Final Fantasy 7 Lore ► Professor Hojo's Origins Explained

[Music] final fantasy vii featured some pretty iconic villains from sephiroth through to the ego maniacal president shinra and even don corneo the creative talent at square nailed the lineup of antagonists in every single way each had a specific narrative purpose with personalities that invoked some kind of emotional response and that notion was epitomized by sadistic and ruthless scientists whose relentless pursuit of knowledge would see him making chilling and often incomprehensible decisions that scientist was professor hojo and we're about to explore his story so strap yourselves in as we run through the expanded law of final fantasy vii excluding the remake continuity to showcase what makes him a fascinating villain and we encourage you to stay with us until the end as we analyze the very essence of hojo as a character hojo was born in 1945 of the mew era and it's assumed that much of his childhood was spent exploring the unknown in search of knowledge that thirst for knowledge would start to become insatiable and science ended up being a positive outlet due to its ability to quench that thirst however it wouldn't be until hojo had matured that he would be able to use his knowledge and ingenuity in an effective manner around this time there were numerous power players positioned throughout the world who were always looking for bright minds that could help them gain the edge on their competitors the shinra manufacturing works were one such player and they had gained a reputation due to the quantity of the arms they manufactured but their influence was no more than that of similar companies that existed in many other regions that was until they discovered maco this discovery which would see them be able to turn the planet's life energy into what they viewed as a limitless source of energy changed the game and it allowed shinra to expand their reach their influence and their ambitions as a result some of the planet's brightest minds were drawn to shinra and one of them an individual known as ghast faramis was appointed as the head of the shinra science department in 1970 but professor garst was not the only appointment made to shinra's burgeoning science department around this time he would lead an extensive team of scientists and researchers that included the likes of dr hollander dr valentine professor hojo and a biotechnologist called lucretia crescent they would be responsible for the accrual of knowledge and delivery of new ideas that would help president chinra get ever closer to achieving the goals he set out for the company and assuming everything went well they would be able to fuel their own egos by making significant discoveries that had the potential to change the world in the years that followed there were numerous instances where moral ethical and physical boundaries were pushed too far against these pursuits and one such example came not too long after professor ghast had been appointed to his new role grimoire valentine and his assistant lucrezia crescent discovered the place where the being known as chaos was said to awaken this discovery had immense potential due to the perceived strength of chaos as well as its contemporary entity and mega weapon but after making a mistake during the sample extraction grimoire was killed and having deemed their research nothing more than a fairy tale ghast opted to reassign staff and cease further investigations just shy of a decade later ghast then led an expedition that made a somewhat similar discovery but the outcome would be very different president shinra had been convinced no doubt through the efforts of his research and science divisions that the potential existed to build an even grander version of midgar it would be known as neomidgar a sprawling utopian metropolis and it would be built by tapping into the knowledge of the cetra an ancient race who had inhabited the planet long into the distant past the challenge was that very little was known about the cetra outside of the connection they supposedly had with the planet and it led to two different work streams being established so as to discover more about how to unlock their powers the first related to finding a living cetera and extracting the information they needed and the second related to continuing to excavate and learn from their past with the turks assigned to the initial objective ghast and his team continued to search the annals of history in the hopes that they could find a clue that would lead them to a significant discovery and eventually the breakthrough came they found evidence that linked the cetra to the northern crater and following a thorough excavation they found remains that at the time were believed to be of a cetron known as genova this discovery changed everything soon after returning to midgar the genova project was established and chimera's top scientists were assigned including hojo throwing ethics aside their goal was simple use the excavated remains to create a hybrid human settran who could lead shinra to their promised land and grant them access to limitless resources numerous theories were banded around as to how this could be accomplished but two major projects started to gain traction project g which was led by dr hollander and project s which was led by professor hojo they would each explore experimentation on fetuses but the methods would differ hollander would work with a woman called jillian hewley on project jillian his theory was that if jillian was injected with genova cells those who received her cells would receive the traits of genova to test this theory two methods of delivery were explored the first would see jillian injected with genova cells while she was pregnant to see if the cells would be transferred to her fetus this experiment would be called angel the second would see jillian's contaminated cells injected into another woman's fetus straight after it had been