Why Do You Always Kill Gods in JRPGs?

the following video contains heavy plot spoilers for Persona 5 Final Fantasy VII Chrono Trigger Kirby and the Forgotten land and Elden ring there are lighter spoilers as well for many other Japanese games scattered about the video so please proceed with caution Japanese role-playing games or jrpgs are notorious for their many tropes gigantic unwieldy weapons level grinding complicated plots and funny hair among them however one Trope in jrpgs that has always stood out to me is how often you end up fighting a god usually as the final or secret boss of a game Moon Channel viewer random on the internet points out that even in games where the gods of the universe are not involved in the game one often ends up killing a God anyway take for example The octopath Traveler Series a light spoiler warning for both games by the way in octopaths 1 and 2 the secret boss you fight at the end of the game is galdera the Fallen one of the 13 gods of that game's Universe these fights come out of essentially nowhere and only nominally tie back to the rest of the plot in a convoluted manner why even bother shoehorning a godfight into these games what's the point why does seemingly every jrpg from Dragon Quest to Chrono Trigger to Final Fantasy to Pokemon to Persona feature God slang and is this Trope even limited to just jrpgs or is this just a Japanese game Trope in general after all you kill gods in Kirby and Neo and in Elden ring as well well the answers here are surprisingly complicated especially if one is only familiar with a western cultural context Eastern philosophy and religious tradition views God's immortality and deification in very different ways than Western culture does I'm going to forewarn you that this video starts off quite heavy in the history and then gets quite philosophical by the end and in the process of discussing this topic we will be exploring very heavy themes like nihilism social isolation and economic turmoil so please proceed with caution God slang in Japanese games and media comes from a cycle in Japanese history of false gods corrupted Utopias Gods being overthrown and New Gods taking their place and the emergence of this Trope to such Extremes in modern Japanese media comes as a result of a new historical cycle of false godhood reaching its Zenith in the cultural perspective of Japan but first a word from today's sponsor nordpass business if you are like me and you run your own business you know how hard it is to keep track of the many accounts and passwords you have while keeping those accounts and passwords secure at the same time my paralegals might need access to the office's Cordy electronic filing account or Pacer account or CAC account how can I keep these incredibly important accounts secure while also giving my staff the access that they need well the answer is nordpass business nordpass allows you to store and access your online accounts from anywhere it keeps track of your passwords without needing insecure Solutions like notebooks or Post-its nordpass can also autofill payment information securely and detect data breaches for you and you can give and revoke rights to different accounts with just the click of a button I've been a happy user of Nord products myself for years now long before Nord reached out for a sponsorship and so it's my pleasure to offer you a three-month free trial of nordpass just go to nordpass.com Moon Channel and enter the code Moon Channel check out the description and pinned comment for a direct link let's get back to our discussion Now by briefly visiting this Trope and Western games in Western games I posit one ends up killing a God for these reasons number one to prove to yourself the player that you have achieved is something great number two to prove to others both in-game and in the real world that your accomplishments make you worthy and number three because the highest Stakes one can escalate to are Gods but in Japanese games and Eastern games in general killing Gods is not just for states it is a complicated social metaphor which requires a substantial understanding of Japanese history of Japanese culture and of Japanese religion to completely contextualize so let us start on our journey towards understanding then by constructing the foundation we need for our context we'll begin with a look into East Asian culture history and Theology and identify the characteristics intrinsic to the Japanese cultural religious cycle in so doing we'll see how religion has shaped Japanese perceptions over time and what that means for the Contemporary Japanese person's perception of their modern distance we will also look towards the latter half of the video at some jrpg examples and Western comparisons but let's not get ahead of ourselves instead let us start our tale like any good jrpg at the very beginning with the religious history not of Japan but of China [Music] the history of Japan and China are closely interrelated and the religious history of these two ancient cultures is no different but to specifically understand the nature of God slang and Japanese video games and media we must understand what a God is in the eastern cultural context and to do so we must start with China if you're familiar with Chinese man Hua then you may already be familiar with the spirit cultivation genre known also as Shin cha shinsha or Spirit cultivation is like Chinese high fantasy the rough equivalent of the western genre of elves and magic and Justice how Tolkien wrote Lord of the Rings with some biblical inspiration and some inspiration from Norse dramatic Greek Celtic and even Slavic mythology Chinese high fantasy also has religious Roots namely in the traditions of taoism it's not entirely clear when taoism first emerged in China but the earliest arguable Taoist work is the iching the book of changes the book of changes was initial written sometime between 1400 BC during this time it would grow from being a mere divination manual which to this day inspires mechanics like Elemental weaknesses and East Asian Games into a substantial cosmological and philosophical text and part of the philosophical text within the book of changes discusses the behaviors of what western translators call the superior man in Chinese however it's translated more literally as stringza a prince or Noble youth it is from this root that we see the idea of the immortal emerge into the Eastern religious tradition intermixing along the way with Buddhism emerging from India in the east as it was in the west old religious Traditions tended to be polytheistic meaning of many gods in Chinese tradition there is a cosmic hierarchy in which the Heavenly beings or gods are placed with songdi or the highest God at the very top of the hierarchy Chinese religion is also often pantheistic meaning there is Divinity inherent to the world all Godly things are of Tien meaning Heaven All Divine things are of sangdi of the highest God as such it is not quite accurate to refer to Chinese deities as Gods per se they are more like divinities revered more like forces of nature traditionally as opposed to like independently personable entities in the way that Zeus or Poseidon may have been revered by the Greeks and where there is a hierarchy there is a ladder to climate this is where we start to also see some Confucianism creep into the philosophical mixture in the Chinese tradition perhaps quite unlike the Western tradition with some exceptions which we will get to it is not only possible to climb the Divine ladder by one's own strength and wisdom but it is also righteous to do so in East Asian mythology and religion this climbing of the Divine ladder is not the exception it is the rule this Trope of great people ascending to godhood is present in the earliest text we have concerning Chinese religious practices take for example the legend of sinong translated in English as the Divine farmer shenong was said to have invented the ho the plow the ax agricultural irrigation the Chinese calendar and Chinese traditional medicine amongst many other things and he's revered in China and Japan to this day as a deity for his contribution we can also look at an example us Gamers might be more familiar with the Chinese god of war guanji or guany you you might already be familiar with guanyu due to his portrayal in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and its various iterations in media including Dynasty Warriors to summarize though guanyu was said to have been one of the greatest warriors of the age a match for 10 000 men in battle the term 10 000 or when often used as a stand-in for some uncountable number when you died a great warrior but was given ever higher placement on the Divine hierarchy long after his passing the ocean the second emperor of shuhan gave guanyu the title of Marquis four decades after he passed 600 years or so later during the Song Dynasty Emperor Hui Zhong bestold the title of translated roughly to Duke of loyalty upon guanyu and after a few hundred years of further promotions when you would receive a substantial promotion in 1614 when the when the emperor of the Ming Dynasty bestowed upon guanyu the title of the Holy Emperor Guan the great God who subdues demons in the three worlds and whose awe spreads far and moves heaven when you get a few more titles after that but we're going to stop there before we get to Central the imperishable levels of title dropping you may also be familiar with famous works of Chinese fiction and their derivatives in which such concepts of immortality and Ascension are explored at length the anime dragon ball for example pulls inspiration directly from the Ming Dynasty novel Journey to the West to the point where the name's Son Goku is a direct translation of Journey to the West's Monkey King sunbu Kong the takeaway is this the practices of spiritual self-cultivation to become immortal and Mortals becoming Gods through great Deeds or long traditions in China and those Traditions carried over into Japan