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63824peace · 5 years

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Friday, 2nd of december 2005

Yesterday I gave an interview in my personal hideout with an American game magazine. I interviewed with a writer who I've known for quite some time. I asked Scott to interpret for the first time in a long while.

We three knew each other so well that the interview proceeded amicably. We spoke without the usual formal stiffness that looms over interviews. The cameraman was a nice guy too. He really liked music.

I heartily welcome these interview experiences.

They brought up HIDEOBLOG during the interview. Most recent interviewers have talked about HIDEOBLOG. Everyone inside and outside the company asks me about it.

They all ask the same questions. "How do you put your unique sense of observation and perception into HIDEOBLOG?" They also ask, "You've written the blog for quite a while now. Do you have a backlog of potential subject material?"

I can't really answer these questions. I approach HIDEOBLOG as a diary, so I don't take the usual professional measures to prepare material.

I simply write about things that I saw, touched, or felt from the time I awoke until I arrived at the office. At night I recollect the emotions felt at work and on the way home, and I newly experience them. I don't force connections between the morning and evening thoughts. I only phrase everything honestly, without taking time to think about it self-consciously.

Consequently, I never have trouble finding material. But a bit beyond that, I don't really consider it publishable "material" either. I don't spend my day traveling or adventuring... I don't do anything special.

Chance occurrences can surprise us during our rote commutes to work, and even at work too. New discoveries abound in daily life, but you need to pay attention. Even an ordinary life becomes exciting. In my case, though, I don't self-consciously observe things around myself for the sake of the blog.

It sounds like a credit to my character if I just say that I'm sensitive... but I'm really just the sort of person who cares about everything.

For example, suppose I find a small stone in the street. I have no choice but to behold and consider it.

"Why is this small stone here?"

"Who placed it here and why?"

"Will someone trip if I leave it here? Could it cause an accident?"

"Is this a true stone, or is it a hallucination?"

And so on.

My imagination expands whenever I perceive anything. I feel switches click in my head and turn on my curiosity and imagination. A small, insignificant stimulus can result in a great story for me.

I have daydreamed since boyhood. My mind will take off the moment I feel something while I walk in the street. I enjoy observing the tangible world... but I'm not really looking directly at it. I'm looking around its corners, so to speak. My initial perception of a tangible object creates a whole world for my imagination to explore, and my mind takes off as soon as the new creative ground has been broken.

I used to fall into ditches and smack into a lot of electric poles.

I start to think about people when I'm in a crowd.

"Why is that person like that?"

"How does that person behave at home?"

"Why is that person the way he seems? Is it because of such-and-such?"

"Is that a such-and-such type of person? I expect he's like this, then...."

I create a drama or scenario that pleases me whenever I observe people. Not only people catapult me into imaginative forays... a bedroom or a car headlight seen from inside a train can whisk me away too.

It's akin to telepathy. The thoughts of nearby people and even the town intrude upon me. I fall into daydreams unless I keep my focus and my self-possession.

I'm like the younger Kirihara brother, Naoya, in Night Head.

This usually causes me to forget to exit at my train station. I can become quite dangerous behind the wheel of a car.

I don't have any problems as long as the experience remains an observation or a reverie. The real difficulty lies in my relationships with others. Nothing escapes my attention around other people, so I tend to offer advice on any subject when I'm with familiar folks. I meddle in their affairs by intuiting their thoughts without asking.

I never intend to speak meanly to them, but they usually react as though I had. I only mean to offer advice. I want to show them how to live the way that I think is best. I'm tough with myself, and I'm tough with others too.

It's all quite similar to my character portrait described in the fortune-telling blog of October 3. I wrote, "I am often so rational that I irritate others. I will insist upon a point, saying, 'No, it should be like this.' I act this way toward any subject, even if it isn't my business."

People begin to feel bedraggled around a character like mine. I always surprise them at first. They will say, "I hadn't known that anyone as delicate as you existed in the world. You have amazing sensitivity." They will heap this admiration upon me.

After we spend some time together, though, they will substitute "annoying" for "delicate."

Their attitude will change abruptly. "Why do you worry so much over trivialities? Things like that don't matter." They will say, "You have no right to criticize me! Just leave me alone! That's none of your business."

I can understand that reaction too. I can't help but feel concerned though... am I abnormal?

