News of prolific Japanese filmmaker Mamoru Oshii – the brains behind iconic features like Ghost in the Shell and Angel’s Egg – being engrossed in Bethesda’s open-world RPG Fallout 4 has been making headlines in the past few days, courtesy of a new interview published by The Film Stage. Oshii told the outlet that he’s been playing Fallout 4 for eight years now, describing it as an ideal game that suits his tastes so well it feels like it was custom-made for him.
But what is it that Oshii’s been doing in Fallout 4 that’s kept him busy for so many years? Well, his playstyle is about as off-the-rails as it gets. Back in 2017, we had the honor of publishing a series of articles (on our Japanese sister-site) documenting the complete mayhem of Oshii’s escapades in the game, penned by the man himself.
To begin with, Mamoru Oshii picked up Fallout 4 after hearing of its reputation as what the Japanese call a “kamige” (god-tier game). This ended his extremely long and obsessive run in Dragon Quest Builder, where he spent months just mining resources and building without ever progressing past the first chapter.
Oshii was immediately impressed by the tension and realism of Fallout 4’s post-nuclear war world. After creating his dream character, whom he describes as a bald, thin-eyed, bearded guy with a bulbous nose edited to look as Asian as possible, he proceeded to not follow the main story, instead playing by an interesting set of self-imposed rules:
- I will never ally with any faction
- My only companion will be my dog, Dogmeat
- No exploiting glitches or dirty tricks like infinite item duplication
- No buffs, meaning no drugs, alcohol, or anything that temporarily boosts stats
- If I find the bald old thug who murdered my wife and kidnapped my son, I’ll turn him into a bullet-riddled corpse on the spot
- I will not look for my missing son. He’s probably doing his best to survive somewhere out there. But if he shows up as a villain, I’ll kill him on the spot
- I will basically ignore the main story and instead carve out my own path through slaughter and looting
- No settlement building, no town development
With a vision of becoming a proud junk scavenger who “slaughters bad guys and kills hyenas” with his trusty rifle, Oshii anticipated he would enjoy Fallout 4 for about a year – which escalated into several hundreds of hours in the game over the course of eight years.
The reason behind Oshii’s first rule is especially interesting, and it’s what led him to become a self-proclaimed terrorist in the game. “Players of Fallout 4 will ultimately be guided to the game’s ending by contacting and joining one of the organizations. However, as readers of this series know, my overarching playstyle principle is to live without forming friendly ties with any organization whatsoever. Whether it’s the Brotherhood of Steel, the Minutemen, or the Railroad, I’d much rather be beaten to death by Deathclaws, repeatedly bludgeoned or shot by Super Mutants, or raid raider hideouts for loot. Living day to day like this is more fun and lets me keep my ideological integrity. Well, it is an RPG, so I could just play a different persona. But for some reason, I have this bad habit of bringing my real life into the game.”
Said sense of integrity led Oshii to become especially hostile to the Brotherhood of Steel (B.O.S), who he compares to Nazis. “Whenever I spot their reconnaissance units in the ruins, I stalk them from behind and take them out with my trusty .50 caliber. I kill them all to leave no evidence. I’ve decided to strip them naked and leave them lying there in their underwear. They’re invaders, so mercy is unnecessary.” He amassed a huge collection of B.O.S Power Armor, which he decorated his backyard with and even used as material to build a moat. “Looking at the line of looted PAs gives me an incredible sense of accomplishment.”
At some point, the amount of loot and junk Oshii amassed at his base started causing the game to chop and stutter on his PS4. Describing his love of junk, he quoted William Sayoran’s “A man himself is junk and all his life he clutters the earth with it.” This went hand in hand with his habit of stripping down every enemy human down to nothing but their underwear.
“Lately, I’ve been stripping every last piece of gear from the raiders and gunners I shoot down and tossing it all into the workshop at the nearest settlement. It’s a win-win: I get to enjoy the pleasure of stripping scumbags naked while also contributing to the local community’s welfare. (…) Once stripped down, they’re all equal, and there should be no difference between them. As someone once said, “They no longer need it,” so we should put it to good use as a resource. It’s the same as dismantling junk.”
Although his antics continued far beyond these snippets, Mamoru Oshii managed to push past level 100 in Fallout 4 without relying on main missions – just side quests, raids, and what he calls BBQ points. “I can only marvel at my own passion for pushing past level 100, but well, you could also call me an idiot.”