and a positive godhood in eastern culture is not seized it is attained well what does that mean it means becoming an immortal in Chinese tradition is supposed to be but as we will see is not necessarily something one works towards Divinity can be a product of birth but it can also be and arguably should be a product of personal growth and cultivation you can cultivate your Chi to the point where you are Immortal and divinely Powerful you can achieve such prowess in combat that you become the god of war and this is considered more righteous than simply being born great but how did these Traditions then get to Japan and in what ways do they influence the Trope of God slang in Japanese RPGs and media let us move forward from ancient China now to ancient Japan early Japanese religious history is largely unknown as Japan only adopted written language sometime around the start of the 5th Century A.D a period known as the Asuka jidai what records we do have of early religion in Japan comes from Chinese accounts including the account of the famous Queen himiko the first recorded ruler of Japan who was said to be both an unmarried queen and a powerful shaman Japan would adopt Chinese written language philosophy and religious practices including taoism and Buddhism at around the same time Circa 500 A.D via the Korean Kingdom of bakja and it was this introduction of Chinese religious practices into Japanese religion and philosophy that would bring ideas such as Ascension to immortality and divination to Japan taoism in particular developed into a sort of mixture of Shinto the native of folk religion Buddhism and taoism known as koshin Shinko the Cushing Faith lacks a central organization to my knowledge and while it still exists in Japan it's not largely differentiated from Buddhism or Shinto there you may recognize however koshin's most distinctive symbols the three monkeys mizaru See No Evil hikazaru Hear No Evil and iwazaru speak no evil the introduction and infusion of taoism Buddhism and Chinese religious practices into Japanese folk religion inspired in large part the formation of the Japanese religion of Shinto as we know it today and as these religious influences entered Japanese culture at around the same time as written language we can see as well how deeply these influences affected Japanese Culture by reading the written accounts of the time in Japan the two oldest written works of Japanese history are the kojiki translated into English as the records of ancient matters and the Nihon Shoki also called the nihongi translated as The Chronicles of Japan these Works were produced in the period following us known as the narajidai as is often the case with very old historical Works mythology and history are intermingled the records and Chronicles both contain Japan's creation mythbar example which explains the origins of Japan's three progenitor deities or Kami and the generations of divine beings that followed thereafter you may be familiar with some of these names especially if you play a lot of Japanese games or gotcha games as the case may be for example you might know Izanagi and izanami the creators of Japan itself through the Megami tensei and Persona games you might know Amaterasu the goddess of the sun whom the current emperor of Japan is said to be a direct descendant of through Okami you might be familiar with yamata nooroji the eight-headed serpent after killing it as the god boss in the game Neo and even if you aren't familiar with the myth of the god susano slaying yamata noorichi you may have already experienced it completely by playing Final Fantasy 10 a modern retelling of that old myth the Japanese religion with its intermingling of Japanese folk practices Buddhism and taoism has an enormous influence on Japanese culture and as such naturally a substantial influence on Japanese games understanding the ancient roots of Japanese religion is only one part of the puzzle though it informs the underlying themes of immortal attainment Divine hierarchy and the nature of Good and Evil deities but to fully comprehend why godslaying is such a pervasive Trope in Japanese media and jrpgs we have to go beyond merely looking at the roots to examine the tree and eventually the forest in other words we have to look at the philosophical conflicts that emerged due to these religious influences and then look at how those philosophical conflicts apply to the Contemporary Japanese experience when taoism of Buddhism and written language first arrived in Japan they collided directly with Shinto Shinto at the time being a folk religion without religious texts did not have consistent systematic Dogma in the way that taoism or Buddhism did the introduction of written language and systematic written religion helped to bring cohesion and unity to the varying Japanese tribal States a unifying system of ideology and communication that everyone could relate to these tribal States however were not uncivilized barbarians they had their own systems of political organization a feudal system of sorts and these political organizations came into direct conflict with the teachings of taoism and Buddhism Japanese Nobles quickly adopted Chinese Mahayana Buddhism a sort of mixture of taoism and Buddhism as it was the religion of learning and scholarship emerging from China and Korea at the time but this form of Buddhism had a serious problem for the noble Elite it introduced organized religion as a political source of power in conflict with the traditional Japanese tribal hierarchy for example Circa 760 A.D a Japanese monk named dokyo very nearly managed to overthrow the Imperial house and establish his own Dynasty through his political manipulation of empress shotoku his plot was halted after it came into direct conflict with the power of existing political families including the fujiwada clan who would have de facto power over Japan during the heian period that would soon follow or consider for example the tendai issue and Mahayana Buddhist School founded in Japan by the monk saicho in the year 806. Saint Joe was a monk who traveled to China in 804 and learned Chan Buddhism known in Japan as Zen Buddhism from Dao sway the seventh patriarch of the Tian Thai School of Mahayana Buddhism sanicho returned to Japan from China with copies of tentai texts and was given permission by the emperor of Japan then Emperor kanmu to build an independent tendai school in Japan to counter the growing political power of the hoso school which was the 10 day school's ideological adversary due to disagreements over the five Natures Doctrine the emperor's permission allowed the tendai school to achieve substantial power and influence and as the 109 School emerged as a political land owning organization it would come into conflict with other political organizations including the Warlords of other tribes and the monks of other schools this led to the emergence of a class of warrior monks in Japanese Society known as the sohei and as these Warrior monks assembled political power they began to throw their weight around in the year 949 56 monks from the todaiji temple started an armed protest against a Kyoto official over a political appointment that they were against in the year 970 the enriakuji temple had a dispute with the yasaka shrine of Kyoto which led to the enriakuji temple establishing a standing army of warrior monks and by 981 armed conflicts between temples of different subsects of tendai were Waging War against each other using armies of monks the period in which these conflicts took place the heianjidai saw Japan lose nearly half of its entire population to a plague of smallpox and both substantial political upheaval and Civil War I won't go too deeply into all the various political occurrences of the Han period but the result was the kamakurajidai the era of the first shogunate in the beginning of Samurai rule or military rule in Japan and this military rule would last from roughly the year 1192 to the Meiji Restoration in 1868. the kamakoto period saw Buddhism expand to become the dominant religion not just of the scholarly class and Nobles but of the Samurai and eventually the common folk but just as how Buddhism caused political upheaval for the upper classes in the form of new political organization Buddhism also galvanized the lower classes remember how the blending of taoism with its focus on immortality through personal Enlightenment intermixed with Buddhism the idea that a commoner could attain Divinity through their own achievements was directly contrary to the ideas of nobility and divine right that was at the foundation of Japanese hierarchical Society and so the Kamakura period saw the beginning of what would become known as the yakushoyiki the peasant uprisings these peasant uprisings would grow in ferocity throughout the Kamakura period and carry over into the era that followed the murumachijidai the muramachi period included the famous sengok gujidai which was known for its century-long Civil War and one of the factions of this Civil War was a tendai sect of monks who ostensibly represented the interests of the common people called the Iko iki to make a long story short this religious peasant State movement would be brutally suppressed and crushed by three famous Japanese Warlords would then be deified in Shinto for their exploits these three Warlords being Oda Nobunaga toyotomi hideyoshi and Tokugawa yasu the period that followed the conflict failed muramachi period and the short-lived Associated azuchi momoyama period was the edojidai a long period of Peace starting in 1603 and the last era of the Samurai during the Edo period the once powerful influences of Buddhism were very harshly cracked down upon and restricted but was once a powerful political organization with its own military apparatus was reduced to a mere bureaucratic institution ironically the religion that taught people that they could Ascend to immortality by their own cultivation would be suppressed by Mortals who had ascended by their