Topic: Hideo Kojima. WHAT THE HELL.

[Lumi Kløvstad]

I didn't want my comments about Hideo Kojima to derail the Silent Hill thread, so I thought that I'd bring my thoughts into a new thread in a more concise explanation.

So. Hideo Kojima.

Love his games.

Or rather, I used to, but I no longer really can.

I admit to having once had a soft spot for the Metal Gear Solid series. They are extremely overwritten and batshit insane, and I will happily say without fear of contradiction that Metal Gear Solid 4 was the cream of that crop, and in an age of dull, inoffensive, design-by-committee and paint-by-numbers sludge, Hideo Kojima is one of our last remaining visionaries. And any game developer still taking personal ownership of their work is something to be celebrated, even if we must accept the occasional bit of insanity that is the privilege of the individual.

But Peace Walker finally was the game to put me off. Which at first was odd, seeing as it's probably the game most grounded in real concepts (no supermen to fight, for instance, just a crazed CIA operative with some big robots. This being a game from Japan, I will forgive and gladly accept the giant robots).

But then you should look a little closer. The game really does a good job of showing that Kojima thinks of women strictly as objects to be used and admired.

Let's rewind for a bit.

In Metal Gear Solid 1 and 2 women only really existed to die some mawkishly tragic death at some point, with the closest things to romance in the series taking place largely between men, but this is no worse than, say, most action movies. And it's considerably more progressive than a lot of stuff that comes out of Japan, the country where sex crime occasionally seems to be the foundation of their entertainment industry.

It worsened somewhat with Metal Gear Solid 2, when Otacon explains his falling out with Emma, his step-sister in a (very Otacon-ish) long and sobbing Codec lecture  that explains that when he was little, he was seduced by Emma's mom and proceeded to bleep her brains out when he was supposed to be looking after Emma. I frankly don't remember what he was supposed to be looking after her for, because HOLY CRAP THAT 13 YEAR OLD HAL WAS SCREWING HIS STEPMOM.

And so Emma's hated him ever since.

I don't know WHERE to start criticizing this one. First off, a woman causes all of Hal's problems. Furthermore, she does it by being sexually aggressive, and also this drives a rift between her daughter and the boy who's supposed to be her new big brother, and thus a positive role-model. That, and the whole story is just plain creepy due to Hal's age when it took place.

The worst part is that this story is a hugely unnecessary detail, and this being a Kojima game, one that centers around sex. Hal couldn't have been estranged from Emma by, say, burning too many of her dolls, or being a total asshole to her because he never saw her as his sister rather than the daughter of the woman who married his father. No. It's because he FUCKED HER MOM.

Smooth, Kojima. Real smooth.

Things tone down a little bit in MGS3, but there's still plenty of objective content to be had. I'm thinking of Eva, who constantly wore a jumpsuit unzipped to the navel so that her bra-encased titties swung free, which strikes me as the equivalent of a male character who spends the entire game with his trousers around his ankles. And the tragic story of the Boss, who apparently had to storm the beaches of Normandy while not just nine months pregnant, but freaking READY TO POP, and whose baby was cut from her womb (on the beaches of Normandy) by the evil conspiracy. A baby which, judging by the scar she was left with, the evil conspiracy had considerable difficulty finding.

But this, too, wasn't particularly unusual in its attitudes. Things only got really weird again in Metal Gear Solid 4, and the themed series of boss fights termed "Beauty and the Beasts." In these encounters Solid Snake has to fight animal-themed cybernetic robot suits being piloted by extremely attractive young women. All of whom have incredibly traumatic backstories - usually involving deaths of entire families, rape, torture, cannibalism, all those larks - that has left them severely emotionally crippled and which the game recounts in intimate detail with what can only be described as "perverse relish" (and Khary Payton's subliminally pervy VA during these storytime sessions only highlights this further). Then, after beating them, they slither out of the robot suits apparently wearing skin-tight plastic bin liners, and then they writhe around on the ground posing, sticking their chests and buttocks out for the camera, and rambling in incoherent madness. And then you shoot them. With your big gun.

Completely fucked up as this was, I allowed myself to forget about it, because it's hard to stay concerned about the emotional state of imaginary women from magic land. But then came a very specific moment early on in Peace Walker.