HIDEOBLOG serves as a record of this small part of myself.

In the morning I took a Nozomi-45 train headed to Kyoto out of Tokyo at 8:33 A.M. I listened to the live version of Green Day's album Bullet in a Bible. I had received it as a gift during yesterday's interview. I hadn't listened to Green Day before, but I learned that they have a nice sound.

"I think I'll like this band," I thought early on. "Maybe I'll buy the studio album if they turn out good." I thought of this, and then I slept deeply.

I surprisingly didn't awaken until I had arrived in Kyoto. I haven't slept enough lately, in part because of HIDEOBLOG. I sleep for three to four hours a day, kind of like Napoleon. Sleep came more easily today because of my recent deficiency. Business trips are great if they mean a bit more sleep than usual.

I joined Mr. Hamamura from Famitsu at the train station along with the NHK producer Mr. Ogaki. Mr. Hamamura was accompanied by his secretary. The university students came to look for us. Ms. Yamanaka sent me an email asking, "Have you met your escorts?"

What great timing! I appreciated her thoughtfulness. "I have met them," I replied.

We took a taxi to Ritsumeikan University. Autumn leaves colored the streets. I was told that this year's weather had allowed us to enjoy the autumn leaves a bit longer than during prior years. My visit had been well-timed. They told me that the leaves will have all scattered to the ground within about ten days.

I shared my taxi with Mr. Hamamura, and we conversed about many things. We still had so many subjects to discuss, even though we had met just two days prior for our interview. The effort of conversation started to fatigue me though. I needed to reserve some energy for my public performance.

We arrived at Ritsumeikan University's campus at Kinugasa.

The international symposium started in the afternoon. It was the 2005 Digital Interactive Entertainment Conference. The symposium's theme was "Interactive Entertainment Industry – Past, Present, & Future." They had divided it into two sessions, and the first session covered Origins of Game Design & Technology.

We had an incredible line-up. We saw Mr. Nolan Bushnell, the Founder of Gaming, who invented Pong and also founded Atari; Mr. Atsushi Ogaki, who famously produced the NHK special Denshi Rikkoku; Namco's own Mr. Toru Iwatani, who invented Pac-Man; and the legendary Mr. Masayuki Uemura, who invented the Laser Ray Gun SP, color gaming, and the Famicom Entertainment System. Mr. Masayuki Uemura now works as an advisor at Nintendo.

I listened to them from the first seating row. It was all so interesting. The speakers were incredible, and their speeches were absorbing. I wanted their voices to spread to more people. I admire the organizer who gathered them.

The first session covered gaming's origins and past, and the second session dealt with gaming's present and future. I mounted the rostrum during the second session.

I saw some great speakers during the second half too. I saw my master, Mr. Shigeru Miyamoto, the Father of Gaming, and also Mr. Robin Walker from Valve Corporation. He made his name with Half Life 2. Of course, Famitsu's own Mr. Hamamura played MC.

We concluded the second half with a four-way panel discussion. The event had such a home-like atmosphere from beginning to end.

I had the chance to meet many different people today.

I could relive the thirty years during which games had risen from the dust, after only a few hours of time travel aboard my Kyoto-bound Nozomi-45. I was busy, but I was really glad to have attended.

I felt something spring up in my mind as I looked back on the history of Interactive Media - a history to which I have devoted myself for twenty years. I enjoyed a new sense of excitement and a greater awareness of my duty.

Game creation is my life's work. I regard myself as responsible for passing on the torch to the next generation. I must give them the constructs forged by my predecessors.

I had dinner that evening with the speakers from both sessions, as well as people from the University. We sat at the world-class Japanese restaurant Senjukaku. The autumn leaves were brightly lit and beautiful.

We parted ways after that, and I checked into the hotel.

Mr. Iwatani and I went out to a bar in Kawaramachi. The bar had lots of water tanks... and I felt a slight sense of déjà vu, as though I'd gone there before.

Mr. Iwatani and I conversed about many things.

After talking with him, I learned that he and I are the same type of man. He feels things much as I do, and he also tries to become more involved with people and the world.

Despite my apprehensions, I laid all of the past three days' accumulated troubles before Mr. Iwatani. I drank three sidecars, and then I went back to the hotel.

Mr. Iwatani's words linger in my mind. "Game designers are generally kind, sweet, and warm-hearted people."

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