Raiden, A Whale, And An Anus: Kojima Discusses How Metal Gear Was Influenced By Pinocchio

Legendary game designer and writer Hideo Kojima has discussed how he was influenced by the story of Pinocchio, and it includes Raiden, a huge whale, and an anus.

Posting on Twitter, Kojima said that like film directors Matteo Garrone, Guillermo del Toro, and Robert Zemeckis--all of whom made or are currently making Pinocchio movies--he, too, has been influenced by the story of the wooden boy who comes to life. The Metal Gear character Raiden, like Pinocchio, gets eaten by a whale--but survives. Well, you just have to hear how Kojima puts it all together.

"Raiden, swallowed by the huge white whale of the information society, is digested in his stomach and vomited out through the anus!" Kojima said. "After that, his puppet of information control cuts the strings and starts walking on his own legs. That's MGS2."

As for the Pinocchio projects mentioned above, Garrone's live-action version released in 2019 to much acclaim and multiple Academy Award nominations. Del Toro's Pinocchio is a stop-motion 2021 film for Netflix featuring the voices of many famous people like Ewan McGregor, Ron Perlman, Tilda Swinton, Cate Blanchett, and Christoph Waltz, among others. And the new 2022 Pinocchio movie from Forrest Gump director Robert Zemeckis features Tom Hanks, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Luke Evans.

Kojima's next game is the Death Stranding director's cut, which launches September 24 for PS5. A recent trailer for the game was edited personally by Kojima--watch it here.