Let me set the scene. A man comes to Snake with a 16-year-old girl in tow, a quiet girl in a red cagoule with a thousand-yard stare. He explains that she stumbled upon something she shouldn't have, and was imprisoned and tortured by the enemy. While they're talking about her in the cutscene, the camera focuses on her and some button prompts appear. I press them, the camera zooms in, and the girl's cagoule mysteriously disappears, revealing the suit she was wearing underneath. Then I noticed that I hadn't zoomed in all the way.

"Oh, Christ," I thought to myself. "Seriously, Hideo? Are we doing this now?"

I zoom slowly in and sure enough she gets stripped down to her underpants like a paper dress-up dolly. "Yep, we're doing this," I sighed, resignedly.

Later on, another cutscene occurs involving another attractive young woman, this one having recently broken her leg. Once again, those mysterious prompts appeared, and once again, zooming in made her clothing vanish - this time, just her trousers, mercifully. But then I could zoom in even further and her bones appeared, revealing the fracture. "Oh I see!" I exclaimed. "It's a medical examination! Well, that's all right then! Although somehow I doubt we will ever be called upon to diagnose an overweight middle-aged man!"

Later on, the Date with Paz mission just opens the door to all sorts of creepy. You either get to seduce the 16 year old in a bikini as a bearded and scarred 30-something man, or you get to chase her down and force her to submit; although the seduction MUST be done in order to clear the stage, which means that if you indulge in your sicker impulses, you chase, beat, and then break Paz with honeyed words at the end of it all.

I will point out that this mission, and it's content, is entirely optional. You never HAVE to do it, and in fact I advise you not to. But the mere presence of the mission is worrying to me. Why couldn't you date Cecil or Amanda instead? The Date with Kaz mission was hilarious, and another mission involving a female character more in Snake's league in terms of age would have been decidedly less creepy, and even a good opportunity to get some side story in (and we all know Kojima LOVES that stuff).

Therefore, I question why Kojima not only felt like the inclusion of that mission was a good idea, but why people with values actually PLAY IT.

It's another window into how Kojima views women. I doubt he HATES them, but I do think he drives the development of his games with his dick a little too much, and needs to be reined in.

He's like a MAGNIFICENT chef who keeps serving amazing stews where one TINY ingredient is always a little off. You forgive it the first time, because he's somewhat new on the block to you and you're willing to cut him a little slack. The second time, it goes wrong again, but the rest of the meal is WAY AWESOME and you forgive him again. But that just doesn't hold up forever. Eventually, you break and want to confront this chef who keeps getting the SAME THING wrong over and over on all his dishes and wonder why he hasn't bothered learning how to get it right after all these years.

I still like that there are individual developers that have creative control. It makes a game experience more personal. It's just that this is only fine while the person in question isn't completely mad. This is what happens when such people slip the leash of editors. In other words, Hideo Kojima seems to be becoming the game industry's very own George Lucas. But even George Lucas wasn't this sexually fucked. At least George Lucas never stripped Princess Leia down to her panties and depicted her being forced into sex slaver-- oh wait.

[Lumi Kløvstad]

There are games like Bayonetta and Lolipop Chainsaw (an argument could also be made for P.N. 03) which dial the sexism up so high (and injecting some humor along with it) that it becomes a case of tongue-in-cheek self-parody, but Metal Gear has always played things more or less completely straight and serious with no humorous or mocking subtext. So whereas I forgive the Hideki Kamiya's and the Suda51's of the game industry, I cannot forgive Hideo Kojima over this.

An EXCELLENT example is in the game Bayonetta (or rather, throughout the game). While the titular character is incredibly alluring and well sculpted, she's practically untouchable because of how intimidating she initially is; this isn't like a dominatrix intimidation (although the game includes enough of that imagery to get the point across), it's all about how Bayonetta talks and moves. Everything is over the top and exaggerated, every move and word carefully practiced as part of a artificial persona that covers up nothing. The game establishes early on that she does it not because of some past trauma, but simply because she finds it amusing to string people along like that. It's the way she prefers to act, because she finds it fun. The result is that she moves with incredible confidence, which in turn makes her intimidating to both male characters and probably a few male players of the game who were expecting her to fit in with a certain objectified dynamic when she actually doesn't. Bayonetta is in charge of herself. She knows it, and she'll make sure you know it too.

