Il gene del talento e i miei adorabili meme

by Hideo Kojima

Una raccolta di saggi e ricordi di Hideo Kojima

Genres: Nonfiction, Video Games, Biography, Art, Gaming, Essays, Film

290 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2019

About the author

Hideo Kojima (小島 秀夫 Kojima Hideo, born August 24, 1963) is a Japanese video game designer, screenwriter, director and game producer.

Regarded as an auteur of video games,[5] during his childhood and adolescence he developed a strong passion for action/adventure cinema and literature. He was hired by Konami in 1986 for which he designed and wrote, in 1987, Metal Gear for MSX platform, a title that laid the foundations for stealth games and his best known and most appreciated series. The title that consecrated him as one of the most acclaimed video game designers is Metal Gear Solid, released in 1998 for PlayStation. Other notable video games he directed are visual novels Snatcher, released in 1988, and Policenauts, released in 1994.

In 2005, Kojima founded Kojima Productions, a software house controlled by Konami, and by 2011 he rose as vice president of Konami Digital Entertainment.

In 2015, Kojima Productions split from Konami, becoming an independent software company. Kojima announced a collaboration with Sony Interactive Entertainment for a new action game, Death Stranding, which is currently in development for PlayStation 4. From 2017 to 2018, he also edited a column for Rolling Stone dedicated to cinema, video games and analysis of the differences and similarities between the two mediums.

Reviews

[Marija S.]

Be warned if you are considering reading this book because of Kojima's game designer vocation.

This is a collection of essays on personal impressions of books, movies, anime, etc. and does not discuss his creative process, gaming industry, work experiences, etc.

[cheer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hideo Kojima talks to you about his favorite works of art and goes surprisingly deep into his personal life and perception of reality in the process.

This book is everything to me now. It reads so clearly as Hideo's voice—the way his bizarre extended metaphors and cheesy references can transition into a paragraph of the most profound philosophical thought I have ever heard is incredible.

Kojima is a human being. This is the most personal he has been directly. But reading this book will make you realize just how truly personal every single fiber of the themes of his games truly are. Hideo Kojima has passed on his memes to me, and I will carry them with me wherever I may go. There's no need to feel alone anymore.

"Elsewhere on this Earth, there are other people who share the same loneliness." –Hideo Kojima

[James Andrews · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hideo Kojima is, in my opinion, one of the great auteurs of our time. So, when I saw that he was releasing a book titled The Creative Gene, I had no choice but to instantly pre-order it. (This was probably my first pre-order of any sort of media since the PlayStation 2 era.)

Despite my excitement, this book didn't quite meet my expectations. I mostly blame myself for these erroneous expectations, hobbled by the misleading marketing of the English version, which is subtitled "How books, movies, and music inspired the creator of Death Stranding and Metal Gear Solid." I think it's a stretch to say this book is about how these things inspired Kojima's work.

The book is really a series of previously published essays, most of which focus on a specific novel or movie that influenced Kojima and contributed to his creative DNA. We do get occasional glimpses into how these works directly influenced Kojima's art, and those moments are some of the highlights of the book. (As an especially amusing example: The character of The Boss in Metal Gear Solid 3 is inspired by the matronly, eponymous cat from the novel Jennie by Paul Gallico.) But these small insights feel like tangential confessions as Kojima straightforwardly gushes about his favorite works of art.

The book's original title in Japanese is The Gifted Gene and My Lovable Memes. To me, the "Lovable Memes" part more closely reflects the reality of the book (taking "meme" in the original definition as an idea or concept that spreads from person to person). It's Kojima unashamedly fanboying out on the "memes" that inspired and shaped his own art, even if he only occasionally explains how the influences materialized.

At the very least, this is a great curation of book and movie recommendations. As a Kojima fan, it's a solid 4 stars -- especially if you go in without heightened expectations. The final two essays, plus the interview with Gen Hoshino, were my favorite part. That's where we get the most insight into his creative philosophy, and how he views collaboration, inspiration, and human connection as essential parts of the creative process. As he points out, a "meme" = "Me + Me".