born this experiment would be named genesis there were clear merits to this approach and both angel and genesis survived the exposure but hojo who worked with the kretzia crescent on project sephiroth decided that a more direct route would provide better results and the approach he chose as well as how it manifested showed just how manipulative he could be in the name of science but also in the name of his own personal ambitions the majority of hojo's research would take place in nibbleheim inside the shinra mana and to ensure the team were suitably protected from outside sources shimra assigned a security team that included a turk named vincent valentine despite the assignment vincent was unaware that hojo and nekrezia had been familiar with his father not least that lucrezia was only alive due to his father's sacrifice and it was perhaps due to this ignorance that vincent allowed feelings to develop for the person he was meant to be protecting the kretzer was not all that comfortable with what was happening and after she revealed what had happened to vincent's father as a way of trying to explain why she was uncomfortable instead of helping to heal the wounds that had been festering something that should have allowed her to move on and have a more normal relationship with vincent it sliced them further open and in the end this emotional turmoil drove her into the waiting arms of hojo watching from the sidelines hoje had begun to view lucrezia as weak and pathetic and after learning about what had happened with vincent he decided to take full advantage of her pain enacting a manipulative plan that would further his own ambitions and allow project sephiroth to become a reality ever since joining shinra hojo had developed a serious inferiority complex in regard to professor garst it had been near impossible to step up from underneath his shadow but project sephiroth presented a real opportunity and if removing any shredder of humanity that remained meant that he could be seen as an equal or even superior scientist to ghast it was worth the sacrifice as hojo deepened his relationship with lucrezia he began seducing her by playing on the scientific ambitions that had also drawn her to shinra she too craved to be adored by her peers based on her intellect and after being consumed by guilt over the death of grimoire and having her moral inhibitions removed by hojo's manipulations lucrezia agreed to take part in a hideous experiment it would see lucrezia bear hojo's child but not because either of them wanted to be parents at that moment instead both the child and nucrezia would be experimented upon from the very moment the child was conceived and for her part in all of this instead of receiving academic acclaim lucrezia would end up losing everything she held dear after learning of their plan vincent chose to confront hojo there was no way in good conscience that he would allow lucretia to take part in such a devilish scheme but at this point hojo had sunk his claws so deep into the mind of lucrezia that she defended her partner and defended the path they had chosen and so the plan proceeded lucrezia was impregnated by hojo and genova cells were inserted into the fetus directly inside her womb what followed should have been quite harrowing for someone to observe but even though lucrezia had a torrid pregnancy and was clearly in significant amounts of pain and anguish hojo was completely untroubled his only concern was that the baby survived severoth would be born in 1980 as a healthy boy and as it was clear that the result of project s was far more successful than the results of project g after gas had left shinra to learn the truth about genova hojo won the ensuing power struggle and became head of shimra's department of scientific research this not only emboldened hojo's decision-making but gave him even more power over lucrezia who by this point was already suffering from severe physical and mental damage not least because unlike hojo she had become emotionally invested in their work a crucial part of project s would be observation at no point had hojo ever really wanted a child it was just a necessary tool but when sephiroth was born even though hojo did still feel an instinctual connection begrudgingly he knew that revealing to the child who its parents were would just complicate matters even though he did still value lucrezia for her scientific mind he did not feel as though she could be trusted to act as an impartial scientist when it came to this particular experiment based on this assertion hojo chose to block lucrezia from ever seeing her son and over time this decision destroyed her watching from afar vincent became more and more frustrated by the situation and because he still cared for lucrezia despite everything that had happened he chose to confront hojo and walked right into a trap like a hunter stalking its prey hojo had been waiting for this moment and he had been waiting for some time based on his position hojo would have known that getting the better of a turk would always prove to be a difficult prospect but he knew that if he was patient vincent would eventually let his emotions cloud his judgment and when the situation presented itself he would pounce like a hyena this confrontation presented the perfect opportunity and with vincent distracted hojo shot him straight in the chest lucrezia's pain over what had transpired was clearly evident but instead of showing remorse hojo gloated revelling in his victory and to make sure vincent paid for his indiscretions not only would hojo perform gruesome experiments on his heart-dead body so as to explore how much suffering the human body could endure lucrezia would be assigned to assist it was a sadistic move but in the eyes of hojo it had considerable merit he knew that lucrezia would do her utmost to ensure vincent stayed alive and this would allow for hojo to push harsher boundaries performing experiments that were far more