When you finally notice/realize this in the course of the game, it's suddenly less demeaning to women than some of the trailers made it seem. It's a weird mash of feminism and sexism in the same character, and it's handled very skillfully, especially when Bayonetta drops the act when Cereza's in danger and she IMMEDIATELY flies into protective mother mode and VIOLENTLY kicks ass (with actual kicking of asses), and resumes her put-on persona immediately afterward and wondered how she slipped her chosen character so easily for the sake of a tiny girl she barely knew, which eventually becomes a significant part of her defining story arc in the game, and she drops the persona more and more as the game continues as the idea of simply "having fun" becomes less and less important than her duty to protect Cereza. She never fully drops the act, but she's less and less of a "character" as the game nears it's end, and by the end of the game is recognizable as a person who has clearly grown as an individual since we met her haughty devil-may-care persona at the beginning of the story.

Bayonetta is a fine example of how you can manage to make a sexy female character without sacrificing character strength or making the game misogynist.

It's a shame more directors can't handle that development process this well.

[X]

Yoshio Sakamoto, Hideo Kojima...just how many more designers are going to mess and abuse up their own projects?? I hope a law comes in to play where if said designer steers away from what a game has established itself as, will have said game and rights taken away for the fans' sake. Whatever happened to the 80's and early 90's? The developers at that time we're not going out of their way to let people know how Effed up they were on the inside. It's as if these recent longtime franchises have hidden messages (which are NOT so hidden) that tell you what the designers are really like. And this is destroying our beloved pop culture VG icons. We have been with them for years and know them very well. But know they are starting to become increasingly alien to us and in a very bad way. Not only that but it seems to be a last-ditch effort to bring woman kind back into the depths of the dark ages. To suppress them in a subtle yet powerful way; through media. Woman have fought long, hard and gruelingly to get their rights recognized and even gotten themselves killed for it (the Kandahar incident to name one). Now I am a man but I will not mince words when I say; Men need to know their true place in human society. And that place is not above women or ruling over them in anyway, shape or form, but right beside them; equally and lovingly. Anyone who thinks or acts otherwise is a blasted traitor to the whole of humanity. And I'd even go as far to say they should be put to the sword for everyone's' safety. Heartless of me to say about men? Yes it is, but I'm done caring about how they think as I've seen too much of their actions to justify being gentle when talking about them.

[Lumi Kløvstad]

That's a bit extreme, with the putting to the sword deal.

I just think game developers need to keep it in their pants, and out of my games.

[Gunlord]

I used to love Hideo Kojima's games too, but the "sexism" you describe is, IMO, a symptom of a much deeper...well, I won't call it "decay" but "shift" in his work. MG1, 2, and MGS had plots which seemed at least relatively down to earth and not out of place in the espionage/geopolitical, Tom Clancyesque thriller genre. With MGS2, however, things started to get a little weird. It started off reasonably enough (mass-produced Metal Gears), but in the second half of the game...we didn't just have Hal being sexually abused by his stepmother, but we had the stuff with "The Patriots" (I still don't understand it), Raiden having this thing about his empty room (EMPTY LIKE YOUR HEART), and so on, and so forth. He toned it down a little for MGS3 and from what I've heard, MGS4 (haven't played it--I've only played the 3 MGS games on the PS2), but that kind of oddness is still there. IMO, the "sexism" of those games is just an outgrowth of Kojima...er...getting "inventive."

I'm not going to address X's statement about what the position of men "should be" (I'm a man as well), or even the larger question of sexism, since I don't want to derail Ms. Lumirocket's thread. I will say, however, and forgive me for being blunt, but in the end it's all about the money. You may decry the "sexism" in Kojima's work, while I may decry the overall strangeness it's been moving towards, but it sells product very well, apparently. You'll stop seeing so much "sexism" in games when they don't make as much money. I'm sorry if that sounds callous, but it's the truth.

[Lumi Kløvstad]

It's a sad truth, but in one (highly rare) category you have games like Bayonetta and Heavenly Sword, with strong, confident female leads that may be dressed in a fetishistic or revealing manner yet perfectly realized as a complex and well executed character.