[Steve · Rating 2 out of 5]

An important piece of advice that I’ve begun to really follow more and more as I’ve grown older is that one should never meet their idols. At the very best case scenario, you’ll find they’re a great person, they’ve shared their time with you, and they will really honor your value as a person who has invested their own time in that idol’s career. What a rush. On the other end of the spectrum, you’ll find this person is disconnected from the world, isolated within their own ego, is drunk or addled, is crude, rude, dismissive, the list goes on.

But somewhere in between, somewhere in the space of humility, we will find that our idols are deeply human, just like us. The glow simmers into a tone, the praise just becomes rumor. We find that the people we have created all of these silent myths in our mind about are only straw cities waiting on an ember of reality to raze it from ground to sky. They just become us, they become the people that we could have been, the people that we could still be. And on some level, that’s deeply inspiring. But on another, in my mind, I think we need these proto-human idols. We need larger than life figures who we believe have ‘powers’ beyond our own, who have seen through the algorithm of the human element and are able to squeeze through the cracks of contemporary progress, instead elevating, escalating and innovating in ways that are simply not within our DNA’s vocabulary.

In Kojima’s book, I do believe that this is the closest I will ever come to meeting him.
And in some ways, I’m a little crestfallen.

A couple of years ago I made a list in a notebook of all of the people who I see as creative heroes, people whose vision was one that still reached out of some split in time and space and snatched ideas that I could never have culminated, even in years of silent thought and creation. Their abstract concepts are so unique and so courageous that I absolutely adore not only the fictions that stir from them, but also the fact that the brain that created them resides within these people. It feels like a cosmic reactor frenzying at all times, at all moments, and all that needs to happen is for them to feel inspired and to grab an idea and their dedication, their skill, and their talent will amass to construct all the ductwork, the magnificence, the blueprints, the energy and they will stand beside their creation momentarily, only stepping away next to create something else new. Now, I get that even our most genius creative minds don’t operate like that, and I know that’s a bit of a fairy tale way to look at things, but I know that these people have the potential to be this kind of creator.

Hideo Kojima was (and will always be) on that list.

The creator of the sprawling and mind-dissecting opus of Metal Gear Solid and the high-concept world uniter Death Stranding among other titles, the way this man writes stories and narratives and characters is unlike anyone else I have ever seen. The way he shares on social media from an optimistic creative standpoint and shines light on some of his contemporaries, the way he shares the music that makes him want to create certain games or scenes, the way he will show off new additions to his film library, all of these little things really personally inspire me to always fuel the machine, to always reach out and find new units with which to spark fire inside the mind. He has always had a sort of naivety about him in the way he communicates, a sort of child-like awe and go-get-em attitude that I also am impressed by as someone who has been run through the game industry’s ringer, but also as someone who has had so many eyes on him from so many directions. He just seems to “Get it” and he seems to always be working on something new, and if not, he is “fueling the machine” to make more. To find the next spark.

Initially, reading this book dimmed some of the shine of what I believed this man to be. The language he uses in this book is very basic, very straightforward. There is no flourish and there is a kindly passion bared on the page that feels very shallow. Nearly one-dimensional. It’s a sense of naivety through to the point of a hint of adolescence and simplicity. He is talking about films, books, albums he has loved. I love that! However, we rarely get to see these pieces of media as ones that have made him look at his own work, past and present, in different ways, works that have resonated deeply within him for ideas he may use in the future.

Reading this book, I am led often to wonder about the way we recommend or claim things. I will speak from personal experience, but the arc of my consumption and the shapes of banners I waved began low at its base, claiming things that were initially relatable, excitable, easy to identify with. I liked to recommend things that I knew would sink in instantly and easily. At my absolute summit, I strived to find the most niche and abstract films, books, bands, albums to hand off to friends. My imagination ran wild with the sense of blind ambition this would inspire in others, to have a seed planted in their mind and heart that something like this could exist, something that was difficult to find, something that was obscured from all normal vision. I thought it would spread like a viral contagion, the passion and longing for new things that existed below the surface, if only they too could take that one extra step to discover a new director or a new record label. It isn’t until now that I am getting to the stage that I believe Kojima is at while writing this book, that regardless of how he found these books, these films, no matter if these things are standing in a spotlight in front of the eyes of billions or something he found as a one-of-a-kind artifact, he just wants to share his joy about it. That’s the type of language I’m finding within this book: joyous. His excitement for each unit is bright and tangible.

