Shinzo Abe, a former Japanese prime minister, was shot in the back with a handmade gun on July 8, 2022, when he was making a political address outside Nara City’s Yamato-Saidaiji Station. There was video of the murder shared online before Abe passed away from his wounds. People on social media started speculating about the killer’s identity and motivation.
An anonymous person uploaded a picture of video game director Hideo Kojima on the internet website 4chan, which is well-known for its anarchic and frequently nasty trolling, and claimed that this “left-wing extremist” was the culprit.
If the purpose of the post was to lure in the credulous, it succeeded. Damien Rieu, a far-right French politician, posted the pictures on Twitter, where Kojima, who has more than three million followers and clearly had nothing to do with Shinzo Abe’s incident, started to get a large number of accusing comments.
Rieu later took down the post and issued an apology, but not before Greek and Iranian news outlets had named Kojima as Abe’s killer.
Kojima has had a 36-year career as a game creator and has shown to be extraordinarily foresighted about how new technology may affect and hurt humanity. For instance, the 2001 video game Metal Gear Solid 2 examined how weaponized memes may be used to target specific people; the game’s protagonist, Raiden, falls prey to a disinformation campaign.
Exploring reputational harm in the risk-free environment of a video game is one thing. Being wrongly accused of being an assassin on worldwide news networks is altogether another. Since this narrative is digital, he asserts that it may be accessible for millions of years.
People post without taking that into account. It’s almost like a brand-new form of human sin. No, I’m not pleased that I foresaw these events.
On a soggy September day, I meet Kojima on the top floor of downtown Tokyo’s Shinagawa Season Terrace, a cutting-edge skyscraper with its own internal water reservoir and emergency heliport. Behind the slamming entry doors in the foyer is a security robot.
Its face is a TV screen with animated synthetic emotions, and it has a railway conductor’s cap on its head. Its sparkling white breast plate has three spider’s eyes in the centre that are ready to record footage. It is the kind of anthropomorphic surveillance robot that frequently appears in Kojima’s science-fiction-inspired games, making it the ideal receptionist for Kojima Productions.
Shortly after the director departed Konami in 2015—the firm he joined in the middle of the 1980s and where he produced the multimillion-selling Metal Gear Solid series—Kojima Productions relocated inside the building.
Kojima worked for Konami for a very long time and eventually rose to the position of VP. After leaving the firm, he says, “all of a sudden I couldn’t acquire a credit card.” “The bank refused to provide me a loan. They also claimed that I was independent when I attempted to lease a floor in this building. It appeared as though I had yet to produce anything.
That’s when I realised that I am truly independent. The only time he was presented with a leasing agreement for this great piece of Tokyo real estate was when one of the building’s owners, a fan of Kojima’s games, interfered.
Meeting Kojima is unique compared to meeting other independent or mainstream video game directors. Before I can see the director, a member of his staff insists that I undergo a Covid test. Which not even the Japanese government still mandates.
Kojima is an enthusiastic self-publicist, despite his insistence that he is not a celebrity (“I’ll post aspects of my daily life, but I don’t take glossy images like other celebs on Instagram,” he a500001000dds). Kojima frequently tweets selfies with celebrities from Hollywood.
He talks about his collaborations with well-known cinema filmmakers like Jordan Peele and Mamoru Oshii in his brand-new Brain Structure audio series on Spotify.
Kojima is a generous communicator who jumps eagerly between themes and likes wide-ranging digressions, in contrast to most directors who are as determined to remain on topic in interviews as a harried politician (even while, in the corner of the room, his assistant concernedly takes notes).
Lockdown was particularly difficult for Kojima, who gets his energy from social interaction. He explains, “After a few months at home, I began coming into the workplace by myself. “At home, I grappled with the blurred lines between my personal and professional lives.
I was always thinking about games, whether I was eating, spending time with my family, or taking a bath. I had to go to the workplace. The workplace is being renovated now that the rest of the crew is beginning to join their boss at work. The walls are lined with stacks of boxes and colourful workout equipment.
A Kubrick-esque, spotless, bright white corridor that served as the studio’s old entrance is now being demolished. Staff 3D-scanned the area and made it accessible as a virtual reality space during the Tokyo Game Show exhibition last month as a way to memorialise the location. All of this is a part of Kojima’s renewed determination to open his universe up to the public.
