The other day, JAPAN Style introduced a Japanese famous movie director Takeshi Kitano, who originally became popular as a comedian.
If you know Kitano’s films and art works, you know his eccentric creativity, but did you know that the first Kitano’s creative work was a Nintendo Famicom game?
The video game “Takeshi no Chousen” directed by Takeshi Kitano as Beat Takeshi, was released in 1986, and because its absurdity, the game became controversial.
When you think of a treasure hunting adventure game, you would think a brave character who has a strong sense of justice.
But Kitano’s game was different. The main character is a miserable office worker.
And to start the adventure, the player has to have him quit the job and get drunk and get a divorce and beat up a yakuza guy!
Since there were no such immoral games at that time, the game was badly criticized.
Not only that, but the difficulty of the game was also an object of the controversy, while called “the game that cannot be completed even with the guide book”.
At the beginning of the game, the character gets a map, but it’s a blank sheet of a paper.
And the player can choose the command, “Do nothing but expose it to the sun”.
What the player has to do is just let the Nintendo system on for an hour without touching any button, but there is no indication or hint for that in the game! How are the player supposed to know?
Although it got bad review, the game is full of Kitano’s dark humor and playfulness.
Today, the game is called a legendary game and can be downloaded through Virtual Console on Nintendo Wii system in Japan.
Takeshi no Chousen
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I remember seeing this game on an episode of Gamecenter-CX. I find it hilarious that a game like this was made. Back then, they could easily get away with it.
Thank you for your comment. Yeah, it’s a crazy game. Even today, there is no such game, although GTA, True Crime or those kinds of games have violence and freedom (I mean the players can do whatever they want) but not so surreal in Kitano game’s way.