In my own sharing of different media, mainly music, I have often said that when I send out a playlist or hand out a mixtape, the ultimate goal is for someone to find just one song or band that they’re going to keep with them, and sort of remember the process of how they found it and hope to do the same in their life going forward (with anything, not just music). I think Kojima is accomplishing this, doing almost exactly what I tend to do with these bi-annual releases I make. He’s sharing the stuff he loves and giving personal connection to why he wants others to check it out. Am I reading this book for a new upgrade of how I understand the language, to be swooned by incredible turn-of-phrase? No. No way. I read this book to see the types of fuel that this powerhouse creative feeds his machinery with. And this book delivers. I do love this aspect of that. Especially because this book is a collection of older essays that he’s written in the past.

I think the most misleading thing about this book is that I assumed (something I take full accountability for) that this book would feel a little bit more like a course in how to siphon that fuel and turn it outward into something of your own design. I had visions of reading how he took these books, these films, these records, and how he channeled it into specific elements of his own games, how different lines in a novel changed the way he wrote a MGS scene. How he constructed an entire 8 hour portion of Death Stranding around a single time he heard a Chvrches song. This is not that book. So for that reason, I do feel a bit disappointed. The title itself and the subtitle I think are absolute misnomers. I don’t believe we discuss any Creative Gene, whether it be genetic or memetic, nor do we discover how these movies, books or music inspired the creator. We learn what he likes. We learn that he is inspired by them. And that’s fine! But we definitively do not learn how these inspire him.

The core tenet of this book, though, is one that I think is one that I believe is crucial for fans of any media to learn. I think it was attempted to be instilled in us during high school english classes, and truly an art form of its own that gets a lot more time in college courses. That is the idea of thinking critically and abstractly about media on its own. Some may argue that thinking about what art is takes away from what art does (or vice versa), but I don’t think I have enjoyed music, film or literature quite as much as I have when I have two or three parallel lines or analogues being built alongside it while I’m experiencing it. This book does a wonderful job of giving early insight on how to understand why we consume the media that we do. How it creates landmarks across our life of not only how the plots of books, how the sound of songs or how the scenes in movies exist as memories in their current form, but also who we were before and after we experienced them, the way that those moments shaped our lives coming out of them and the way that they changed the way we think about all things that occurred before and after them. Kojima’s kind and direct language is an enjoyable beginner’s course for how to do this. In fact, I know that while I’m reading this book, I’m thinking and wondering what my book of this very nature would be as well and I’m sure plenty of others have had similar thoughts.

I don’t recommend this book unless you really love Kojima and can’t get enough of his content. I came away from it with a couple of books added to the Want to Read list and a few movies in the queue, but nothing that changed how I saw creativity or creation, nor was it able to change the way I felt about existing media or a fresh take on anything that I wanted to watch or listen to. There was no hidden gem within, no shining nugget at the core of the experience.

[Artù · Rating 4 out of 5]

