food

Kojima admired that North Face shifted genres like mountain weather: what first appears to be a war movie becomes a mountaineering film, then a satire of the press, and finally a disaster movie. He emphasized a material contrast: the climbers quit the alpine infantry, assemble homemade equipment and bicycle the entire 700 kilometers because they could not afford train tickets, while the journalists arrive as tourists, dine in formal wear in an opulent heated hotel and watch through telescopes those who sleep in a tent and sip barley soup amid the storm.

“true game design”

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.

Kojima said he tries to watch one film a day and devotes all his non-working time to that; he gets through meals as quickly as possible and spends the rest of his time on film watching and reading, except on weekends when he plays with his children.

“So this is why I started going to dinners with cast members. […] But this kind of work style of mine started from here.”

“We used like 500 or 600 eggs, but we couldn't throw them out, so the staff was going to eat them.”

“I can't say what project it is, although I'm sure you all can guess. But there was a song that fit perfectly in this one scene. So I asked him, hey, can I use this?”

Kojima, raised in Kansai, says he loves Osaka's takoyaki and Kobe's akashiyaki; he recounts that there the custom is to make them yourself, with 'takoyaki parties' in which each friend brings ingredients, and that for him they were special precisely because they demand achieving the perfect sphere.

“When I had just started my own studio and had nothing, I pitched the DS project to Norman at a sushi restaurant and asked him if he would like to do it with me. He instantly said yes even though I didn't even have a script.”

“When I see movies and get ideas, usually just talking to people, eating or walking, or maybe I'm in a bath, I come up with these ideas. So it's almost like a disease, I call it. Even when I'm talking with my family, in my head, I'm in a totally different world.”

For the tenth anniversary of Kojima Productions, at the «Beyond the Strand» event in September 2025, Kojima announced, in addition to video games, an augmented reality game with Niantic, an official sake called ZAKU LUDENS, and a branded credit card with the bank Mitsubishi UFJ.

“I even used to grind the beans myself, but recently, I just use Nespresso. ... I drink about maybe 7 cups a day? ... for the last 30 years, I take it black. I used to live in Kobe. They have the best coffee.”