"Hideo Kojima has a new work! More than one! ”
In the early summer of 2022, thousands of industries are stuck in a long period of low tide, and everyone is looking forward to the hero who has turned out to sweep away the decline and let us regain the confidence of modern life - so Hideo Kojima, who has changed the game industry more than once and predicted the future, has appeared again, with mysterious "new work" rumors, once again becoming the top of social media.
Of course, this is no surprise. If you have to give a little confidence to this era of global sinking, Hideo Kojima is definitely one of the most suitable attending physicians.
If you're hearing the name for the first time, let's take a different look at the character — come, let's read the book.
The habit of "buying books like a mountain, reading like a silk" is self-defeating in this long summer.
After all, since it is already the trend to press the pause to bring life to a standstill, there seems to be nothing else to do but lie flat and read.
As we all know, as a manifestation of personal hobbies, the judgment of the merits and demerits of books is destined to be inseparable from subjective assumptions, rather than going to see the book recommendations of thousands of words, taking the initiative to go to the bookstore to pan for gold is always a more reliable route - at least for me, most of the new books I have read in this society's summer vacation are in this tone: books are good books, but there is no recommended value is also a big truth, except for one exception:
The Gene of Creation, Hideo Kojima.
This book is really a little different.
Why Hideo Kojima?
There are not a few producers who have created well-known game IP, but there are not many who can achieve the realm of Hideo Kojima.
At the age of 24, he made "Metal Gear" on the poor MSX2 platform, and his personal style was laid; At the age of 25, with "Snatcher" on the PC8801 platform, he presented his own background as a fanatic of video culture; Subsequently, at the age of 35, the "Metal Gear Solid", a global hit on the PlayStation platform, officially opened the legendary era of "KOJIMA Productions" belonging to Hideo Kojima, a professional.
On the other hand, not only as a gamer, but also as a senior social animal of a large company, Hideo Kojima's career ups and downs are also impressive to most people who go with the flow:
Since 1998, the professional role played by game player Hideo Kojima has always been a conscientious corporate warrior, and with unremitting efforts to contribute one masterpiece after another with excellent word-of-mouth sales for the parent company; But even so, after 17 years of hard work, the end of this senior worker career is not very good - the parent company's business adjustment, the project team KOJIMA Productions was removed, and as for Hideo Kojima himself, the end is naturally to leave.
However, this is not the end.
After being swept out of the big company, the 52-year-old Hideo Kojima did not collapse, let alone stay away from the industry and not ask the world — just the day after leaving, Hideo Kojima set up his own studio KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS Co., Ltd. (yes, it is still a familiar name), and the following year released the title of his new work, "Death Stranding";
Three years later, on November 8, 2019, Death Stranding, an independent icon with "Hideo Kojima Productions", was officially released – although it caused a lot of controversy in the early days of the market, but soon, the thinking triggered by the game theme of "playing the delivery man to deliver supplies in the end of the postmodern era" was reflected from fantasy to reality.
After experiencing the highlight moments of his part-time career, he was re-energized from the peak and fell, returned to the scene as a creator who was more than half a hundred years old, and in the era of continuous sinking of the entire traditional game industry environment, he came up with a new work that was completed to satisfy players, and with excellent insight, he made a prediction of the real world outside the game - this is Hideo Kojima, the creator whose inspiration seems to never run out.
That's why we see this boast on the gene of creation:
"Talented game producer Hideo Kojima shares how to draw creativity from excellent works such as Heirs of the Stars, Kamen Rider, Drifting Classroom, Blade Runner, and Sea Street Diaries."
Curiosity flareed up, almost as a matter of course.
However, if you open this book with this mentality of "I can go on after reading it", the result must be a great disappointment.
"The Gene of Creation" is not a "secret of creation", neither can teach the game people to copy the glory of "Metal Gear Solid", nor can it enlighten the second spring of the career of office workers in midlife crisis - the theme of the book is actually far more direct than imagined:
This book contains only a very small selection of books and movies through my feet, eyes, and brain. This list, no, this context allows Hideo Kojima to create. The MEEs conveyed by these works have given me the energy to create and live.
—— Foreword to "The Gene of Creation"
What is the "gene" of creation?
Opening the table of contents, it is easy to think of the "DVD Bible" and other kinds of panning guides, a cursory look at the text, "My Camera Does Not Lie" and other creative review compilation impressions are even more overwhelming, but "The Gene of Creation" is really not the same thing - the closest to the content genre of this small book should be "private fiction":
Taking a series of books, movies and music as clues, combining his own experiences to reveal Hideo Kojima's journey to become the director of "KOJIMA Productions", fragmented but real, this is "The Gene of Creation" - to put it more bluntly, this book is "Hideo Kojima's Writing for Himself".
Because my parents were busy with work, I was the so-called child who hung up the key when I was a child, and I was the first to arrive home after school at night, and then turned on the lights in the house and began to read. Reading at home alone is a daily compulsory course for me. Although I also felt lonely and lonely, what saved me at that time was the book.
Maybe it was because of my father's early death, and there were no good adults around me who could be used as role models. However, the existence that can guide life like an adult and a teacher, I found in the book.
Having said that, according to Hideo Kojima's own memories, the movies watched with his family were more attractive in the beginning than when they sat down and read quietly; It was not until the fifth grade of primary school that I accidentally opened the "Detective Colombo Chapter 3 Final Chapter", and this "image is better than words" cognition has changed:
For the first time in his life, he bought a novel with his pocket money according to his own interests. I was surprised to make this decision while turning the pages, about every 20 pages I would insert a photo, in short, I wanted to see the next chapter quickly, in order to see the next photo, I read hard.
