When Kojima was still a student who paid almost exclusive attention to Western novels, Shibumi, written by the American Trevanian, introduced him to the ancient Japanese concept of shibumi. He did not aspire merely to be a man with that suave, detached elegance, but to master it completely.
As a fan of Shibumi, Kojima opened Satori, the prequel written by Don Winslow, with unease. The first two pages —a maple leaf and the recollection of killing a father-figure— dispelled his doubts; he described the prose as so visual that an opera-house assassination scene played in his mind with image and sound, like a storyboard ready to be filmed.
When Kojima reread Shibumi in 2006 as part of his research for Metal Gear Solid 4, he was startled by parallels with ideas he had already used: a combat discipline similar to CQC, the heightened threat perception he learned in scout/tracking training, and the merciful murder of a parental figure, which he related to Big Boss and The Boss. His reappraisal led him to recommend the novel to the development team.
Kojima discovered Shadow 81 while in his second year of junior high when a faceup stack of the foreign genre novel stood out in Shinchosha’s new-release section; he associated Shinchosha with serious classics and the publisher’s tactfully elegant cover completed the attraction. Thirty-five years later he reread the book and, on a Hayakawa reprint, found his own obi endorsement: he described the novel as his absolute favorite and said he had never seen a plot that surpassed it.
Kojima said he loved the work of Teru Miyamoto and had read his novels exhaustively during his adolescence. While seeking escape in fanciful translated books, those novels helped him come to terms with his real, true-to-life self; he placed Kinshu as his favorite, followed by Haru no Yume and Ao ga Chiru.
“Molly is just a little bit clumsy at life.”