extreme than would have previously been considered acceptable in the end even though what hojo learnt was invaluable when it became evident that vincent's body had endured as much as it could he ordered it to be discarded so that he could turn his attention to his next exciting project hunting down the man who had always made him feel small professor ghast as competitive scientists there had never been any love lost between ghast and hojo but when the former head of the shinra science department chose to leave the company right when the genova project was bearing fruits hojo was intrigued due to these circumstances surrounding the departure of ghast hojo surmised that they must have found something important so important that steps had been taken to ensure it was kept hidden from shinra and after tracking ghast down he found out why over the past five years ghast have been living a remote life in icicle inn with ifalna the last known living cetera during this time ghast had probed ifana for information about her race and the being known as genova but they had also had a child and when hojo found this he was overjoyed not only would the logs recorded by ghast be more valuable to the de nova product than any of the previous research conducted he had also provided them with two live specimens that could be studied until the answers they craved could be extracted it was ghast's worst nightmare but his nightmare soon came to an end as for all his troubles hojo ordered him to be executed on the spot by this point hojo had everything he could have ever hoped for in theory on the one hand he had sephiroth a smart and brilliant child who alongside being his son was also the twisted offspring of a powerful alien entity the poor relationship between the pair was irrelevant sephiroth had served his purpose as the perfect tall and through continuous study hojo would be able to formalize the soldier program to provide enhanced infantry to the shinra military on the other hand he had ifalna a pureblood cetera and aerith her daughter a half-blood cetera they possessed the key to unlocking the path to the promised land but unlike sephiroth they posed an annoying problem as for all sephiroth's brilliance he was malleable and easy to manipulate whereas if fauna was stubborn wise and as she was the only remaining pure blood specimen known to exist had to be treated with extreme care this restriction caused no end of frustration to hojo and when a founder escaped some years later and ultimately perished hoja was swift in ordering that every facet of her deceased body be studied meticulously over the next few years hojo continued to study ifalner's remains all the while becoming impatient at the turks's slow and steady approach to apprehending aerith but due to his role as the head of shimra science and research division he was also involved with numerous other projects that included genova soldier materia fusion and zoology it led to hojo ordering the capture of nanaki as he wanted to better understand the long life spans of their species and how that trait may be extracted and when the calm incident happened he gained a whole cohort of test subjects that were perfect for his latest round of material fusion experiments the power of material had long been known but to date nobody had ever been able to wield its power without there being some sort of medium hojo hypothesized that by using the proper technique materia could be grafted to individuals granting them significant innate power and when shinra laid waste to calm as part of the cover-up hojo was given plenty of opportunities to test out his theories by this point hojo had long since abandoned morals and ethics and as part of this new line of experimentation he chose to even operate on felicia the daughter of the then leader of the turks it was the kind of action that had started to build contempt amongst his contemporaries but hoja had become blinded by the power he wielded and in his mind the only thing that mattered was the end result no thought was ever given to any collateral damage that happened along the way gruesome torturous experiments took place and many of those who were lucky enough to survive would often be labeled as failures abandoned and left for dead in an unforgiving world but this also highlighted one of hojo's major flaws a lack of appreciation for results that were less than perfect hoja went into every experiment with an expected outcome but if that outcome did not manifest in the exact way he expected the disappointment would be consuming and in this particular case even though he believed the grafting of the zirconate material onto the back of felicia's hand to be a failure that assertion couldn't have been further from the truth it may not have gone as expected but the reality was that hojo's brilliance still managed to create a super soldier who possessed strength so great it could even rival the great sephiroth with all of the test subjects exhausted hojo retreated back to the shinra building where he started work on creating simulations that would test their strongest warriors and this was where many of his efforts were focused until a chance encounter occurred that would lead to another wonderful opportunity to test a theory he had been developing relating to genova as the ego maniacal scientist he was hojo had always viewed sephiroth as he would any other individual as a potential test subject the fact he was his own son mattered little as such familiar connections would do nothing but distract from his experiments but deep down hojo would have been aware that at some point sephiroth would start to piece together the mysteries of his past and that when that happened he would need to move fast to take advantage of any situations that should arise on the first of october in the second year of the new era that moment arrived having been sent to niberheim as part of a routine mission sephiroth discovered hojo's experiments