Having no nostalgia for anything Kajima has ever made makes people praising him so fucking baffling sometimes.

He makes good games, I get it, but he's.... a trash can ??? of a person ??? but no one ever mentions it ????

Whisper?? IS A CHARACTER HE MADE?? AND THEN DEFENDED WITH "BUT I HAVE A GOOD REASON, HONEST" and EVERYONE JUST WENT "OH KAJIMA YOU WACKY SEXIST YOU"

AND

THEN LIKE

HERALDED HIM AS THE SAVIOUR OF VIDEO GAMES A MINUTE LATER

I DONT

Quiet's a plant person, she breathes through her skin
But Kojima also admitted the real reason behind the design was because he was curious how far cosplayers go. Honestly the trailers were cut specifically to generate controversy and that was a decision on high from Konami. Mgs 5 is an all around mess that's really not indicative of his body of work.

When you're talking about cheesecake yeah as expected from Japan Japan theres a lot but its equal opportunity. Snake and Raiden spend entire games in skin tight ass spanking body suits, Vamp is a thing that exists.
When you get past that you're talking about one of the only military stories in the medium that's actually critical of war and thought out

honestly my issue with quiet is that if he just admitted 'hey, i just wanna see a hot girl with no clothes on', i'd be like, cool, you do you, (yoko taro said the same thing about his Cute Girl designs) but the fact that he tried to make it seem like it was for an Important Story Reason makes it like, worse? the thing with kojima

is that he basically only writes stuff that appeals to him, which is true for everybody, but especially with him

so like, if you don't like what he's putting down, it's not like there's other voices in the room, if that makes sense

Now Kojima is heavy handed about his messages. War bad, nukes are scary, the world we live in is being overcome by the illusion of artifice, war economy is a Thing and we're not getting rid of it.
Giant robots are cool
Most of them are things nobody does because it doesnt sell

Granted the guy was also stuck on the same franchise for 20 years because of corporate mandates, a corporation that then decided to literally purge all video game developers because the CEO hates them. Mgs5 was less a swansong more staking a corpse before jumping ship but I digress

so i think it's really easy to bounce off Kojima because what you see with his writing is exactly what you're gonna get, and that kind of... over the top drama and throwing EVERYTHING HE LIKES against the wall to see what sticks, like, he's the epitome of YMMV

i'm pretty neutral on kojima: i think when his games work, they're full of complete batshit balls to the walls complete nonsense in the best possible way, like this one boss fight you do by plugging your controller into another port, but i think that kojima also doesn't know when or how to reign it in, and he's really bad at writing women

Hes respected because hes always put creativity ahead of profits. The Quiet thing was literally all anyone talked about when 5 was coming out and the folks on the outside didnt really care to dig down past one interview for context. Her design is awful, and as a guy I know even talking positive right now makes me look like the neckbeard

But when you're talking about metal gear you're talking about a franchise with twenty years of a story that wasn't like anything else, especially from Japan, full of tons of other characters that were amazing, that ended with a trash fire that was basically trying to be the end word but ended up rapidly changing to salt the earth. It's a whole thing

Besides story stuff though it's the weird stuff he does with gameplay imo. Lots of experimental nonsense that doesnt always work but you remember it because it's so. Odd.

And they're usually coupled with these big set moments so they just kind of stick with you
Like two buff old men grappling shirtless on top of a super submarine for example

Theres plenty of other stupid shit though that comes from him just kinda, doing what he wants. Like the BB Corps who were all models he obviously really liked so that's why they're the boss's faces. Or how anyone hes friends with is suddenly in death stranding because... they just Are, but his stuff is overall engaging despite those weirdities

Gestures at all of this

See??

Quiet is literally six thousand horrific horrible tropes about women all crammed together but

"I WANNA SEE HOW FAR COSPLAYERS WILL GO"

"I REFUSE TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR MY MAKING A NAKED CHICK THAT DOESN'T SPEAK BECAUSE WOMEN SHOULDN'T SPEAK EXCEPT WHEN SHE DOES IT'S TO KILL HERSELF"

And when I dig into interviews about him he's always the same about any choice he makes

I'm not saying there is nothing good about his body of work, I get it the guy does some real good stuff

BUT HE'S ALSO A TRASH CAN ON FIRE

AND NO ONE EVER LIKE??? RECOGNISES THAT.

AND WHEN YOU DONT CARE ABOUT HIM EVER AND HAVE NO FEELINGS ABOUT HIS BODY OF WORK, IT'S JUST????