HIROSHIMA 2016: S.H. Visits Japan

A very short adventure about Obama visiting Hiroshima, recent crimes in Japan, Okinawa, Idols, and S.H. visiting Japan.

Recommended to anyone interested in Japan.

This game is free and should not be paid for.

5/27/2016

Press:

Killscreen: here

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Playtime: ~5 minutes

CW: Descriptions of real-life murder and assault, nuclear bombing

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

This game draws from true events:

- The 2016 murder of Rina Shimabukuro by a U.S. Base Worker in Okinawa, Kenneth Franklin Gadson.

- The May 21st, 2016 stabbing of Mayu Tomita by stalker Tomohiro Iwazaki (there is a wikipedia page)

- Obama's speech at Hiroshima in May 2016 (not accompanied by an apology). You can read a transcript online.

STATEMENT

This "experimental adventure/visual novel" game uses my old first name. However, the two different "Me"s intentionally have different last names. "Hogan" (my birth surname) and HTCH (short for Han-Tani-Chen-Hogan, a combination of my grandparents' last names, that I used to use before settling on Han-Tani.)

By early 2016 I had been to Japan twice. In 2008 as a teenager, and in 2015 as an adult. I was aware that the "Japan" that Americans initially perceive - myself included - is primarily based Japan's popular culture: its food, traditions, tourism, anime, games, porn, etc. I felt uneasy about the relative imbalance in people's interest in Japan's history and current society, vs. its entertainment and tourism industries. Even amongst indie game creators, it's possible to entirely inhabit a 'world' built of just the most popular cultural exports.

The inclusion of "Hogan," who is travelling around Japan, is juxtaposed with the events happening in-game. He lives his life consuming games, traveling and being on Twitter, unaware of the events. There's a second me on the in-game Twitter - "HTCH," included mainly as I was (at the time) trying to distance my then-self (HTCH) with my past-self (Hogan), and my evolving relationship with Japan.

The murder, speech, and stabbing happened only a few weeks apart, and I was inspired by Yuriko Furuhata's "Cinema of Actuality," about 1960s/70s avant-garde Japanese filmmakers. It's been a while since I read it, but I believe at one point filmmakers strove to make films very quickly, in response to ongoing events, as a way to 'radicalize' cinema. I wanted to try doing that with those three events... and so I recorded Japan Prime Minister Abe and US President Obama speaking, included their text in the game, as well as text about the murder and stabbing, press photos, etc.

I wanted to highlight the hypocrisy of the USA - such as how Obama's speech uses the passive a lot in reference to the bombing, and has no apology about Hiroshima, and how his speech relies a lot on abstractions and hypocritical moralisms, given the the USA's military presence around the world. I also wanted to address issues in Japan (police being impotent in helping stalking victims, especially women, and the government's inaction over Okinawa's occupation, etc.)

The music choices were intentional - David Bowie's China Girl is a technically anti-racist song that comes off as racist nowadays due to lack of context. Kyaru Pamyu Pamyu's Pon-Pon-Pon is symbolic of Japan's exported "Harajuku Culture." Tatsuro Yamashita's "White Christmas" is symbolic of the western-driven resurgence of City Pop, as well as the way "White Christmas" is used in Japan in order to create nostalgia around Christmastime and the general "air of consumerism" that the cultural powers of Tokyo ensure pervade the rest of Japan.

The other two songs are "Taiwantown Governance" and "ACK, The TCP Flag" from my 2016 music release, "Perfect OST."

It's interesting to replay this game 7 years on. On one hand I recognize the limitations of my political approach, and the limits of the simple game itself, but I hope it's interesting to play in 2013. Thanks for checking it out!

- Melos

RECOMMENDED READING

- Medoruma Shun's In The Woods Of Memory (it's about Okinawa and US soldiers' crimes)

- Kenzaburo Oe's Hiroshima Notes

- Lithub has a 2019 essay, by Akemi Johnson, on Shimabukuro's murder and Okinawa more generally

- Wikipedia has an article on the stabbing of Mayu Tomita and the aftermath

- My free 2018 game, All Our Asias, concerns Asian-Americans, political responsibility, identity, etc.

- My 2022 game Sephonie concerns the relation of Japan/USA/Taiwan (amongst many other things)

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