own Deeds to ostensible godhood while all of this conflict was happening between Buddhism and the Japanese State another influence was creeping up upon Japan in 1543 a Chinese junk on the way to Ningbo was swept off course by a storm the ship was carrying a crew of over 100 people and amongst those people were a few Portuguese traders including Antonio Mota and Francisco zamoto the ship found itself at the Japanese island of tanagashima and these two men became the first Europeans to set foot on Japanese soil they introduced perhaps fatefully hand-held Firearms to the Japanese before the junk was repaired and the men Departed in 1549 a more intentional journey to Japan was made this time by one Francis Xavier a Jesuit missionary seeking to spread the good word of Christianity to Japan Xavier was permitted to land at kagoshima in the Satsuma Province as a representative of the Portuguese King Xavier was the first missionary to Japan but not the last and Christianity grew in and around the Satsuma region surprisingly unimpeded converting even members of the Samurai class Christianity in many ways appeared to offer the same sort of personal salvation that the now heavily suppressed Buddhism once offered but there was a Sinister motive behind the shogunate's permission of Christian missionaries Oda Nobunaga the Shogun at the time desired the guns that came from the merchants that traveled with Christian missionaries and as soon as Japan could manufacture its own firearms nobunaga's successor toyotomi hideyoshi began to suppress Christians in the same way that his predecessors had suppressed the Buddhists once again religion and the state were at odds by the time Tokugawa had taken power Christianity much like Buddhism was completely forbidden in Japan and religion was strictly controlled by the government like the Iko iki before them Christian rebellions of peasants and Samurai were crossed through military force and brutal executions such as the quashing of the shimbara rebellion of 1637. in order to prevent further Western influences from seeping into the country the Tokugawa shogunate implemented the sakoku policy no foreigners would be allowed to enter Japan and no Japanese would be permitted to leave Japan the Tokugawa shogunate was a period of relative peace and stability when contrasted with the century of civil war that preceded it but it was a period of increasingly strict regulation and centralization the house of Tokugawa had complete control over a unified Japan including the emperor the Imperial Court the regional Warlords or daimyo and the remaining religious organizations the Shogun himself was as a God among Mere Men it was from this period of centralization and strict government control that we see the next piece of the puzzle emerge the shogunate brutally oppressed religious influences in order to prevent religious organizations from challenging its power amongst both the elite and the citizenry but the people still needed to believe something and the institution of religion offered bureaucratic benefits as the shogunate began to absorb those religious institutions and their bureaucracies religion and the state gradually became a single entity vast unwieldy and unstable the stage was set for the emergence of a new religious order State religion kokashinto the Powder Keg needed only a spark and very soon after just such a spark would emerge the late 1700s to 1800s saw the vast centralized bureaucracy of the shogunate collapse upon itself the shogunate's mismanagement alleged to widespread discontent and severe famines including the Great tenmei Famine which saw the deaths of nearly 1 million Japanese by the late 18th century the once all-powerful shogunate was rocked with unrest the massive and effective bureaucracy inflicted a heavy tax burden on the people and without offering any help during famine times of hardship shogunate's policy of sakoku of closed borders also caused Japan to stagnate industrially and technologically but it was the influence of the West that ended the reign of the Shogun once and for all Japan had many Goods that captivated Western Traders and Japan had a substantial untapped Market ripe for the sale of Western industrial goods but no matter how hard Western Merchants begged the shogunate for access to Japanese markets the shogunate refused no one enters no one leaves on July 8th teen 53 Commodore Matthew kalbraith Perry of the United States Navy under orders from American president Millard Fillmore approached the Japanese town of uraga at the entrance of Edo Bay the expeditionary Fleet he brought with him consisted of four steam warships the Susquehanna the Mississippi the Plymouth and the Saratoga in defiance of the shogunate's orders the ships sailed past Japanese lines directly toward the capital of Edo the ships were soon surrounded by Japanese Guard boats one of which carried a sign written in French which ordered the American ships to depart but the Americans would not depart the United States had four times before attempted to open Japan and each time the Americans had left in Failure without successfully negotiating a right to trade but this time there would be no negotiating Commodore Perry refused to speak to any Japanese representative who could not speak with the authority of the shogunate and when a representative of the shogunate or at least a person pretending to be so was finally permitted to meet Perry Perry issued an ultimatum he carried a letter from the president of the United States and this letter was to be received by an official of sufficient Authority if no official attended him and his letter Perry would land troops and March on Edo to deliver the letter himself Perry accompanied his ultimatum with a very American gift to the Japanese a white flag and a letter which stated simply that if the Japanese chose combat the Americans would Vanquish them as this was happening the bureaucratic machine of the Tokugawa shogunate was completely incapacitated due to the illness of Shogun Tokugawa iyayoshi a high-ranking official Abe Masahiro decided on his own that accepting an American letter was not about violation of the shogunate's policies and Perry was permitted to land on July 14 1853. Perry marched ashore with 250 Sailors and Marines after a 13-gun salute from the Susquehanna the president's letter was presented to a high-ranking samurai Tora ujyoshi and irohiromichi and just like that Perry departed promising to return in one year the shogunate court debated fiercely on what to do next not helping the situation was Shogun Tokugawa yayoshi who chose this precise moment to die yayoshi was succeeded by his son the sickly and weak Tokugawa iasara leaving the shogunate vulnerable and weak at the most crucial time Commodore Perry returned on February 13 1854 with a fleet of eight vessels and 1 600 men the shogunate court weak and terrified submitted to virtually all of the terms of President Fillmore's letter shogunate however was unwilling to allow Parry into the capital of Edo to conclude negotiations a completely Unthinkable notion for a Japanese state that had been close to Foreigners for hundreds of years Perry unwilling to negotiate further threatened to declare war on Japan with an armada of 100 warships to Bear within 20 days a fleet substantially larger than the actual size of the entire U.S Navy the Japanese believed his bluff and compromised on March 31 1854 the convention of Kanagawa was signed which opened the ports of shimora and hakodate to American ships sakoku had been torn apart by force the Shogun was dead famines ravaged the people the great unsei earthquakes tore the land asunder and New Gods and black ships that bellowed smoke and fire forced unequal treaties upon the already suffering people of Japan the old order was rapidly changing and with it the suffering of the people grew to unimaginable Heights with Japan forced to endure uncontrolled foreign trade the Japanese economy utterly collapsed a massive influx of foreign purchasers led to a massive outflow of gold which caused runaway currency inflation foreigners brought new diseases to Japan such as cholera famines contributed to the already outrageous price of food and people became unable to eat even as unemployment Rose to new heights with the shogunal government weak and seen as having surrendered the sovereignty of Japan to westerners Emperor Comey seeing an opportunity to reassert the authority of the Imperial Court in Japan broke with centuries of tradition in defiance of the shogunate authority on March 11 1853 the emperor issued his order Sono joyi Revere the emperor expelled barbarians as the order came not from the Shogun but the emperor the shogunal court fully intended to ignore the decree of the Japanese people were losing faith in the Shogun the emperor's edict caused many in Japan to rise up against both the foreigners and the shogunate masterless samurai known as Ronin absent a loyalty to any other faction took to assassinating shogunate officials and westerners alike this culminated in the vicious assassination of English Trader Charles Lennox Richardson by The Bodyguard of shimazu hisamitsu the father of shimazu tarayoshi the daimyo of Satsuma the shogunate was quick to offer an apology to the British but the British were uninterested in the shogunate's apology they wanted an apology from the Satsuma domain and when the Satsuma refused to apologize or conceive fault the British sailed a fleet into kagoshima Harbor and opened fire although the British Fleet would Retreat soon thereafter the Satsuma elected to give in to British demands issuing an apology and compensation the other Western Powers also responded to Japanese aggression and kind with a bombardment of shimanoseki and it became very clear to the Japanese that Japan could not stand up to the military might of the West with the Western Powers chastening Imperial loyalists the shogunate was briefly able to re-establish some of its own power it used this power to reinstate