Japan is not just where Pokemon were born and where Nintendo is from. It is the Holy Land of geek culture. It’s where legendary game franchises such as Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest and Super Mario saw the light of day.
On my flight to Tokyo, I got to watch Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. It took me to much darker places. Besides its earthquakes and tsunamis, Japan has, I was reminded by the film again, seen its share of death and destruction.
Whenever I’m in Tokyo, a favourite walk of mine takes me from Akihabara, the city’s electronics town and Geek Central, via Ueno Station into Asakusa, with its massive and iconic red-coloured Buddhist temple. From there, it is only a short walk to Skytree, Tokyo’s highest tower. To the right, after crossing the river, lies Ryogoku, the sumo district, an area replete with monuments that tell a captivating story of Japan’s history.
The Great Kanto Earthquake Museum reminds us of the terrible earthquake of 1923 that laid a large part of the city to waste. Extensive firestorms and a fire whirl foretold an even more devastating event two decades later.
On the night of March 9-10, 1945, the US Army Air Forces unleashed the most destructive bombing raid in human history on the city. More people died or were injured that one night than the result of the two atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki not long after. The memorial at Yokoamicho Park stands as a silent reminder of this. Of course, Japan was then hardly the pacifistic nation it is now. With its ambitions for a Greater Asia, it had turned the region into an all-out theatre of war, with kamikaze pilots flying suicide missions, none of it particularly ‘kawaii’ or cute. As a beast, nostalgia roars its ugly head all too often. While helping out on my father’s farm in winter, sorting onions and carrots, we would listen to long-form radio reportages that would touch upon events, such as America’s dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan. I would pester my father for an understanding of what may have been the rationale to do so.
In the meantime, I would keep my eye on the mailbox at the end of the driveway, waiting for the latest parcel containing illegally copied games to arrive. We had an MSX computer system at home, and most of its software came from Japan. It being the mid-1980s, I can’t help but wonder how we even knew about these games, their journey out of Tokyo, not unlike the spices of the past travelling vast distances to reach western Europe.
We were used to these games being in Japanese. The only way to play them was by making use of a poorly translated transcript, endlessly photocopied. Yet, somehow, we managed.
Just the other day, I went in search of some of these games in Akihabara. If there is a place where old computer games continue to thrive, and even find new audiences, it is here. Climbing up greasy stairs and entering poorly ventilated shops, I found myself in the middle of like-minded geeks in it for the kill. The games I had played three decades ago were now worth the weight I hold.
Wallowing in the world of Atari, MSX and Commodore 64, I found myself contemplating buying a game that I had no means of playing, considering I had last owned an MSX computer some 25 years ago.
Nostalgia is a beast to slay, though it often feels more like levelling up, dealing with the past and its myriad forms. The beeping sounds of a computer game can trigger an avalanche of feelings that way. Yet, so can a monument, commemorating death, destruction, and warfare that once marked the specific spot it sits on.
Here, one stands, feels, sits, listens. It’s all connected.
