my father pushing me out on the ocean on a boat. It was so…

“The truth is that because my dad died, I was able to get into the game industry. ... If my dad was alive, he'd have been opposed. He was a very scary man.”

“I've been stuck with something of a father complex ever since. All the Metal Gear games so far have been paternal stories. They're all about killing your father (laughs).”

Kojima recalled that when his son was small they did all kinds of activities and trips together, but that abruptly ended when his son started junior high and preferred to be with his friends. Since Kojima's own father died when he was thirteen and he had no experience of going through adolescence with a father, he said he did not know what closeness or distance to adopt with his son; he sought guidance by rereading Early Autumn.

Kojima lived near the sea in Tsujido until he was three, and after returning to the nearby Tokyo area in 1996 he took his eldest son many times to the coastal towns of his memories. On one route in Enoshima they saw fish, ate rice with seafood and manju buns, rode the ESCAR toll escalator—which Kojima called a rip-off—returned by ferry and ended the day in a café: Kojima drank coffee, the boy had juice, and Southern All-Stars songs played in the background.

“My home was close to the sea, and it left a very strong impression on me.”