centralized control which led to the shogunate brutally suppressing Imperial Rebels through military force but this only stirred greater hatred of the Shogun and numerous rebellions broke out of the name of sonojoi Revere the emperor and expel The Barbarians in 1866 the Shogun Tokugawa iamochi suddenly died and not long after in 1867 Emperor Comey would also pass and be replaced by his second son the reformer Emperor Meiji a conflict would soon break out between supporters of the new Progressive Emperor and the supporters of the shogunate with supporters of the new system based on emulating the west on the emperor's side and the supporters of a traditional system of the shogunate on the shogunate side this conflict grew into the boshin war a war you might be familiar with due to it being the setting for Total War Shogun 2 fall of the Samurai to make a very long story short the civil war was won by the emperor and in 1872 the leaders of all the domains of Japan were summoned before the emperor where it was declared that all of the domains of Japan would be returned to Imperial control the 280 domains of Japan were split into 72 prefectures and the light of a new God shown upon Japan the Meiji restoration had begun with the emperor in total control of Japan the Japanese state began to rapidly modernize at whatever the cost the Meiji government established a universal Japanese language replacing Regional dialects the old Samurai class was slowly but steadily abolished and old traditions were destroyed in favor of rapid industrialization military conscription became mandatory now all the men of Japan would learn to fight and not only the samurai the order of the world under heaven was changing once again in one of the modernizations the Meiji government deemed most essential was religious modernization here the foundation set by the shogunate came into play the institutions and bureaucracies of religion had already been absorbed into the state and religious ideologies had largely been extinguished what remained was an irreligious religion the hodgepodge remnant of Shinto that the shogunate had once tried to consolidate for its state purposes the Meiji government shaped this religion into a new faith where old Shinto revered many spirits and deities and saw the Emperor as being a Divine representative of a more pantheistic notion of gods new Shinto State Shinto was designed to emulate what the Meiji government saw as advantageous about westernized religion that it was more monotheistic and absolutist in nature the emperor was no longer a representative but a God among mere mortals and Japan became a special Nation among all others as it alone had a true God emperor State Shinto was a religion built by committee that created a new God From the Ashes of old Japan the idea of the Japanese Emperor as a God is a recent development dating only as far back as the late 1800s the late Meiji era saw Japan emerge onto the world stage as a great power capable of defeating even the militaries of Great Western Nations such as the humiliating victory of Japan over Russia and the russo-japanese war the result of which was the Treaty of Portsmouth a treaty which gave Japan control of Korea which would later Annex and substantial portions of Southern Manchuria the Meiji era ended in 1912 and was followed by the taisho and showa eras the rapid industrialization and modernization of Japan was an astounding success and Japan shocked the world with its achievements but while many of the Meiji Restorations developments brought great prosperity to Japan kokashinto did not the people were indoctrinated into the belief that their Emperor was a true God and their nation was divine the result inevitably was an extremely zealous nationalism and from that nationalism emerged a military-controlled Japanese government that quashed all descent and pushed the national rhetoric of divine exceptionalism to the furthest possible limits we all know what happened next Japan following what it saw as the Western example of imperialism attempted to expand its territory and economy through Warfare and unequal treaties and when those imperialist efforts yielded fruit Japan would go one step further allying the ideologically similar Nazi Germany and fascist Italy and embarking on a series of brutal conquests the likes of which were nearly unparalleled in their cruelty and horror Japan started these conquests full of divine fervor and belief in the superiority of their people and their God emperor but where did Japan end up the legacy of kokashinto was a completely devastated Japan on January 1st 1946 the United States forced Emperor showa to renounce his divinity the emperor himself would say to a confused and sorrowful Japanese people that Japan as a nation was not built upon myths and the United States rewrote the Japanese Constitution specifically targeting State Shinto while also attempting to avoid lasting resentment by permitting some aspects of State Shinto to remain including such private ceremonies of reverence the new Japanese education system was forbidden from teaching religion in schools and a new prevailing idea emerged among the Japanese people that the brainwashing and zealotry of State Shinto was what led Japan to invade other countries with such cruelty and was what ultimately LED Japan to ruin all right Mooney I can hear you say that's great what is this Hardcore History can we get to the video games already where where are all the funny jokes and visual gags I can't promise too many funny jokes to come but we are getting to the video games we've gone through a lot of history so let's summarize before we get to modern times and eventually two jrpgs Japan adopted the concepts of immortality and Mortal Ascension from Buddha's mentalism through cultural exchange with China the concepts mixed with Shinto informed the basis for many of Japan's myths and cultural Legends the Japanese idea of divinity then is also a mix of folk religion Buddhism and taoism and that there is a Heavenly hierarchy of sorts in all Divinity in a pantheistic manner derives from heaven in some form the organizations of religion develop political power and come into conflict with the state the state fights against religion and wins a subsuming religion into the organization of the Japanese State and the head of state becomes as a god another religion that emerges in the form of Christianity and with it comes New Gods the west and all of its modernizations the Japanese State crushes the religion but is defeated by the new gods and the old God the shogunate passes a new multi-headed God then Rises to replace the shogunate the emperor westernization industrialization and state Shinto the son of the sun rises as a God and descends as a man by the glow of two sons crafted by the hands of men to summarize even more succinctly the old ways of ancient Shinto are upended by taoism and Buddhism the Buddha is replaced by the Shogun the Shogun as a deity by other Shoguns the shogunate then fights Christianity and wins but loses ultimately to westernization and the emperor and the god Emperor loses his divinity at the hands of the west of the Allied Powers Japanese history is full of false gods and promises and the people suffer for it we've seen the roots and now we've seen the tree but before we get to video games we need to zoom out one final time armed with the proper context and observe the forest itself [Music] the Japanese people entered the Modern Age with an understanding that religion with its gods and fanaticism is more trouble than it's worth post-war Japan developed into an increasingly secular society and the Japanese largely shunned organized religion many still practice some level of Shinto ritual but did so more for cultural purposes and less so as a pursuit of religious meaning and belonging but as German phosphor Friedrich Nietzsche once postulated when the meaningfulness of life that arises from religion dies in a society something must replace it or the society Withers he called this withering phenomenon of the individual the idea that life has no purpose or meaning nihilism and in the void of purpose that existed in post-war Japan New Gods would come to bring new purported purpose some amongst the Japanese largely the elderly or the small C conservative bleeding took solace in the old reverence of the emperor and the practice of Shinto as they knew it this caused the re-establishment of a sort of much weaker State Shinto which is a source of quite a bit of controversy at times within Japan as the philosophical body of State Shinto and its relation to Japan's military government history clashes with the more casual ritualistic Shinto of the common people and the more Progressive values therein in the pursuit of old Shinto here is one God and one faction other Japanese would find the meaning of religion through Cults or so-called new religious movements this societal nihilism this personal meaninglessness is a large reason why such movements have obtained not only so much power in Japan but in all of East Asia consider for example the assassination of Shinzo Abe the former prime minister of Japan his politics became tied up in both the historical revisionism of the new state Shinto but also in the Korean new religious movement known as the unification Church known also as the Moonies no relation tetsuya yamagami Shinzo Abe's assassin stated that his motive for the assassination was Shinzo Abe's vocal support of the unification Church the organization that had brainwashed his mother and bankrupted his family you may have also heard of the Buddhist new religious movement omoshinarikyo known also as arafu omu shinrichio is a doomsday cult Infamous for the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin gas attacks that killed 13 people and severely injured another 50. there are many new religious movements in Japan and each of them claims to offer meaningfulness and an answer yet more factions and more gods and more purported