HIDEO KOJIMA presents Brain Structure #03 — Hideo Kojima x Mamoru Oshii: Part 1

“It's a difficult line to toe. You can't end up in the red, but don't want to be too far in the black and lose your freedom.”

“That first scene with Motoko and Ghost in the Shell is like one of my favourite movies, Melville Samurai.”

“I like films, but decided to make games, and that's why I think my work is a bit unique.”

“They can't break free, they can't quit, they can't lose. It felt like that when Metal Gear started gaining fans and I started getting fan letters.”

“It's a little presumption of me to make a commentary on it, but things really changed before and after Mr. Oshii's animation style.”

“And then I made Metal Gear, and I really didn't think it was going to do that well. And it flew off the shelves, and Mr. Oshii was like, "Hideo, you can't make something like that."”

“I really respect Mr. Oshii as a creator, but as a person too. I've known him for 26 years and owe him for a number of things. Thanks to this show, I was able to meet with him again.”

“I came to Tokyo in 1996, not too long after going through the Kobe earthquake. At that time, I was making a game called Policenauts, and when we were working on the Sega Saturn version, Mr. Mamoru Oshii and I met and had our first conversation.”

“At that time, actually, we had a plan for Mr. Oshii to come to my studio and get a 3D scan done of him so he could appear in Death Stranding. But he had a broken bone at that time, so I didn't get to see him.”

“I was already involved in the game industry, but at the beginning, I was staying in a boarding house and was watching VHS tapes. That's when I first encountered Mr. Oshii's mystery article file, 538. I was really surprised.”

“At one point, Mr. Oshii called me up and said, "I'm with Cameron in America, and we're going to go shoot some guns. Do you want to come with us?" At that time, I couldn't go though, but that's what our relationship has been like for 26 years.”

“Mr. Oshii remixed it very precisely and I do that with my games too. It's that sort of thing that makes Mr. Oshii really special. He just builds up all the tiny details.”

“The whole place was crazy. I saw it and thought, great things can be made here. The lunches and everything were crazy too.”