inside the reactor this was in itself not a shocking discovery as sephiroth would have been well aware of the types of experiments that hojo conducted as well as the nature of soldier and where their strength was derived but there was something about this particular setting that was triggering and after leaving the reactor sephiroth locked himself inside the manor and engorged his mind with whatever research had been left behind by hojo and his team after learning portions of the truth sephiroth became deranged and as an outlet for all of the emotions he was feeling the town was burnt to the ground with its population decimated very few people were able to escape this harrowing sequence of events unharmed and those who remained would then having to live through a second nightmare as when the shinra cleanup crew arrived those who are still alive were given to hojo to test his latest theory the reunion theory after studying ghast's extensive notes as well as his audio and video logs hojo had begun to realize that not only was genova a being of incredible power but the race president general was so fixated on were quite weak by comparison hojo began to develop numerous theories relating to the extent of genova's powers and one of them called the reunion theory would explore its connectedness hojo theorized that if genova's cells were disconnected they would when the time called attempt to join back together to make genova whole again to test this theory hojo injected the unfortunate survivors of the nibble home incident with samples of sephiroth cells as well as high levels of macro energy and due to his typical lack of care as to who the test subjects were it meant that two of them were even shinri employees zak fair a soldier first class and cloud strife and infantrymen many of the recipients lacked the mental and physical strength to resist the procedure just as hojo had hoped and they were classified as successes who were branded with a number and released into the wild to see what would happen zack on the other hand was classified as a failure due to his ability to resist every aspect of the procedure while cloud suffered the same fate as he ended up suffering from macro poisoning they would be stored in the nibbleheim manor placed in stasis for their troubles just as hojo had done after the calm incident following the successful cleanup of the nibble home incident he returned to the shinra headquarters and continued his theorising and experimentation and one on if thinking that continued to attract his attention was eugenics hojo had been consistent in his want to create beings of ever-increasing power many of these beings were grown and housed within the various reactors that shinra had placed around the world but hojo housed his more promising experiments closer to home and one of them related to attempting to splice impressive genetic traits such as the long lifespan of nanaki species with those of other species when aerith was later captured by the turks as everything was escalating at a rather rapid pace hojo was encouraged to explore the possibility of heiress harmonious genetic traits mixing with those of nanakis and he justified this ludicrous act by stating that it would help to secure the future of both races but after the plan was thwarted and many of the lab samples were defeated with relative ease hojo was forced to make a hasty retreat however despite much of his research laying in tatters and president shinra dead hojo was quite excited about what happened the reunion had started watching from numerous locations around the world hojo continued to be impressed at how quickly the sephiroth clones had assembled and by the time it became clear that their destination was the whirlwind maze he'd already reconnected with the new president of shinra rufus and convinced him that what was about to occur was worthy of their attention what happened next was exhilarating for hojo and showed just how far down the path of lunacy he had gone hoja had always thought to be at the forefront of science and along the way he'll be forced to make great personal sacrifices but one thing had always remained his stubborn confidence as his career progressed the opinion of others mattered less and less in relation to the opinions of hojo himself and as his plans became greater and hojo himself became more deluded any thought of consequence was irrelevant by the time the reunion theory was confirmed it became quite clear that hojo was not working in the best interests of shinra that ship had long since sailed instead hoja was working for nothing other than his own self-interest after seeing sephiroth awaken instead of worrying about how the planet was now in significant danger and all life had the potential to be eradicated his mind was only filled with one thing helping his original experiment his son fulfill his potential so that his own goals could be accomplished as such upon returning to midgar hojo proceeded to take full advantage of the chaos that had ensued and commandeered the sister ray he had seen how much power it possessed and was attempting to provide sephiroth with the power that he needed that was until he was disturbed by cloud and was forced to face an uncomfortable truth hoja had always been far too egotistical when it came to his work he was unwilling to accept anything other than perfection but cloud the experiment that he had so readily chalked off as a failure had ended up being one of his most successful realizing this error and that the situation was now quite untenable hojo did the only thing a scientist on the brink could do he gave himself over to his work and injected himself with genova cells or at least that's how it seemed the truth was that hojo had been plotting a scheme even grander than either sephiroth or jenova could comprehend obtaining the power housed within omega weapon after seeing vincent will the power of chaos hojo began to realize that the crockpot