It was during that time that my parents introduced a family…

Kojima's parents began a nightly tradition of watching a film with their children; the children were not allowed to go to bed until the film had finished.

At 43, Kojima ranked his three vital cultural nutrients as movies, music, and novels. His father loved movies, so Kojima was made to absorb films from the time he began forming memories, and music came along with those viewings; by contrast, although the family home was filled with books and his parents placed children's classics on his desk to tempt him, he still did not read even by the end of elementary school.

“It became a habit which I still have. ... I'd think up stories because I had so much time alone.”

Kojima describes the family house in Kawanishi (Hyogo) where he lived from fifth grade: his room and his brother’s were symmetrical, separated by a sliding door, with identical beds facing each other, and when they slept they could hear each other’s breathing and even what they said in their dreams. After dinner, the bath and the living-room TV were finished, the children would shut themselves in their room and turn on the radiocassette; as a result he developed the habit of lying on his bed and listening to the radio.

“I started to go see foreign movies from 5th grade, and always bought the movie pamphlets. I still have all of them.”