In the middle (more common) category , you have apparently "strong and confident" female leads that dress tough or professionally really are just a vehicle for male "strong woman" fantasies like Lara Croft or Meryl Silverburgh have traditionally been.

And then you have games like the Third Birthday and Metroid: Other M where you have a spineless and submissive female lead that makes you cross your legs.

Hideo Kojima, however, can't even be bothered to make a female lead (unless you count Raiden, whose naked CG model is quite literally dickless). Even IGA eventually got one in, if only to shut people up, and she turned out to be a reasonably effective character.

[beingthehero]

From what I can tell, MGS2 originally did imply that the Patriots were the collective will of the United States formed into a computer AI, which is why even after GW was destroyed the AI still existed. Kind of wonky but it was at least a nice departure from the usual techno-cyber thriller.

Then the patriots were revealed to be the cast of MGS3. That is still the dumbest reveal ever.

[Lumi Kløvstad]

From what I can tell, MGS2 originally did imply that the Patriots were the collective will of the United States formed into a computer AI, which is why even after GW was destroyed the AI still existed. Kind of wonky but it was at least a nice departure from the usual techno-cyber thriller.

Then the patriots were revealed to be the cast of MGS3. That is still the dumbest reveal ever.

And then MGS4 took the stupid even further and made them AI COPIES of the cast of MGS3. AI copies that were made in the 1970's and 80's.

So in short, Hideo Kojima has:

• no idea how technological progress works
• enough crazy to fill 8 asylums
• enough chauvinism and sexism to power the entire male supremacist movement twice over

Great guy. Really.

[Lelygax]

That's a bit extreme, with the putting to the sword deal.

I just think game developers need to keep it in their pants, and out of my games.

off-topic: You are Sigurd? How we change nicknames here? lol

I used to love Hideo Kojima's games too, but the "sexism" you describe is, IMO, a symptom of a much deeper...well, I won't call it "decay" but "shift" in his work. MG1, 2, and MGS had plots which seemed at least relatively down to earth and not out of place in the espionage/geopolitical, Tom Clancyesque thriller genre. With MGS2, however, things started to get a little weird. It started off reasonably enough (mass-produced Metal Gears), but in the second half of the game...we didn't just have Hal being sexually abused by his stepmother, but we had the stuff with "The Patriots" (I still don't understand it), Raiden having this thing about his empty room (EMPTY LIKE YOUR HEART), and so on, and so forth. He toned it down a little for MGS3 and from what I've heard, MGS4 (haven't played it--I've only played the 3 MGS games on the PS2), but that kind of oddness is still there. IMO, the "sexism" of those games is just an outgrowth of Kojima...er...getting "inventive."

I'm not going to address X's statement about what the position of men "should be" (I'm a man as well), or even the larger question of sexism, since I don't want to derail Ms. Lumirocket's thread. I will say, however, and forgive me for being blunt, but in the end it's all about the money. You may decry the "sexism" in Kojima's work, while I may decry the overall strangeness it's been moving towards, but it sells product very well, apparently. You'll stop seeing so much "sexism" in games when they don't make as much money. I'm sorry if that sounds callous, but it's the truth.

Im refraining to say that, because someone may mis-interpret me, but by what I've seem so far, Japan stills a place where womans arent totally free and that type of things are seems a "normal". Almost all media in Japan is depicted in a way that pushes to the sexual side of womans, being mangá, anime or games. I can even tell some names like OneChanbara, Highschool of the Dead, Queen's Blade and the most offensive being RapeLay. Since it seems normal to have this type of media in their country, they possible didnt understando that some things like that is offensive for us, since the perverts will say "we want more, cool game" (and we have a plenty of perverts that dont use the upper head to think).
 I dont think thats it will change everytime soon in this country, since they will say thats not of our business and that we dont have anything to do with what they do in their own country, since they dont say what other countries may or may not do as well (like various times they subtly implied).

 If we ask to them to stop with that fan-service and using the womans this way in games, they may even hear us and change that, but the thing most probably is, we may receive a version without that content, while the japanese version will have that anyways. Like a "censored" version with these scenes cut.