answers but there is a new God even greater even more powerful than the new religious movements or state Shinto and that God in post-war Japan is capitalism Almighty dollar though the Japanese economy was in total ruins after World War II the Japanese people had their meaning of life ripped from them by the Victorious allies no more God Emperor no more State Shinto no more military government the Americans though gave the Japanese a new purpose by the end of the American occupation of Japan in 1952 Japan had successfully been reintegrated into the global economy with New Economic infrastructure and a revitalized national Direction Japan's economy improved with Incredible and unexpected speed a phenomenon which has since been called the Japanese post-war economic Miracle there were many factors that contributed to this post-war economic Miracle but they aren't that relevant to this video what is relevant is that Japan's economic model and growth led to what seemed like a new golden age capitalism the new God the alien god of the West had brought heaven to Japan in the form of conspicuous consumption the Japanese economic Miracle occurred in four stages the first stage was the recovery phase a period between 1946 and 1954 when Japan rebuilt its war-ravaged economy the second stage was the high increase stage which took place between 1954 and 1972. during this time Japan's economy exploded and Japan Rose to quickly become the most developed country in East Asia once more prime minister hayato Ikeda is often credited as being the master architect of this period of growth pursued both a policy of heavy industrialization of fueled by generous government loans and a relaxation of anti-monopoly laws the repeal of these anti-monopoly laws permitted the rise of massive business conglomerates From the Ashes of once large business families or zaibatsu these conglomerates are known today as the kairatsu in the Heavenly hierarchy of Japanese capitalism the cairetsu are like the chief gods they are as forces of capitalist nature in 1992 a study was conducted of the big six kairatsu the six largest conglomerates in Japan only 0.007 of the registered corporations in Japan were members of the big six but this tiny number of Corporations controlled nearly 20 percent of all capital and nearly 17 percent of the country's total assets all of this owned by only six large conglomerates these cairetsu are not giant corporations in the most literal sense they are not for example like apple or Walmart giant centralized entities are more like webs each point of the web representing a different entity that builds the body of the kairatsu at the very center of a kairatsu is usually some kind of financial institution take for example Mitsubishi gurupu whom you may know for their cars if you are a World War II dork the a6m zero Fighter the heart of Mitsubishi is not their Motor Company it's actually their Bank kabushikigaisha Mitsubishi ufujay Ginko is the largest bank in Japan it's actually the sixth largest bank in the world the top four banks in the world by total assets are Chinese state-run Banks number five is JP Morgan Chase and the sixth largest bank in the world is Mitsubishi Mitsubishi is larger than Bank of America larger than HSBC larger than Citigroup it is larger than Lloyd's and Goldman Sachs combined the Mitsubishi Corporation itself is Japan's largest General Trading Company what you know of is Mitsubishi Motors is only one company itself and a larger parent company called Mitsubishi heavy Industries which includes Mitsubishi Motors Mitsubishi chemical Mitsubishi power Mitsubishi Space Systems and Mitsubishi Atomic industry that's right the company that makes the car which just cut you off on the freeway sounding like the scream of a howler monkey said to the Ambiance of Beijing on Chinese New Year while barely managing 60 miles per hour is also an atomic power company if you play a lot of jrpgs this might all sound a little bit familiar to you can you think of an organization in any highly regarded jrpg that resembles a kaidetsu like Mitsubishi and its scale power and control in Final Fantasy VII one of my favorite games of all time the Shinra Electric Power Company controls the city of midgar and essentially the entirety of the in-game world despite being a corporation it is in every respect that universes de facto God a false god that exploits the good in the world for profit and Promises a false Heaven a literal promise to land built itself on a Web of Lies meant to suppress the people and give them hope and develop power ultimately for Shinra and this is not a subtle implication at all once you know the context it's literally in the name Shinra is made up of two kanji number one is shin meaning God or deity and meaning in this case web or conglomerate the god conglomerate the Divine kaidetsu Shinra Mitsubishi and the other kaidetsu promised heaven to Japan however in 1973 the high increasing stage of the economic Miracle came to an abrupt halt due to the 1973 Mako a excuse me I mean oil crisis in 1973 the price of oil increased from three dollars a barrel to thirteen dollars a barrel this caused Japan's industrial production to decrease by 20 percent and led thereafter to tighter Supply and higher commodity prices when the secondary oil shocks of 1978 and 1979 occurred thereafter the price of oil increased again from 13 dollars per barrel to nearly 40 dollars per barrel Japan struggled economically during this second oil shock but not nearly to the extent of other developed countries Japan UC managed to convert its economy in part away from oil hungry industrial production to become more of a technology and services-based economy which allowed Japan to increase its economic strength even as other countries struggled with the oil shock this economic rise of Japan caused anxiety for you guessed it the United States now at the time the American perception of Japan's economic rise was not unlike the American perception today of China as this Unstoppable economic Juggernaut destined to overtake the American economy if it continued to grow in response to the Japanese economic threat the United States waged but was essentially Market Warfare on its own Ally which culminated in the 1985 Plaza Accord which significantly depreciated or lowered the value of the US dollar what happens though when you lower the value of a currency relative to other currencies while the competitiveness of the lower currency Nation increases relative to other nations this is why for example you may see American politicians complain about China's currency controls and how they affect American competitiveness the plaza Accord didn't just decrease the value of the US dollar though it caused the Japanese yen to shoot up reducing Japan's competitiveness at a crucial time and like Commodore Perry over 100 years prior the United States threatened to pursue sanctions against Japan and threatened to open Japanese these markets for U.S companies by economic Force the immediate effects of the Yen shooting up in value though was not the death of the Japanese economy at least not right away it was the opposite in the late 1980s towards the end of the steady increase phase of the economic Miracle the Japanese economy experienced one of the largest asset price bubbles in history there were some in Japan who welcomed this like a celebration suddenly everyone's money was worth way more than before everyone's salary was worth more everyone's property became extremely valuable conspicuous consumption reached never-before-seen Heights in Japan the 80s saw massive commercialization City pop and disco stunning fashion in high-tech cities blade runner-esque neighborhoods like Ginza and Shinjuku at the time nine out of the 10 largest banks in the world were Japanese and half of the world's entire stock market capitalization was traded on the Tokyo Stock Exchange the New York stockx strange held only 25 percent of the world's total in comparison the greater Tokyo area had a larger GDP than the entirety of the United Kingdom the 1.15 kilometer grounds of the Tokyo Imperial Palace were worth more than all of the land in the entire State of California this is the extent to which the bubble expanded a short-lived era of unbelievable excess in Japan that is sometimes referred to as the babaruji Dai the bubble ERA this was the heaven that the cairetsu had promised the Utopia that capitalism had finally brought to Japan until very suddenly the bubble burst Juliana's disco was packed with people who thought the party would go on forever they were about to experience the mother of all hangovers in 1989 the Japanese Yen suddenly plummeted in value going from an exchange of one dollar to 123 yen in 1988 to as low as one dollar to 145 yen in September of 1989. land prices in Tokyo crashed declining by 4.2 percent in 1990 the Yen continued to weaken getting as low as one dollar to 158.5 yen the Nikkei 225 a stock market index that tracks the Tokyo Stock Exchange plummeted 35 in total value in 1990 and continued to decline in 1991. the rest of this economic story is one you may already know after all if you were watching this video you probably lived through it and have some recollection of it Japan's economy has been painfully stagnant suffering from recessions the effects of natural disasters and poor government policy making this period of stagnation and recession was originally called the ushinuarenta junan the last decade of the 90s but the Lost decade became the lost 20 years and in the 2010s this phenomenon became known as the last 30 years and more commonly now the Lost decades a quick warning before we continue I'm going to briefly discuss Japan's ruling political party the ldp this discussion is strictly within the historical framework and is not intended to be a political endorsement or statement for or against the ldp or any other political party the heaven of conspicuous consumption that was promised was a falsehood the cycle of History