Era l’anno 1986. Avevo tre anni. Mi venne regalato un Atari, una scatola nera dal design semplice, che aveva il potere di collegarsi ad una tv e di permetterti di giocare a casa ai videogames.
Fu una folgorazione, quei pochi pixel su schermo in movimento sollecitavano la mia fantasia. Ero un avventuriero nella giungla, una navicella spaziale, un pilota di formula uno, un pugile, un tennista e molto molto altro. Bastava cambiare cartuccia per una nuova esperienza.
Oggi i videogames sono molto cambiati. È un industria florida con introiti ed investimenti superiore al mondo del cinema. Sono diventato più critico nei loro confronti ed i libri sono diventati il mio intrattenimento primario, nonostante tutto continuo a seguire quel mondo, le ultime novità, preferendo giochi dalla grafica colorata a quelli ultra realistici.
Hideo Kojima, è un famoso game designer. Celebre per la sua saga Metal Gear Solid e per il recente Death Stranding. Kojima in questa libro ci parla dei suoi interessi e spiega cosa sia per lui un “meme”. Un “meme” secondo il game designer è un gene culturale che si trasmette di persona in persona e che sopravvive al tempo se viene tramandato ed attecchisce. Questo avviene grazie alla peculiarità dell’uomo di raccontarsi storie attraverso la parola, orale e scritta, attraverso il cinema, la musica e l’arte.
Nel libro Kojima ci parla delle opere che hanno influenzato la sua vita, ossia dei suoi personali “meme”, la lettura è molto piacevole e pagina dopo pagina, vengono fuori anche aspetti della vita dell’autore. Kojima è una grande amante di cinema, musica e libri in particolare Gialli, Mistery, Fantascienza, Sci-fi e generi affini.
In questo libro si parla dei Joy Division, di 2001 Odissea nello Spazio, di Blade Runner e di numerosi manga pop Giapponesi. Un buon libro a dimostrare come un lavoro creativo quale quello di game designer sia anche un lavoro culturale e di ricerca.

[alexis · Rating 3 out of 5]

A must read for anyone who played Death Stranding and spent the entire time thinking about the overlapping themes and role of women in comparison to the metal gear solid series but was still part of the venn diagram who was charmed by the extreme un-subtlety of names like “Die-Hardman” and screamed out loud when they revealed his birth name twenty minutes before the end of the game.

[Arkan Tyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found out that me and the man himself have so much in common when it comes to experiencing art that is literally insane.

[Stevens · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately found this book to be quite disappointing… I was recommended and lent this by my game dev colleagues. Admittedly, I’ve never played MGS or Death Stranding, but as a Level Designer in the industry, it’s impossible to not have heard of Kojima and his works that have earned him his world-renowned status.

That status is what got me excited to read this book. I wanted to delve deep into the mind of Kojima, his principles, direction, concepts, approach to new mechanics, ability to connect with players, exercises in generating new ideas etc. I wanted my own design mentality and creative process to be challenged so that I can improve, but what I unexpectedly got instead was a collection of (in most cases, massively outdated) book, movie and music reviews.

You could argue that’s what I should’ve expected from the title, but Kojima only really mentions MGS and Death Stranding a handful of times, and barely ever actually highlights direct influences. There’s a few sections where it feels like it’s on track, and then it suddenly diverts away again.

Ultimately, I think your enjoyment of this book depends on whether or not you’re an existing fan of Kojima and/or his works - I’d have found it much more interesting, for example, had it have been a Joe Staten or Jason Jones writing about inspirations for the Halo universe purely because it’s a franchise I’m more familiar with and inspired by.

Kojima, I think it’s time to make a Goodreads account mate.

[Connor Foley · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*

Interesting way to compile a semi-autobiography by connecting the media you were exposed to to the shifts of thinking or milestone moments of one’s life. Very relatable as one who can categorize periods of their life by the movies, music or books I obsessed over

[Yaroslav · Rating 4 out of 5]

Эта книга - сборник размышлений Кодзимы о различных фильмах, книгах, аниме, музыке, которые в свое время повлияли на него, оставили след в душе - и теперь он делится впечатлениями и объясняет, почему эти мемы стоят внимания.

Мемы - это термин, который постоянно упоминается в книге тут и там. Имеется в виду информация, которая передается от человека к человеку. Разумеется, эти мемы могут по-всякому сочетаться, соединяться, "прорастать" в разные идеи.

Конечно, в ходе прочтения хочется взять некоторые вещи на заметку.

