Arakawa, who was then the head of the international business department.īut the smoking lounge at Konami was where the real work was done, because that was when you’d meet people from different departments and could actually talk to your superiors. I nailed the interview due to my skill at both Japanese and English, along with my fond memories of playing Contra. After that, I was lucky enough to get an interview with Konami, courtesy of my twin brother who was working at Konami Chicago at the time. I had come to Konami after a one-year stint as a teacher at a mass-produced eikaiwa (English-language school) called Aeon. We did this while watching the clock, killing time by smoking cigarettes in the lounge. So we shuffled papers all day, passing them down the line to be stamped by our bosses in starched shirts. These were the 16-bit days, before the use of email was common.
I worked in the international business department at Konami Japan, a group of about 15 or so employees who sat uncomfortably between the sales division and the law division in neat rows in a single well-lit, bustling office room. I would later translate Metal Gear Solid for the PlayStation, a job that might have been much too big for one person. That one-and-a-half-year span felt like at least five years due to the high-pressure environment of being the only foreigner in the office, and the horrible Tokyo rush-hour train commute. I first met him when I worked at Konami’s HQ in Toranomon, Tokyo, from about September 1993 to March 1995. Good for him.Īlthough it’s hard to believe now, Hideo Kojima was unknown in the West at that point in the early to mid-’90s. He looked more like Psycho Mantis at the time.
He was a lot thinner then, before he started pumping iron. It was at a traditional Japanese ryokan’s rotenburo (outdoor bath), on a Konami company vacation near Mount Fuji. The last time I saw Hideo Kojima, we were both naked.
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