For Kojima, this process of thought and preservation is quite recent. He has frequently declined to talk about the games he created at Konami ever since he departed (under circumstances that neither party has ever mentioned in public; I once heard that Konami dispatched staff to wait outside Kojima’s office to see who was working for him).
That has started to alter in recent months. When someone on social media pointed out the anniversary of a certain game in the past, he said, “in the past, I would sigh.” And I would feel ashamed when I watched people playing these games, which were created with outdated technology.
Kojima acknowledges that he frequently views old game footage on YouTube. He said in a recent tweet that seeing a well-known Japanese streamer play through 1998’s Metal Gear Solid made him feel as embarrassed as if his private journal had been read in public.
But today I watch these little youngsters enjoying themselves while playing Metal Gear Solid. A game that was created 30 years ago. My emotions are beginning to shift.
Because he was one of the only filmmakers at the time to try to investigate the underlying causes behind on-screen conflict, Kojima’s early work is still intriguing today.
In the 1987 video game Metal Gear, players take on the role of a member of the special forces on the prowl for a bipedal walking robot that can fire nuclear bombs. Kojima contextualised the simple shooting with a rather complicated storyline at a time when video games had little time to spare for narrative.
He continues, “My parents both survived the Second World War.” “They were hurt. When there was no food, my mother would describe how she had to eat bits of tatami mat and step over dead people on the street. Kojima’s father, who passed away when he was thirteen. Had shown his son films about the Holocaust to illustrate the human cost of war.
“As a result, I decided against making a shooting game with a military theme. I was always curious about the background to the on-screen dispute. It has significantly impacted my process.
His gift for prophecy has frequently worked well with his desire to comprehend others. In Death Stranding, a video game developed by Kojima Productions, players take on the role of Sam, a post-apocalyptic deliveryman (Norman Reedus).
In November 2019, a few months after the game’s debut. The pandemic left millions of people who were seeking sanctuary reliant on delivery services for their food and supplies.
“I worked as a postal worker on the side while I was a student. So I’ve always been appreciative of those who perform this sort of labour.
But the epidemic increased the importance of this endeavour. Without Uber Eats, I couldn’t have survived, he claims. Sam is a hesitant worker in Death Stranding who finally learns the worth of his effort.
“[And] in Japan, regular, unskilled individuals joined up to perform deliveries similar to Uber Eats. It turned into a method for us to support one another.
Kojima continues to be an active user of social media. Frequently tweeting hints about what he is working on or endorsing other works of media and entertainment he has loved. Despite being the target of online jokes and hate on a daily basis. He laughs and continues, “To be honest, I think creators should not say anything at all.
“You should only use what you develop to reflect your views.” Kojima claims that he frequently recoils when he sees his weekly iPhone report. Which shows how much time he has spent on social media. A person has a limited amount of creative energy. And he claims that when that energy is used on social media, it is less available for really creative activities.
But I have no choice but to adopt this technology. Social networking has allowed me to meet musicians, authors, filmmakers, and actors, which was not possible previously. Additionally, being an independent studio, we naturally have no one to support us in terms of promotion. It is now a component of my job.
Teasing future initiatives in ways that will create enthusiasm and expectation for projects that are unfinished and unproven is another aspect of the job.
Kojima wears a t-shirt with the motto “Who Am I?” to our interview knowing that he would be photographed. The actor Elle Fanning, who has collaborated with a number of film auteurs like Sofia Coppola and Woody Allen. Will be a part of Kojima’s upcoming project.
After Norman Reedus accidentally revealed in May that “a second one” had begun production. The studio has now acknowledged that it has a number of projects in the works. One of which is thought to be a Death Stranding sequel.
Regarding the other project, all Kojima will say is that it is something he has wanted to develop for a long time but that the technology has never been enough until now.
It’s practically a new media, he claims. If this is successful, not only will the video gaming business be affected, but also the film industry. Building the infrastructure is difficult, according to Kojima: “You may have good trials. But there is a vast distance between an experiment and a location where it becomes something that is used in everyday life.”
He asserts that from a business standpoint, the second or third individual to try anything new has a higher chance of commercial success. “Everything is difficult for the first person. However, I want to go first. I want to continue being the pioneer.
