“This isn't the kind of movie a child can understand though”
Kojima's father admired soldiers but was repulsed by war, and when Hideo was a child he made him watch an anti‑war film, Night and Fog; Kojima said it was not the kind of movie a child can understand.
“As a child, he made Hideo watch an anti-war film, Night and Fog.”
“Making war games felt uncomfortable as my parents had experienced war. ... so that's why I tried putting in the anti-war, anti-nuclear themes into my games.”
Kojima described his father as a chemist involved in the development of new medicines who, within the corporate structure, was nevertheless a salaryman enduring crowded trains, conflicts with coworkers and persistent fatigue while continuing to work, and who finally managed to buy a house in a Kansai suburb. In that newly created town with no shared past, families and children measured one another by academic background and job title as if playing a card game; Kojima rebelled by choosing the then-young video game industry, where he believed titles weren’t necessary and only a person’s ability mattered.
“It was during that time that my parents introduced a family tradition: every night we would all watch a film together. I wasn't allowed to go to bed till the film had finished: the opposite of how it is for most children.”
“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's father, who had survived the Great Tokyo Air Raid and as a boy had wanted to join the navy, drank and built model ships; the family's bathroom "dry dock" held many wrecked Yamato models. Seeing the title on the TV listings, he forced Hideo to watch the premiere broadcast of Space Battleship Yamato on October 6, 1974, but the boy found it boring and from the following week secretly switched the channel to Army of the Apes; only the reruns shown at dinnertime later turned him into a fan.