В книжке есть и некоторые подробности биографии Хидео: он вспоминает детство, учебу в университете, отдельные моменты профессиональной карьеры. Порой в этих воспоминаниях повторяется, но они все равно интересны и достаточно откровенны. Дают лучше понять Кодзиму, объясняют его идеи и мотивации.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really wish that the people criticising this book for not providing enough details about his game design, or straying too far from the title could leave their celebrity admiration behind and experience this book from an angle in which Kojima is also just Kojima. An incredibly sensitive, intelligent master mind who’s telling you about his life in the form of essays listing his favourite books, shows, movies and songs. As much as I sometimes struggled with the compartmentalisation into essays, I also think it was one of the most beautiful ways to get to know him. I might know more about him now than after reading other biographies containing 400 pages of every detailed move of a person’s life. This felt way more intimate and thoughtful, and therefore undoubtedly deserves five stars. “Funnily” enough, my favourite chapter was the one about Joy Division in which he was incredibly vulnerable —

“Rather than the hopeless loneliness I felt inside crowds of the living, I chose to converse with the dead, whom I could never reach. Rather than the living people who would not understand me, I chose the dead who shared the same understanding as me.”.

[Arjen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a collection of "memes" (essentially ideas you pass onto someone else, not the funny ones about cats that bonk their owners) that inspired Hideo Kojima to create his famous works (mainly Metal Gear Solid). For the most part I've read, listened and watch everything mentioned in the book. For TV series I've mostly stuck with the pilot and a few additional episodes and not the entire series. Here's a quick overview what I thought about it.


Novels:


James P. Hogan - Inherit the Stars: 4/5

Dennis Lehane - Darkness, Take My Hand: 5/5

Paul Galicco - Jennie: 3/5

Teru Miyamoto - Kinshu: Autumn Brocade: 4/5

Kobo Abe - Woman in the Dunes: 5/5

Robert B. Parker - Early Autumn: 4/5

Agatha Christie - And Then There Were None: 4/5

Atsushi Nakajima - The Moon over the Mountain: DNF

Hiro Ariokawa - Hankyu Railway: No English translation

Minato Shuwaka - Orgel: No English translation

Don Winslow - Satori: 3/5

Ryu Murakami - Coin Locker Babies: 4/5

Sakyo Komatsu - Virus: The Day of Resurrection: 4/5

Akira Yoshimura - Castaway: No English translation

Stephen King - 'Salem's Lot: 3/5

Walter Wick - I Spy (series): Didn't read (children's book)

Ryo Asai - The Voices of the Hoshiyadori Café: No English translation

Hiroko Minagawa - The Resurrection Fireplace: 5/5

Ágota Kristóf - The Notebook, The Proof, The Third Lie: 5/5

Baku Yumemakura - The Summit of the Gods: No English translation, read a bit of the manga, 2/5

China Miéville - The City & The City: 3/5

Miyuki Miyabe - All She Was Worth: 3/5

Lucien Nahum - Shadow 81: Extremely expensive book, didn't read

Project Itoh - Metal Gear Solid: Guns of the Patriots: 5/5


Manga:


Kame Rider 1971: 2/5

The Drifting Classroom: 3/5

Umimachi Diary: 3/5

Tout Seul (Alone): 5/5

2001 Nights: 3/5

President Kosaku Shima: 3/5


Movies:


Elevator to the Gallows: 6/10

North Face: 7/10

Taxi Driver: 6/10

Blade Runner: 6/10

2001: A Space Odyssey: 7/10


TV:


Space Battleship Yamato: 6/10 (watched both old and new series)

Columbo: Publish or Perish: 6/10

Sunday Foreign Movie Theatre 40th Anniversary:

Nagaharu Yodogawa’s Classic Film Comments: No English translation

Bewitched: 5/10

Little House on the Prairie: 6/10

Shin Chan: 8/10

Ultraseven: 4/10

The Genius Bakabon: 6/10 (no English translation for old series, so only watched new series)


Music:


Joy Division: 6/10

[Sophia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bin sehr froh, dass nur die ca. erste Hälfte um Bücher geht. Nach den ersten 70 Seiten hatte ich schon 6 neue Bücher auf meiner tbr... Danach ging es noch um Bücher, Bands und sonstige kulturelle Themen wie die Erfindung des Walkmans.