continues the kairatsu and the Japanese government that supports them like the shogunate like the military government of the emperor are seen by many Japanese people as being rather myopic and inward facing the ldp or liberal Democratic party is the controlling political party of Japan and it is often seen as the party of business the kairatsu's choice the ldp was formed in 1955 as a merger of Japan's too little C conservative political parties the liberal party and the Democratic party prior to the merger the liberal party and Democratic party each controlled the government one after the other starting in 1949 essentially as an extension of the conservative Imperial government that preceded it Japan has free and fair elections it is a liberal democracy built literally in the American model but the Japanese people choose very consistently let me give you an informative example the People's Republic of China communist China was fully established on October 1st 1949 but the little C conservative party of Japan has had control of the Japanese government since January 23rd 1949 and arguably if one accepts a brief period of time during which a socialist government had control from April 25 1947 to January 23 1949 the Japanese conservatives have had power since the first election on April 10 1946 and even arguably before that as the Japanese little C conservatives were also in control of the military Imperial government the liberal and Democratic parties were direct offshoots involving very often the exact same leaders of that military government the legacy of which is still present today in the ldp in other words though we condemn the People's Republic of China as being a one-party State the Japanese government has been controlled essentially by a single party since before the establishment even of communist China it's not that simple of course and one can hardly compare the political situation of Japan to that of mainland China and In fairness to the ldp there were some blips where the ldp lost some control such as during the 1993 election and the 2009 election when the ldp very briefly lost power to offshoot parties of the ldp with largely the same policies and ideas only wrapped with better marketing this is the setting the backdrop the complete context we need to begin to piece together why you always kill gods in Japanese video games it started as a Trope built out of the Japanese historical religious experience But as time has progressed the Trope has cemented itself as a cry for help as a form of protest as a cultural expression of frustration and hopelessness and Rage Against the Machine let us explore this last facet of understanding the canopy of the forest before we get finally to our discussion of video games thank you in the west we are painted a very Rosy picture of Japan the beautiful scenery futuristic technology bullet trains clean streets and delicious food and all of this is true in part but it is not the whole picture as some of you may already know when corporations and capital took power in Japan through the ldp and the monopolistic karetsu a social contract was drafted a series of de facto Commandments one must follow to get into capitalist Heaven a purpose a meaning of life you live your life for the company and only the company you are employed the moment you graduate shinsatsu ikatsu Sayo Levy and mass of new students and you work at the company for Life shushing Koyo wages begin low but seniority is rewarded you prove yourself through hard work and slowly you become a senior you prove your Devotion to the company in exchange for its blessings you sing the company song you surrender your vacation days and you work unpaid overtime in exchange you receive conspicuous consumption but as the economy faltered and the lost decade stretched so too did that social contract deteriorate the corporations bloated in fat from 50 years of uninterrupted growth were old-fashioned and narrow-minded the young people mobilized for economic War as if they are soldiers are pushed through a hellish grueling School Japanese students go to school at 6 30 start at 8 finish school at three but then virtually all students continue thereafter to do bukatsu after school activities the more serious students which is all of them will then continue to tutoring cram school or Library study for the most capable there may also be some extracurricular activities such as instrument lessons or Sports I have seen some reports that show Japanese students actually work fewer hours on their homework than American students do why this report says Japanese students only do 3.8 hours of homework a week and this chart shows South Korea being even more lenient with homework at only 2.9 hours the Japanese and Koreans among you will laugh at this chart I am sure because the true experience is this you don't even get home until 10 30 PM from your bukatsu and your cram school and your music lesson many bukatsu even feature a nap time period around 7 30 for like half an hour and a short Meal Time which your parents must pack for you so that you can wake up and continue to work [Music] by the time you are home at nearly 11 pm you have about half an hour to do whatever homework you can at the maximum efficiency possible before you pass out you only see your friends in school and never outside of school the harsh conforming nature of your school forces everyone to act alike dress alike and behave alike or otherwise face punishment by teachers and School administration or Worse severe bullying which is seldom addressed by Administration and at times even encouraged for the sake of enforcing conformity you will have school on Saturday and your vacations are seldom true vacations your summer break is spent half the time at school taking classes that are supposed to be the student's choice but are culturally mandatory failing to go will have school officials asking after your child and other parents taking notice of your poor parenting you certainly wouldn't want to leave a bad impression that could even potentially find its way to your place of employment would you and without giving too much away of my own personal background I have seen this myself I have seen this and spoken to those who have experienced this not only in Japan but also in South Korea and in Taiwan and in mainland China and what is all this for this is your boot camp you're training for the working world a world just as tedious just as gruesome with an Ever decreasing reward for your effort once you are at work you will arrive early you will sing the company song you will work all day even if you have nothing to do you will stay overtime even if there is nothing to work on and when you are done with your working day you will follow your boss to the bar drink until you are wasted because you have to in order to save face and then you will go back to work first thing in the morning with a hangover with everybody else to do it again you will not see your family except just before bed if you even have a family which very likely you do not and never will you will serve the Shinra you will grind you will worship the god company and you will be grateful for the opportunity to serve it is no wonder then that the Japanese population is declining it is no wonder that Japan has such a problem with suicide and depression it is no wonder that Japan has a problem with hikikomori or acute social withdrawal where people live as social recluses living in rooms and never leaving often relying on the support of elderly parents it is no wonder that Japan has a problem with Karoshi death by overwork heart attacks and strokes due to stress from work or malnourishment from never being able to leave the office or eat healthy foods or take in Vitamin D from the Sun and these issues are not helped At All by the myopic perspective of the government who seem to know exactly what the problem is but constantly beat around the bush shuffling numbers or producing flawed statistics to try and hide the problem instead of confronting it a very Japanese behavior of Saving Face this is because these are all problems of young people Japan's population is in Decline and there aren't that many young people to vote the elderly people vastly outnumber the young and they vote in directions that favor their benefit and why shouldn't they it's not like they have it easy either they fulfilled their end of the social contract and never received the heaven promised only stagnation the elderly ask only for a little of what they were promised but the state has less than even that to offer and so the young are robbed of their future to pay the old who only ask for a fraction of what they deserve and arguably what they need to survive there is an internal conflict like to deeply embedded in the modern Japanese experience the economy is declining the population is declining the youth have little hope the government and elderly are either clueless or pretending they are clueless to save face meanwhile the Lost decade is stretching into the last half century the enemy is nebulous and insurmountable the odds impossible it is no wonder that in Japan you fight evil Gods it is a rebellion manifested in the form of media it is a cry for help and a cultural Zeitgeist as much as it is a mechanic the Japanese people are locked in a struggle a cultural war against an evil that the society doesn't fully understand marching as it does ever forward towards what appears to be inevitable Doom [Music] game developers anime directors and the like they tend to be the quirky ones of Japanese Society the ones that escaped the social contract were at the very least most aware of it and they are the ones who tell this story the story of their lives of their experiences in the ways that they can in that Japanese way indirect non-confrontational for fear of bullying for fear of being ostracized the they do not want to be targeted by those who have given everything to the false gods and yet lash out because they themselves are