theories of grimoire valentine and lucrezia may be true and if that was the case a mega weapon an interdimensional being responsible for the safety of all life on the planet a true physical manifestation of power wasn't just some fantasy it was real hojo surmised that if vincent could be merged with chaos so too could someone be merged with a mega weapon and who better than himself to become the arbiter of fate it was with this notion in mind that hoju injected himself with genova cells as it would only be possible to fuse a mega weapon with a body that was pure and strong and his frail human body would have just been assimilated during the process but despite a considerable increase in strength and ability owing to the insertion of genova cells hojo was still struck down but he was not defeated before his body failed hojo was able to upload a simulated version of his personality and memory fragments onto the worldwide network even if that infrastructure was in the process of failing due to the catastrophe that was in motion and his actual mind was about to fail too by adapting the reunion theory hoji believed that at some point in the future the fragments he uploaded would find their way back together allowing him to continue his work albeit in a rather different form with that process complete the physical form of hojo then perished but due to how far into the depths of hell hojo had sunk owing to his consistent and disgusting experiments that showed zero compassion or remorse his soul was rejected by the live stream in response when sephiroth himself then started to merge and absorb the livestream hojo offered his soul up to his son with the hopes of granting it more power a few years later when the world had started to recover the worldwide network was reactivated vice the immaculate a soldier from deep ground sought to take immediate advantage of this huge information resource he had been poisoned by the restrictors his former masters and was desperate to find a cure but upon performing a synaptic net dive the simulated fragments of hojo reunited and possessed vice due to how vice had been created not only was his body incredibly strong it was also pure the perfect vessel to merge with a mega weapon and with this part of the plan now accounted for hojo manipulated the svgets and deep ground as a whole into helping him summon omega weapon it was a diabolical scheme that would see deep ground ordered to massacre people around the world who are pure as hojo knew that omega weapon would only come forth if the planet felt it was on the brink of annihilation but even though it was very close to succeeding hojo's plan was thwarted first by vincent who defeated him after an intense showdown and then nero the sable who corrupted vice's body meaning it would no longer be a suitable vessel this act also forced the simulated copy of hojo to be deleted and it brought about the conclusion to his story it's safe to say that even though professor hojo was not the main antagonist of final fantasy vii when looking at the actions undertaken within that original narrative he epitomized everything you'd expect from a villain he was cold callous calculated condescending and corrupt to the very core these traits were only amplified upon the release of supporting material via the compilation and it was here that we got to see hojo in his true maniacal glory what's interesting about this particular character is just how connected he was to other prominent members of the cast hoju had a direct relationship with not just sephiroth but also cloud vincent zach aerith and even red13 and it was through these relationships that you could start to see that even though hojo wasn't classified as the main antagonist within that original game as it's obviously sephiroth threatening the entire world with destruction none of the events that transpired would have been possible had it not been for the twisted mind of hojo and in that regard it's quite fitting that the scenario rice has decided to elevate his status for dojo cerberus creating a plausible reason for hojo to still be alive so that he could get his deserved time in the spotlight so far in the seven remake we've only seen small snippets of how this will translate but it's quite clear that even if not all of it was shown within the original narrative of seven the writers have big plans for hojo in the future and we can't wait to see how that changes how the character is portrayed within the remake and newer supporting properties like ever crisis but yeah with that small analysis out of the way that marks the end of this final fantasy 7 origins video thank you all so much for watching if you enjoyed the video please be sure to hit that like button share the video around to all the people you know who love final fantasy 7 and if you haven't done so already please subscribe to our channel also be sure to let us know what hojo means to you as a character in the comments and let us know who you'd like us to cover next alright everyone with that this is daryl signing out i'd like to extend a big thank you to all of our patreon and youtube membership supporters especially anthony hoffman benjamin snow the livestream and gregory who are super special unionized supporters and of course a big thank you to everyone for watching this video i'll see you all again soon for more final fantasy goodness [Music] you

Channel: Final Fantasy Union

Views: 52,762

Keywords: professor hojo, hojo, final fantasy 7 hojo, final fantasy vii hojo, final fantasy 7 professor hojo, final fantasy vii professor hojo, hojo origins, professor hojo origins, professor hojo story, hojo story, final fantasy 7, final fantasy vii, final fantasy origins, final fantasy lore, final fantasy 7 story, final fantasy vii story, final fantasy 7 lore, final fantasy vii lore, sephiroth, cloud strife, vincent valentine, lucrecia crescent

Id: c6TiHiLznpo

Length: 28min 36sec (1716 seconds)

Published: Mon May 02 2022