[Sol · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full disclosure: the only Metal Gear game I've played is Revengeance, which Kojima wasn't involved with. I did play Death Stranding, and anyone who includes a line like THIS in a 100-million dollar video game can only be a genius. Death Stranding is so delightfully wacky in so many ways, the Monster™ energy drinks, the piss and cum grenades, the cyberpunk Facebook-like economy. Trying to describe that game would make it sound like a joke, but it somehow works. So what exactly is Kojima's creative gene?

It's memes, the DNA of the soul. There are probably more uses of the word meme than in any one Richard Dawkins book. The whole book is a collection of two magazine column series, one focused on books and one on movies. They're both eclectic mixes of random influences, from the western mystery and scifi books he read as a youth, to the I Spy books he played with his son, to having his first crush on an Ultraseven character, to being a "literally me" Taxi Driver teen, to having a religious experience watching 2001: A Space Odyssey. I dearly wish this went up to his experiences with the Paddington movies, but it ends in the One is a short eulogy for his friend Project Itoh. The early and sudden death of his father and the aftermath of the Tohoku earthquake are frequent topics. He muses on the nature of creativity, the importance of chance encounters and the value of experiencing new things.

The book-based essays are shorter and less substantial than the movie series, and the book topics are trying a bit harder to come off as wise and sagely, while the movie essays let out the inner (man)child a bit more. On the other hand, their brevity. There's nothing particularly groundbreaking about anything he says, and they clearly weren't meant to be read all at once like this. Even so, this genre of random artistic influences is a favourite of mine, though I'm only aware of this and Alexis Kennedy's article.

It also indulges my interest in ouroborotic cross-cultural communication. Kojima is a Japanese guy, reading western works translated into Japanese (one of which is about a western man raised by a Japanese mentor), then creating Japanese works full of western visuals, that are consumed by western AND Japanese audiences. This is simply something that was not possible to experience in any previous century. At best, you got a one-way cultural communication as you read the translation of some foreign work or a countryman's experiences in another land. This back-and-forth, back-and-forth, creating this bizarre cultural blend, where you can't tell where one culture ends and the other begins, did not exist until very recently. Another beloved example is Undertale. Shigesato Itoi created Earthbound, which is an occidentalist JRPG set in America. It was translated into English and flopped badly, but attained a cult following in America, and inspired the creation of Homestuck and later Undertale. That game was then translated into Japanese and became a gigahit there, and now Toby Fox composes Pokemon music and "Megalovania" is in Super Smash Bros. Machine translation technology now means people can shitpost on youtube with those they share no common language with.

[DJ_Keyser · Rating 4 out of 5]

Across a variety of artistic mediums, there are a few people I uphold as personal heroes with the upmost of reverence. Aphex Twin, Nicolas Winding Refn and Alan Moore are a few, but Hideo Kojima has also retained this status ever since I first played Metal Gear Solid upon release. The Creative Gene is a collection of personal essays detailing the formative works and themes of Kojima’s life. Folk that aren’t Kojima die-hards may not be as enamoured as I by the content, but if you’re searching for insight into the inputs and influences that shaped him, you can go no further than this.

[Ro Quirarte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entre queriendo aprender más de Kojima y salí con tarea.

[Diletta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Recensioni carine e umili vs picchi di "sono il miglior game designer di sempre".
Carino.

[Mattie · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first book of 2022, The Creative Gene by Hideo Kojima! And like Kojima with "BlaRun", I've held my own little Festival with his works 😁
This books gives a brilliant insight to the creative approach, what has shaped and inspired Kojima, what has rescued him, what makes him so relatable and how I just want to bump into him in a bookstore and talk media, books, music and all the good things!
You will most certainly notice some quirks of his if you have played or followed his work, I've always followed Kojima's media posts, from music to movies and books and this has been a adventure!

I have discovered an amazing amount of media through this book, I've learned about the love of being an astronaut, Ludens seems so familiar, the love and escape music and books provide, like Joy Division done for him, Kamen Rider and passing the torch to Taxi Driver rescuing him.