insecure and Afraid and need someone something to blame for that which they have been promised but have not received they fulfilled their end of the social contract but have received only suffering in return and so they lash out let us finally then finally corroborate all of the above by examining these themes directly in different jrpgs after that we'll take a look at this Trope in the west to identify the similarities and differences while also identifying what we in the West can learn from Japan before it is too late for us [Music] Final Fantasy VII is one of my favorite games of all time and its themes greatly inspired this video Western punditry likes to focus on the more obvious themes of the game such as Avalanche and the environmentalist message of the game while overlooking the more subtle themes that require some understanding of Japanese culture and religious history in understanding that you now have Final Fantasy VII is a game with three primary villains the first is Shinra the god conglomerate representing the kaidetsu the large all-encompassing company that controls the world the second and this is where the metaphor gets interesting is Genova an alien from a far away place that interrupted the natural order of things and was purported to be an ancient a blessing but which turned out to be a poison and a curse with its own motive of Conquering the lands it arrives on a new false god bearing the name of the judeo-christian God but Nova Latin for new a new God and the third is sephiroth a child of Shinra and Genova an entity that marries native problems with foreign ideology the product of a conglomerate hunger for power and the poison of an alien being infecting the world around it sephiroth is a metaphor for government you may have noticed that very often in jrpgs the evil God also happens to be an alien and whether this is a conscious decision or a subconscious projection there is good reason for that capitalism individualism conspicuous consumption hyper-industrialization these were considered by many Japanese as being alien to Japan they are thought of as being introductions from the West brought to Japan just 200 years prior like Genova the Japanese perception is that westernization and capitalism was forced on Japan and Japan adopted it to survive it has lodged itself into the culture poisoning everything around it with its influence purporting at first to bring Prosperity into high age a new midgar a Promised Land only to corrupt and intermingle with Shinra leaving sephiroth in its wake and eventually a collapsed society which Genova can then devour this is a theme we see in a lot of jrpgs all pursuant to this same Theory Lavos an alien creature of immense power comes from space and lodges itself into the world poisoning everything around it it purports to bring Prosperity into high age only to corrupt and intermingle with a hedonistic Kingdom of zeal corrupting Queen Zeal and weakening the planet enough so that it can consume it and begin the process Anew the greater will a cosmic Force an outer God arrives to the lands between bearing with it the Eldon ring it purports to bring prosperity and a high age the age of the Arab tree only to corrupt those it would give power to Queen America the golden order and the Elden Lord so that it can consume that which remains I'm sure you can come up with a few examples of your own it's the same story the same metaphor used again and again in jrpgs and Japanese media a false god and its corrupting influence representing consumption and pursuit of capital a false promised heaven like that of bubble era Japan a corrupt power representing a government purchased and corrupted by capital and if the false god is not stopped a hellish existence thereafter but not all jrpgs necessarily utilize the alien aspect thereby tying the false god to the West the most overt example of this metaphor that subtracts the false god is an alien from the West angle I would argue it is persona 5. serious spoilers ahead by the way I'll add a chapter marker if you'd like to skip the spoilers but please click away now if you would like to in Persona 5 there is a cognitive parallel universe that exists alongside the real universe and the collective public has a realm in this universe that represents their Collective desires called mementos when a person's unconscious becomes corrupted around a single powerful desire that desire turns into a treasure and builds a rounded a cognitive Palace to protect said treasure mementos it turns out is a cognitive Palace for the entirety of the Japanese public and the treasure at the bottom of mementos is the greatest desire of the Japanese public it's called the Holy Grail a symbol of wealth and power The Grail manifests itself as yell the boath an evil God of control it reports to bring about a golden age to give the public what it secretly desires a world in which the public doesn't have to think for itself a social contract if you will it inserts itself into the capitalist system around it of greedy and power-hungry people and corrupts masayoshi Shido the sephiroth of the game the government product of the false god of capital and a greedy Society there is not even an XP here the false god is literally wealth in control the system it inserts itself into is just a Japanese Society without any metaphoric obstruction and the sephiroth Shido is a politician that's the fundamental breakdown the god-slang Trope in jrpgs and the often repetitive plot that surrounds this Trope is a critique and expression of life and modern Japan As Told through the lens of a religious cycle of experience that has occurred in Japan since time immemorial and this time the corrupt old God bringing ruin to Japan is capitalism the new heaven it promised the conspicuous consumption of the 80s has crumbled into the last half century [Music] foreign [Music] but wait a moment if we take just a step back we can see that not every use of this Trope is so charged with political context at least perhaps not consciously I can't speak for Masahiro Sakurai but I don't suspect Mr Sakurai is trying to offer a critique of capitalism in Kirby's Dreamland 2 where Kirby fights against dark matter and alien god creature that has possessed a local politician with Promises of power ha never mind that how about Kirby 64 where Kirby confronts Dark Matter after the alien god creature possesses politician Queen Zeal I mean the queen and takes control of Ripple star or in Kirby and the Forgotten land where the alien god creature fecto forgo promises a heaven-like land of dreams to a greedy group called The Beast pack and possesses their leader Leon gar to do so all set in a ruined Earth-like planet called the new world or how about Kirby Superstar which is possibly a Marxist leninist critique of the Soviet Union in the late [Music] ah you know maybe Kirby isn't the best counter example or maybe I need to ban little Dark Age from my Shuffle playlists but yes it's probably not all overtly political some of it certainly is like in Final Fantasy VII or Mother 3 or Persona 5 or Kirby I guess but sometimes this Trope is just a retelling of the Japanese cycle of History a cycle of religious history that we've already reviewed but which stretches back even into Japanese mythological record I'd argue that perhaps the reason this Trope is so prevalent in the modern age is because even subconsciously it is currently extremely relevant to the Japanese experience and has been so since the late 80s when story driven video games really began to take off now Mooney I can hear you say this is all very interesting but there's no precedent for any of this isn't it a leap of logic to assume a Japanese media constructs metaphors of such complexity without seemingly voicing these concerns allowed in society how come I don't know anything about any of this while Japanese media is chock full of this kind of subtle metaphor there is precedent for this kind of symbolism consider Godzilla long understood to be a filmographic metaphor for the consequences and dangers of atomic weapons but also as a subtle metaphor for American influence in Japan itself or for a more contemporary example consider Dragon Ball Z Akira Toriyama the creator of DBZ was inspired to create the intergalactic villain Frieza based on his experiences with real estate speculators during the Japanese economic bubble Toriyama has stated that the real estate speculators are and I quote the worst sort of people you are an OG fan of moon Channel you may remember what we discussed in the Ace Attorney video East Asian cultures tend to be non-confrontational and high context meaning that a lot of cultural context and understanding is required to parse the meaning and language Japanese literature and media is littered with indirect metaphors designed in such a way where the message is not lost upon a Japanese audience while also managing not to offend or cause a loss of face within the context of Japanese Communication in Japan for example you might not refuse an unreasonable request directly instead you'd say kentoshimasu I'll consider it whereas Japanese symbolism and metaphor tends to be purposefully muted and subtle however Western metaphor tends to be more overt in American games when we bring up topics like our own displeasure with capitalism we get stardew Valley or the outer world or BioShock Infinite these metaphors really hit you over the head but that is not the case with Japanese games or media which is why Final Fantasy VII is so helpful by Japanese standards the metaphor present in that game is glaring and obvious which makes it compelling mysterious and thought-provoking by American Standards which brings us to the penultimate section of this video a comparison of the god-slang Trope in eastern and western games Japanese critiques of the system in video games whatever that system might be tend to be subtle and wrapped around layers of metaphor and Nuance Western critiques in video games tend to be overt obvious