To me those pictures are like breathing in while swimming. I hate reading printed words, but it's not too uncomfortable. If you have a good breath, you can swim 25 meters, and if you swim down 25 meters, you can continue to swim 50 meters and 1000 meters. As I read, I forgot to breathe and became enjoyable. The book is 261 pages, and I read it all in one sitting. Then I was shocked.
"How could this be! Adapting a novel, no, how can a novel be so interesting! ”
Out of control. Since then, Hideo Kojima has officially begun his reading career: science fiction works of the Golden Age, spy novels with a Cold War background, Benguet's reasoning classics, and even more cheap paperback books that can be found on bookstore shelves, one by one, have entered Hideo Kojima's reading horizons; With the accumulation of understanding of the charm of words, the understanding of video art continues to deepen.
In 1982, "Blade Runner" was quietly released in Japan, and Hideo Kojima, who had just entered college and was already familiar with classic science fiction, walked into the Osaka Umeda Cinema alone and was shocked:
Regardless of region or country, cultures beyond time coexist in this place. This harmony is so wonderful that even the dark places that make people think about life and death shine brightly. I really want to live in such a place, I really want to live in such a future. I can definitely live in such a world!
Driven by this will to "face the future", in the process of growing up, Hideo Kojima has always maintained a keen perception and tirelessly drawn experience from the never-ending experience of reading and watching movies. Eventually, after entering the game industry, these information precipitations from books and movies gradually merged with Hideo Kojima's growth experience, and internalized into the driving force of creation, which is the "gene of creation":
Although the book is read by one person, it can share the lives of many strangers in the unfolding story, although it is lonely, but also connected. ...... The medium of this connection is MEME (Yamu). I believe many people know that this is a concept proposed by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. Unlike biological genes (GENES), information such as culture, habits, and values is passed on to the next generation. Just as the connections between people are transmitted through genes, the connections between people and books and movies are inherited by MEMe.
—— Foreword to "The Gene of Creation"
I don't know when I became a tiger. The "game maker" is what this tiger looks like. ...... However, although they are all incarnated as tigers, at the end, I am very different from Li Hui's roar. The moment I became a tiger, I completely abandoned my shame and self-esteem. After becoming a tiger, I found a different way of expressing my opinion than I did. So even as a tiger, I have the consciousness to continue to roar to the next generation. That's a new MEE called a game that's very different from the novel.
——" Li Hui's cowardly self-esteem and arrogant shame revealed are just like me in the past"
Train the protagonist in Metal Gear Solid 3 to become a warrior and constantly ask him "Do you want to live like a dog, or do you want to live like a cat?" "The Boss who asked the question, I inadvertently branded the character Jenny." The Metal Gear Solid series "has always told the fatherly story of the "killing" of the male dogs (war dogs) of this organization, and the character created to join the perspective of "motherhood" and "wild cat" is The Boss. Metal Gear Solid 3 was born from Jenny's MEME.
- "Jenny the Wayward Female Cat Who Made a Great Impact on My Creative Activities"
The kind of "侘, 寂, 渋" that even native Japanese people can hardly understand was carefully described by an American writer. ...The cutting-edge melee martial arts "CQC" in Metal Gear Solid 3 is similar to the so-called "naked and killed" in Metal Gear Solid 3. There is also the ninja-like hypersensory concept of "consciousness" or "bottom line" mentioned in the reconnaissance training of Metal Geat Solid 4, which is reminiscent of the "close feeling" achieved by using "qi" in "Shizu". ...... Moreover, the protagonist's killing out of love is a kind of killing with compassion that is difficult for Westerners to understand. There is also a spirit of pride and compassion in the stories of fathers and mothers that run through the Metal Gear Solid series.
——" Beyond the framework of borders and cultures, just create your own world"
I'm fifty years old this year, and physically, it's a bit of a struggle to create on the front lines. Usually at this time, you should consider arranging an heir and then retiring. But the man who inherited the baton went before me, and I had to inherit Mr. Ito's legacy. I'll continue to tell the story. Because, as Mr. Ito said, the world is a collection of tiny stories. And to keep the story alive is one of the MEEs I got from Mr. Ito.
- "The World is a Collection of Small Stories (MEME)"
One of the ways to create goods, to create things that are universally acceptable, is to build on past successes and add all possible selling points. I don't deny that, but I don't want to do it either. Because it's not interesting at all.
If today stands still, it might be nice to do things utilitarianly based on past data. But tomorrow will surely come, and the things of the past cannot be universal forever. Yesterday's experience is just one of the options, yesterday was so, so today it must be so, it is absolutely impossible.
However, if you have yesterday's experience, you will have confidence in creating new connections. So I read books, I watch movies, I listen to music, I go to art galleries and museums, I meet people.
Drawing lessons from history to create the future is nothing more than the accumulation of the above-mentioned acts.
- "Epilogue from MEME to Connection"
There should be many readers who are already creators, or aspire to be creators – creation is a very lonely job, but many creations and art are not isolated, they are linked across generations and generations. By touching the works of others, loneliness can be cured and new creations can be born. I think as a creator, having a lot of "connections" is a very important thing in creation, and I hope that my experience can bring you some inspiration and motivation, thank you.
- Hideo Kojima
That's it. In this long summer vacation when everything stops, encountering "The Gene of Creation: The MEMEEs I Love" is both an accident and a chance —at least for myself, the MEMe I received from this small book is far beyond the conventional realm of "private novels": "In this summer, think about what you want to do." ”
"But I can't do anything myself."
"You can do it."
"Like what?"
"Life."
It's dawn and it's time to start.