As an avid fan of Kojima, he's not just the Metal Gear or Death Stranding guy, he's someone I eagerly look to for recommendations on books, movies and music as well! Death Stranding to me is what the Yamato movie was to him at that time, a bridged understanding, a connection of many! Thank you for sharing your thoughts and memes Kojima-San!

[Jozua · Rating 5 out of 5]

This guy has made some of my absolute favorite games I have ever played!

It was a privilege to read through the life experiences of Hideo Kojima summed up in reviews about books/movies/mangas/music that have had an impact on his life.
Every review explains what he felt/learned when he encountered that book/.../... which makes this a (for me) unique look into a person's life.

The influences on his games were (again for me) very clear to see and made me love them even more as an art form.

So expect a book written as a review per chapter with some minor spoilers to explain how he learned to live/love/think.
A philosophical walk through his experiences!

[Nicolò Grasso · Rating 2 out of 5]

A collection of articles and essays that Kojima wrote in the late 2000s and early 2010s on his favorite books, music, and films. It's very simplistic and often banal, with occasional moments of insight into his mind and creative input. It reads like hearing a friend talk about what he likes, and not in a good way.

[Enrico Andreuccetti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Da ottimi spunti sia per capire un po’ meglio Kojima che per scoprire libri o spunti che magari ancora non si erano ancora incrociati. Buon libro. C’è poco da ricordare, ma è sicuramente da rileggere a piacimento.

[Jay Slayton-Joslin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love Kojima and it was great to see into his personal life but this book wasn't it. More like reading some personal goodreads reviews and accompanying essays.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a super fun read. Metal Gear Solid is my favorite game franchise of all time and I was super excited to dig into this book.

The Creative Gene is a collection of essays published by Hideo Kojima at different points in his career. Each essay was written within the last 20 some-odd years. It was a bit different from what I expected. Mostly each essay explores the particularly inspirational books, movies, and television productions Kojima was influenced by.

I enjoyed the second half of this book much more than the first. It felt as though there was a loose chronological order on the second half of his essays. Two such examples are as follows: he discusses his relationship with his father and compliments it by talking about how instrumental Space Battleship Yamato was for him during his formative years. Here he draws a comparison between the way the 1970’s animation glorified honor and a premise called “roman.” Which his father’s generation revered. He then talks about how a slice-of-life manga outlining a salaryman’s career connected to him during his early years in management at Konami.

The overarching theme of The Creative Gene is that connection through storytelling is extremely powerful as it relates to the human condition.

I think part of what’s made Kojima so successful is his unbridled creativity and weirdness. Some of the stuff he was “allowed” to do in the Metal Gear Solid series was unfathomable and miraculous. It speaks volumes to his team that nowhere in the production pipeline did someone stop him and say “hey, maybe we don’t need to have this boss only be beatable by making the player plug their controller into the ‘player 2’ controller slot.” Or “maybe it’s not a good idea to have this cryptic radio frequency hidden in the game manual.” From what I understand, that corporate “weird resistance” is what led Kojima to eventually leave Konami. His departure culminated in Konami’s bastardization of the Metal Gear IP by releasing the most generic, run-of-the-mill, watered-down, vanilla bean frappe of a zombie/Metal Gear fusion game titled “Metal Gear: Survive.”

*groans*

It’s funny because in this book, Kojima says he’s not a big Stephen King fan. But they remind me so much of each other. That weirdness is what makes each great. And I think with both of them, the more chef’s they have stirring their pot, the more watered down and uninteresting their content becomes.

ALSO, this book is setup exactly as Stephen King’s Danse Macabre is setup. The former outlining Kojima’s influences, the latter outlining King’s.