and blunt Moon Channel viewers have pointed out that the most obvious reason one might kill a God in a video game is that it is the highest possible escalation of stakes defeating that which is most powerful and that does play into the Japanese metaphorical context as well only here that which is most powerful most insurmountable is and always has been this system when we see Western games though we experience the godsling Trope within the Western religious context namely the Greco-Roman and judeo-christian context you may recall in the beginning of the video how Japanese religion learned the ideas of immortality attainment and Enlightenment to godhood Via China and how the development of this idea that an ordinary person could become a God not only by birth but through great Deeds or deep understanding or personal cultivation led to conflict between the state and religion the progenitor religion of Western culture the one we all study in school Reco Roman religion has a similar idea apotheosis wherein a mortal can become a god through great Deeds but consider the source of that godhood one does not attain godhood on One's Own It is granted by another God consider Hercules or Heracles depending on the interpretation he was part God as the son of Zeus or he was granted immortality when he was Swept Away by Athena to Olympus as he lay on his funeral pyre intending to burn himself to death or palaemon who was granted Divinity after his mother grabbed him and jumped into the sea to escape the wrath of Hera immortality or godhood is for the gods to gift to Mortals it is not for Mortals to attain on their own consider also judeo-christian religion Christianity in particular very substantially shapes Western cultural perceptions even if one is not religious one's cultural understanding in the west is heavily intertwined with Christianity in all abrahamic faiths the only way to immortality is through capital G God for all the Christians out there I'm sure you know the following verse by heart it's printed on our soda cups and it's written on the bumper sticker stuck to the back of your mom's Subaru Outback John 3 16 God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son and whoever believes in him shall never die but have eternal life immortality and deification in the west have a source one is either born with it or one is granted by a God or The God as the case may be Heracles and Jesus apotheosis and salvation Japanese religious history involves a cycle of false gods but false gods in the Japanese context with all of the ambiguity make into that idea are not even possible in Western religion one is a God or one is not a God one can be an evil God but because godhood is granted and not attained there is no ambiguity as to who is or is not a God and thus no place for subtle metaphor of this nature our culture in the west largely did not develop this nuance and this is reflected in our video games Kratos and God of War kills many different gods and while they move this story along and help to develop Kratos as a character the god slang is not meant to convey some greater overarching political message you may have noticed though my own rather ambiguous language there are Western religious Traditions that are more similar to Eastern religious traditions in Myriad ways including but not limited to the idea that one can Ascend to godhood on One's Own by one's own merits and not coincidentally these religious Traditions often find their ways to Japan and get integrated into Japanese games via popular culture these religious Traditions being namely Norse mythology Jewish mysticism and Christian gnosticism in Norse mythology the gods aren't even Immortal they have superhuman abilities but they derive a degree of immortality by eating special apples although the stories of Norse mythology are quite Fantastical the Norse gods can be killed even by Mortals depending on the interpretation and because Norse gods are a little more human being killable and with more human-like characteristics Norse mythology shares some similarity with Japanese religion thereby making Norse mythology more accessible to a Japanese audience we see these similarities manifest in games like well Final Fantasy VII again the city of midgar comes from the Norse midgard the realm of mankind Nibelheim comes from niflheim The Realm of Darkness where helheim is located and helheim is ruled by the goddess hell we also see Norse mythology heavily featured in the yeast a series of games The Valkyrie Profile Elysium series a good reunion and like every single Atlas game likewise Jewish mysticism and Christian gnosticism have similar Western religion subverting themes alternative takes on Judaism and Christianity that offer different routes to Salvation or secret knowledge that start to resemble an Eastern understanding of religion instead of the more strictly Western Greco-Roman or canonical judeo-christian understanding we also see these Concepts present again in Final Fantasy VII you may remember from earlier in the video Genova the name of God in Hebrew combined with a Latin word nova meaning new a new God or the name sephiroth which comes from the Hebrew sephirot the ten aspects of God and the Kabbalah which include ketter netzac antiforet meaning Beauty but look we are getting a little too far into the weeds here sometimes the Japanese use Western religious motifs simply because they are cool and mysterious extensive use of Gnostic themes for example is said to be for this reason though again you really need to read between the lines and apply High context when interpreting Japanese and while I could go on and on about religious symbolism in Final Fantasy VII or Gnostic symbolism in Evangelion this is all besides the point our cultural understanding built in Western religion doesn't quite allow for the same degree of nuance and storytelling that the Japanese cultural context allows in this specific way our god-slang Trope is already uncommon and when it is present it is utilized for the purpose of escalating stakes and developing the stories of individual characters whereas in Japan the god-slang Trope is widely used instead as a metaphor for a shared cultural experience of difficulty and struggle against an uncaring soul-crushing system but here's the thing what has happened to Japan the Lost decade the economic struggle the broken social contract these are Concepts limited to Japan only for now economists and Scholars have studied Japan's lost decade to the point of nausea and while Japan has struggled tremendously with the effect and impact of the Lost decade to the point where the consequences and themes of that struggle have completely permeated their media we in the west have been largely blissfully unaware of the extent of Japan's troubles Japan is a canary in the proverbial coal mine I don't want to scare you but we here in the west may be catching up to where Japan already is we are starting to see very japanese-looking themes of godsling Broken Social contracts and anger at an uncaring system permeating into our own media and the reason for this is because we're starting to see the same problems in our societies that the Japanese have seen in theirs for 20 years already a broken social contract the elderly never received what they were promised and so vote for policies that give them what they feel they've earned the young are forced into a social contract with no payout the promise of going to college getting a job that pays enough for a home and children is broken our government's obfuscate and beat around the bush trying to absolve themselves of responsibility while courting the butt of those who matter the more populous elderly who vote for that which they rightfully deserve and who will slowly begin to outnumber the youth as there are fewer and fewer youth due to the destruction of the social contract which supports things like birth rates or stable living and we are already seeing signs of our own lost decade our own lost half century creeping into the periphery of economics what do you do then when change seems impossible when the world has made your voice so small that you cannot even remember how to speak how do you fight against that which is so massive so labyrinthine and so powerful that no one alive can completely comprehend it how do you stand up to an institution so indomitable with holy texts written in languages you can't understand controlled by people whose perception of the world is completely alien and hostile to you how do you fight a Mammon machine a hungering thirsting unthinking and alien god that which commands the Stars giving life its fullest brilliance and its greatest suffering where do you even start at the beginning you start at level one you build your understanding you lend your voice to the chorus you find your party you join your friends you fight together you win some and you lose some you struggle you persevere and you level up you figure out the story you discover the motives and someday when you are ready you will stand up to the false god together and you will prevail I've been your host Mooney times may be tough I know but hang in there and take good care of yourself okay a special thank you to this video's sponsor nordpass business please don't forget to check out their generous three-month free trial the provided link and code I am always grateful for your support as viewers thank you for tuning in two moon Channel another year [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign

Channel: Moon Channel

Views: 1,142,683

Keywords: RPG, JRPG, Role Playing Games, Japanese Role Playing Games, Godslaying, Why Do You Always Kill God in JRPGs?, RPG Tropes, Square, Square Enix, Nintendo, Sony, Moon Channel, Video Essay, Wholesome, Relaxing, History, Japanese History, Japanese Religion, NordPass Business, password manager for business, best business password manager

Id: IEUqLL8J4gI

Length: 90min 56sec (5456 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 02 2023