[Gunlord]

*purrs at Lelygax contentedly*

You raise a good point, my friend. I don't want to get too much into it either, again for fear of derailing the thread, but Japan is indeed a country where sex/gender roles are somewhat different from what Westerners are used to. From what I hear, there's a lot of ambient "sexism" in the culture--not to say that Western countries don't have that problem (if you consider it a problem), but Japan has its own version of it.

However, as I implied above, Western countries aren't necessarily that different. As you say, Japan makes a lot of these cheesecakey games, but Westerners are all too happy to buy them, as MGS' sales indicate. You're right in saying they may accede to our wishes if we tell them we don't want fanservice, but we're unlikely to say that--it seems T&A is as popular outside of Japan as within.

Prunyuu~~~~!!!!

[JR]

I've become somewhat tired of the Metal Gear series, and although it's mostly due to the storylines being overly convoluted and characters being excessively weird, I can't say I've been happy with the depiction of women either...mostly as of late. The Beauty and the Beast unit kind of made me cringe (among other things overall), but I could still tolerate it. But then the scene with Paz in Peace Walker made me feel kind of disgusted. It just seemed kind of pathetic and embarrassing to me to see this in a game...not to mention the whole date thing later on.

I also agree with you that Kojima is in serious need of an editor, too. I think the story and characters of the MGS series have mutated into some kind of unbridled monster, just becoming crazier with each successive release. It reminds me of how The Boss was this noble martyr type in MGS3, only for Kojima to beat a dead horse with the whole 'getting crapped on by country' theme and make her out to be a brainless punching bag in the Peace Walker conversations.

[Dracula9]

I think it's fair to say the Metal Gear series started going to shit after Snake Eater. At least as far as this matter is concerned.

[Rugal]

EDIT: Nevermind.. You guys.. 

[Gunlord]

*rubs Rugal curiously*

[Neobelmont]

My head hurts.... But if I am understanding correctly it's how Kojima is just using women in odd and demeaning ways right? I will have to re-read this.

But hey if it is anything I think Viola in Zone of the enders was pretty crazy. She shot that one girl and did not give a care in the world.

And I think peacewalker was pretty darn good... good enough for me to have Kojima sign it for me and The Second Runner 

My problem is that I want some new Ips from kojima productions or a return to other Ips Boktai/Lunar Knights anyone? Never could find the game   

off-topic: You are Sigurd? How we change nicknames here? lol
 Im refraining to say that, because someone may mis-interpret me, but by what I've seem so far, Japan stills a place where womans arent totally free and that type of things are seems a "normal". Almost all media in Japan is depicted in a way that pushes to the sexual side of womans, being mangá, anime or games. I can even tell some names like OneChanbara, Highschool of the Dead, Queen's Blade and the most offensive being RapeLay. Since it seems normal to have this type of media in their country, they possible didnt understando that some things like that is offensive for us, since the perverts will say "we want more, cool game" (and we have a plenty of perverts that dont use the upper head to think).
 I dont think thats it will change everytime soon in this country, since they will say thats not of our business and that we dont have anything to do with what they do in their own country, since they dont say what other countries may or may not do as well (like various times they subtly implied).

 If we ask to them to stop with that fan-service and using the womans this way in games, they may even hear us and change that, but the thing most probably is, we may receive a version without that content, while the japanese version will have that anyways. Like a "censored" version with these scenes cut.

This comment so true some people do not use their head or maybe they do just uhhh..... yeah.....

Oh and you forgot one more thing..... japanese tentacle attacks.

But yeah I see what is going on now like anime there is always some kind of fanservice now adays heck it gets hecka boring sometimes. That is why I like to watch some of the oldschool stuff like gundam or rurouni kenshin and I guess there are so many games like that the first one that comes to my mind is King of fighters with Mai but there was this one girl I think her name was angel or some thing and the Doa(never really got into it I have doa2 that is it) series and soul calibur Still love Sophitia(sucks that she died also she needs a most awesome mom award ),Cassandra, and Phyrra. Natsu/Taki is pretty awesome as well as for Ivy I just use her for Belmonts in character creation.

But I do think that some folks in japan understand that is why some games do not come out of there like Tokimeki memorial or if they do edit scenes. I hear that xenosaga had some scenes edited or something. heck I recall that snk edit Mai's jiggle at one point I think it was till kof97 that I think it stopped.