[Rebeca F. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nunca he sido fan de Kojima, de hecho, siempre he tenido cierto perjuicio hacia su persona debido a su actitud versus la de otros autores en la industria de los videojuegos que me encantan, como Taro o Miyazaki, sin embargo su aporte resulta innegable y las ideas, sobre todo detrás de Death Stranding, me resultan muy interesantes, por lo que al encontrarme con este texto en la librería decidí comprarlo sin saber mucho de qué iba.
Y la verdad es que mis prejuicios desaparecieron y mi imagen del cerebro tras MGS cambió completamente. Pese a ello, el libro puede resultar decepcionante para aquellos que buscan aprender más sobre su proceso creativo o incluso leer en profundidad sobre sus influencias, pues es básicamente un compendio de reseñas sobre películas, libros, mangas, música, etc. que lo han influido a través de su vida, relacionando estos productos culturales con sus experiencias y usándolos de base para reflexionar sobre diversos temas como la identidad nipona, la soledad, la familia, las expectativas sociales, etc.
Resulta bastante interesante, pero los textos son muy breves, por ende sólo alcanzan a tratar los temas por encima.

[Brumaire Bodbyl-Mast · Rating 4 out of 5]

A decent collection of essays by Kojima which, as the title suggests, look at the media (and concepts) which inspired the game developer, his work and his outlook. The range which Kojima draws from is truly fascinating, intermixing violent manga with Austen, and tales of outer space with stories of his father’s early death. The book is distinctly Japanese (he often uses the lifespans of emperors as a year reference, like Showa 30, or Heisei 20, and using these lifespans too as generational divides) yet by and large remains comprehensive. Any old western nerd of my father’s generation could pick this up and recognize a good 60% of the media alone, but as I said earlier, his lens is not entirely western, and many of his media recommendations are quite great. It can trend a bit sci fi heavy, but given his occupation as a game dev I can’t particularly blame him. Also he loves joy division. I think the translation job makes him sound a bit dumber than the original text may actually sound, and I also think several of the essays which were featured in the original collection are missing. Overall though still worth a look through.

[ms1v · Rating 5 out of 5]

I expected this to be more of a memoir when I first started reading it, but it's not. It's a collection of previously published essays serialized in Da Vinci and Papyrus magazines, available for the first time in English. I was still blown away. I wish I could've read this years ago when they were first written. The insights Kojima gives to his creative process and viewpoint of the world is intensely interesting, and my only gripe is that I wish there was more contemporary material. A must read for anyone who enjoys Kojima's works.

[Alya · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a book about how Kojima made his games… per se. This is a book where you can see how every piece of media he talks about had its influences in his creations. It was like reading a personal diary.

How does one become as talented as he is? You have to read. You have to watch. You have to listen. Then you think about those that made an impact on you (e.g his film reviews on X). You let it inspire your future works.

I guess it was kind of nice to know someone as up there as he is shares the same values as you. Perhaps, this is the ‘meme’ that he often talks about that connects us as humans.

OFC, it’s an unavoidable thing we have to live with, but whether we are artists, writers, etc etc, there are things that AI will never be able to do — and you will never be able to achieve or improve on if you don’t think for yourself. Sure, it’s a tool, but is there any better tool in this life than our own minds?

[Ryleigh Dorman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kojima speaks about the works that influenced him with such a contagious admiration. He is a creator first, but an audience second, held at the whim of the artists whose light touches changed his creative pathways. Every summary bleeds with an adorable level of reverence for these sometimes esoteric pieces (at least to an American). I would love to see a more detailed autobiography from Kojima, but learning about his life through his favorite media was a clever way to explore himself.

[Javier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me parece increíble como con una bibliografía de recomendaciones, se convierte en una de las biografías más íntimas que he leído de nadie. Gracias a este libro no solo te llevas un puñado de buenas recomendaciones si no que entiendes los hilos y memes que conforman el mundo de Kojima, como los asocia con la pérdida de su padre, con su soledad y su camino y visión de autor. No esperaba nada tan profundo he quedado ciertamente sorprendido.

[MightySSStrawberry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I LOVE Metal Gear Solid and Death Stranding and have been in awe of Kojima’s storytelling, themes, and how he does his games. I can always feel his passion in his works. I had to read this. It’s a great though brief peek into how he views creativity and what makes him passionate about his work. He’s a genius.

The interview with Kojima at the very end bumped my rating to 4 stars. It is a great summary of his life passion. Because I now understand more deeply what drives him to create, I now understand his games more deeply, and I love and appreciate them all the more!

I am looking forward to Death Stranding 2!