Vanillaware's Dragon's Crown seems to be doing really well in Japan, and it's definitely on the radar of many gamers in the West as well. Considering that, you'd think publishers would be eager to put their brand on it but that's not the case. Not only did the original publisher of the game, UTV Ignition Entertainment, drop the project before it was finally picked up by Atlus, but it turns out that it was also rejected by Capcom, as explained by Creative Director and Vanillaware's President George Kamitani as part of an interview on 4Gamer.

From the start, one of the senior producers at Capcom asked me, “why don’t you make something?” Since I admired Capcom, and they asked what I wanted to make, for many years I had built up the desire to make Dragon’s Crown, so I hurried to propose a plan.

I heard that the planning and evaluation of Dragon’s Crown went reasonably well but unfortunately I was not able to get the final approval. But my mind was made up and I absolutely could not give up. That's why I got help from Ignition Entertainment and project Dragon’s Crown could finally start.

Considering that the first shipment of the game is almost completely sold out in Japan in three days, I can definitely imagine that the Capcom executives that rejected Dragon's Crown might be regretting their decision now. We're only nine days away from the North American release, and then we'll see if Western gamers will react to it as positively as the Japanese did. My money is on yes.