix with Itahana-san will select and announce the name on our Twitter when finalized. We hope through this, you’ll continue to embrace our Pride mascot together with us, and everything it represents.
Pride Mascot Limited Apparel for Charity
This year we’ve created limited Pride Mascot apparel for purchase on our Square Enix Store, with all proceeding profits being donated to charities GLAAD (learn more) and Stonewall org (learn more).
Their respective LGBTQ+ supporting missions empower and inspire all of us at Square Enix. We encourage you to learn more about them and get involved.
From now until end of June, head over to our Square Enix Store (right here) to purchase one of these beautiful tees or get yourself a hoodie. By doing so, you’ll be supporting these amazing charities helping them affect real, positive change.
Please check our Instagram Story and Twitter throughout Pride Month for additional activities, and quite a few smiling emojis and hearts to remind you about all the above.
Finally, we’ve reprised our avatar of the Pride Mascot that you can use to update your social media profile (just right-click save image and upload to your social profile!). We did.