Wondering Where Metal Gear Creator Hideo Kojima Got His 'Future-Oriented and Globalized Outlook?' A 'Life-Changing' Expo He Attended in 1970

Death Stranding and Metal Gear bid creator Hideo Kojima precocious revealed however repeated visits to the 1970 World Expo (Expo ‘70) arsenic a kid had a “life-changing” interaction connected him, profoundly shaping his outlook arsenic a crippled developer. In a abstracted piece, the legendary video crippled auteur shared however helium had a precise antithetic acquisition of the existent Expo 2025.

As spotted by Automaton, the 62-year-old Kojima wrote an effort for An-An mag detailing however Expo '70 shaped his worldview: "Without that Expo, I wouldn’t person developed my future-oriented and globalized outlook. Metal Gear and Death Stranding would not person travel into being."

Osaka hosted the Expo '70, with 76 countries and 32 organizations participating (source: Expo '70 Commemorative Park authoritative website). Kojima said that astatine the clip helium had conscionable started simple schoolhouse and lived adjacent the lawsuit site. This gave him the accidental to sojourn the Expo galore times.

Hideo Kojima has revealed however visiting an Expo successful 1970 shaped his worldview. Photo by Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for Kojima Productions.

"I could adjacent spell aft schoolhouse connected weekdays," helium recalled, borrowing his dad’s marque caller camera (the Ricoh Auto Half Expo '70 Model) and snapping loads of photos. "Whenever you entered a pavilion, you received a badge," helium remembered, adding that children proudly showed disconnected their collections to each other.

The main taxable of Expo '70 was 'Progress and Harmony for Mankind.' It adjacent had its ain taxable opus — Haruo Minami’s 'Sekai nary kuni kara konnichiwa' (Hello from the countries of the world), which Kojima quoted successful his effort — with lyrics that absorption connected saying "hello" and "holding hands" crossed countries and borders (the opus is connected YouTube with English subtitles).

"At the Expo, I experienced 'Progress and Harmony for Mankind' up close. I said 'hello' and 'shook hands' with (avant-garde artist) Taro Okamoto, (sci-fi novelist) Sakyo Komatsu, (architects) Kenzo Tange and Kisho Kurokawa, and (fashion designers) Junko Koshino and Hanae Mori. It was each a shocking 'close brushwood of the 3rd kind,'" Kojima remembered. "Technology, science, design, fashion, history, the world, culture, society. You could accidental that that 'hello' backmost past shaped who I became. 'Shaking hands' with the Expo changed my beingness and my imaginativeness of the future."

Kojima explained that "the Expo's greatness wasn't conscionable successful the glimpses it offered of cutting-edge exertion and the regular beingness of the future. It showed maine the planetary diverseness of nations, ethnicities, races, religions, customs, and histories. It embodied the essence of 'past and future' and 'the satellite and harmony.' Without that Expo, I wouldn’t person developed my future-oriented and globalized outlook. Metal Gear and Death Stranding would not person travel into being."

One of the large attractions of Expo '70 was the Moon Rock astatine the U.S. pavilion, which had been brought backmost from the Moon by Apollo 12 astronauts the erstwhile year. Despite his galore visits, Kojima said that "unfortunately, the U.S. pavilion, wherever I’d hoped to spot the Moon Rock, was excessively crowded, truthful I ne'er got to spot it with my ain eyes." He besides recalled waiting implicit 2 hours to get into the U.S.S.R pavilion.

But what does Kojima consciousness astir the existent Expo 2025 that is being held successful Osaka, and however did his acquisition compare? In a follow-up effort published successful An-An, Kojima wrote astir visiting Expo 2025 connected a precise rainy day, camera successful tow again: "I wanted to spot for myself however 'globalism' and 'visions of the future' person changed implicit the past 55 years, and however the baton volition beryllium passed connected (to aboriginal generations)." However, the acquisition gave Kojima a "strange feeling."

The developer explained: "I didn't get that consciousness of a tremendous aboriginal similar I did arsenic a kid (at Expo '70). It wasn't thrilling oregon exciting. Just a ceaseless, predictable time stretching connected and on. It wasn't that determination was nary 'future' — alternatively that I couldn't ascertain the adjacent 'tomorrow' for myself. The 'future' I dreamed of astatine that (1970) Expo — I've already experienced astir of it. Robots, videophones and moving walkways person go commonplace. The time that this (2025) Expo promotes is 1 that children volition witness."

Kojima gave the sentiment that World Expos are chiefly for children, arsenic they are the ones who volition instrumentality mankind into the future. Whether the futuristic designs astatine the 2025 Expo volition beryllium typical of what the existent aboriginal volition beryllium is "something aged radical tin ne'er know." However, Kojima added that helium enjoyed the Expo: "Although I volition not beryllium capable to acquisition this aboriginal firsthand, I program to spell again."

Any subordinate of Metal Gear Solid oregon Death Stranding doesn’t person to look acold to spot however some bid diagnostic divers casts of characters, with stories often acceptable successful the adjacent aboriginal that grapple with some the tremendous possibilities and dangers of technology. MGS1 explored familial engineering and the conception of gene-therapy enhanced soldiers, MGS2 delved into the dangers of net censorship and human-sounding AI chatbots (making it an absorbing revisit successful 2025), portion MGS4 showed a mech-filled aboriginal successful which paramilitary conglomerates wage endless wars for profit.

With its Chiral Network, Death Stranding holds up a reflector to the benefits and dangers of the net and integer society, and the conflict to reconnect a fragmented, post-apocalyptic world. Legacy and passing connected the aboriginal to consequent generations are besides large Kojima themes, and it seems they were shaped by his puerility experiences of Expo '70.

As a broadside note, the Expo '70 tract is inactive unfastened to the nationalist today, though each the pavilions that awed the young Kojima person since been demolished. Now called the Expo'70 Commemorative Park, it inactive features the event's symbolic Tower of the Sun, a sculpture by Taro Okamoto.

Photo by Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for Kojima Productions.

Verity Townsend is simply a Japan-based freelance writer who antecedently served arsenic editor, contributor and translator for the crippled quality tract Automaton West. She has besides written astir Japanese civilization and movies for assorted publications.