Aya Nishitani, who wrote the Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei series of novels that served as the basis for the prolific Shin Megami Tensei video game franchise, revealed in a thread on X where he found the inspiration for one of the franchise’s key concepts – namely, that of summoning demons via a computer.
According to Nishitani, while working in logistics at electronics giant Toshiba in 1979, he experienced the introduction of one of Japan’s first online networks, which was used to distribute shipping instructions that had previously been conducted via phone calls.
While discussing the future of the new logistics system over the phone, Nishitani’s colleague spoke of the potential for computer networks to be used to transmit not only instructions, but tangible goods as well. Nishitani replied, “That’s the stuff of science fiction. I don’t think physical objects will ever be sent online in our lifetimes.”
Despite his skepticism, the conversation prompted Nishitani to consider the idea of sending curses over a computer network. While it took him a while longer to form the concept of summoning demons with a computer, the seed of “send[ing] something terrifying online” had been planted in his mind. In fact, Nishitani may have inadvertently predicted the “unlucky email” trend of ominous chain mails that swept the Japanese internet in the 1990s and 2000s, although that itself was an evolution of a similar trend conducted via snail mail dating back to the early 1970s.
In a follow-up thread, Nishitani provided a translated excerpt from the first Digital Devil Story novel to illustrate how the theme of “transport theory” is crucial to the story. In the highlighted passage, the novel’s protagonist Akemi Nakajima uses a computer at his high school to summon the demon Loki to a remote location.
The narration elaborates that for devils like Loki, “the ability to transport freely across the earth had been a long-cherished dream.” It is established that devils can only appear on Earth in specific locations, and can only maintain their physical form in a limited radius from their point of origin. Nakajima seeks to “completely overturn” these preconceived notions by sending his demon summoning program over the network and remotely summoning Loki with it. At the end of the passage, it is revealed that despite masterminding this experiment, Nakajima has no way of knowing what exactly is coming through at the summoning point’s destination.
While no official English translation for Nishitani’s novel series has been published, he has stated that he is currently discussing a possible release with an English-language publisher with the intention of making it available later this year.
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