News

Waseda University released the second episode, “Hideo Kojima and the Art of Game Design”, of season two of its English language podcast series “Rigorous Research, Real Impact” on October 7, 2025. All podcast episodes are available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and YouTube.

Episode 2: “Hideo Kojima and the Art of Game Design”

This latest episode features Assoc. Prof. Brian Hikari Hartzheim (Faculty of International Research and Education), a leading expert in new media and video game studies, and PhD student Fabian (Graduate School of Economics) discussing the cultural significance and creative innovation behind video games. Through an exploration of “progressive game design” and the influential work of renowned game designer Hideo Kojima, listeners gain fresh insights into how video games shape society, storytelling, and global cultural conversations. Assoc. Prof. Hartzheim also introduces some of the courses he teaches as part of the English-based degree programs in the School of International Liberal Studies (SILS) and Graduate School of International Culture and Communication Studies (GSICCS), which offer a dynamic and interdisciplinary environment for students and researchers from around the world.

The book this episode is based on: 
Hartzheim, B. H. (2023). HIDEO KOJIMA: Progressive Game Design from Metal Gear to Death Stranding. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

About Season 2
Season two will feature eight knowledgeable Waseda researchers casually conversing with Waseda PhD students about their recent, rigorously conducted research in the humanities/social sciences, their thoughts on working in Japan at Waseda, and the merits of the English-based degree programs they are a part of. Short 15-minutes episodes will cover a range of themes that include translanguaging in the Japanese sociolinguistic context, territorial disputes in Northeast Asia, and hybrid peacebuilding. It’s the perfect choice for international listeners considering attending university in Japan, current students contemplating further study in graduate school, and researchers looking to make the move to Japan and work for a university that stresses the importance of interdisciplinary approaches.

Recording in the Waseda International House of Literature (Haruki Murakami Library)

About the Guest:
Dr. Brian Hikari Hartzheim is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of International Research and Education. He teaches in the English-based degree programs of the School of International Liberal Studies (SILS) and the Graduate School of International Culture and Communication Studies (GSICCS). He recieved his Ph.D. in Cinema and Media Studies from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). His research areas include aesthetics and art studies, game studies, media industry and production studies, and anime/manga studies. 

Transcript:

Introduction

MC Fabian Johannes (00:06):
Hello, and welcome to Waseda University’s English podcast series titled “Rigorous Research, Real Impact.” In this series, we dive into interesting conversations and stories from Waseda’s vibrant academic and cultural community. I’m your host, Fabian Johannes, a PhD student in the Graduate School of Economics here at Waseda.

Today, we’re exploring a field that has become a dominant force in global culture: new media and video game studies. We’ll be discussing how games are not just entertainment, but also complex cultural texts that shape our society, our stories, and our interactions.

MC Fabian (00:46):
To guide us today, we are honored to have Professor Brian Hikari Hartzheim from the Faculty of International Research and Education, where he teaches in the School of International Liberal Studies, or SILS, and the Graduate School of International Culture and Communication Studies, or GSICCS. His research, including his book on the legendary video game designer Hideo Kojima, offers a deep dive into the creative and cultural power of video games. Welcome to the show, Professor Hartzheim.

Professor Brian Hikari Hartzheim (01:14):
A pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me.

What is Progressive Game Design?

MC Fabian (01:16):
Professor, your book on Hideo Kojima introduces a fascinating concept that you call “progressive game design.” For many people, video games are a major part of their lives, but they might have not thought about them in this academic way. It’s a great entry point into understanding how games can be more than just fun.

 Could you start by explaining what you mean by progressive game design? What are its key characteristics and how does a creator like Hideo Kojima exemplify this approach?

Professor Hartzheim (01:44):
So, I use the term progressive game design to capture what I view as a particular design ethos that is embodied by Hideo Kojima and his design teams. And basically, it means to design games with the hope of contributing some kind of progress to the games industry and, through this, to some of the questions of our time. So, on the former end, Kojima and his team’s work were insistent about creating different forms of play that were evolutions from existing popular genres.

The most famous example is when Kojima, in his attempt to create an action game that didn’t involve combat, he created the tactical espionage game called Metal Gear, which maybe you’ve heard of and many people probably have heard of. And this game would lead to its own franchise at Konami Studios, where he worked, and eventually to the formation of this entire genre of games called “stealth.” And the gameplay in this genre involves not destroying the enemy like in combat games that had existed at that time, or are still very popular today in first-person shooters, but instead of total destruction, total avoidance. So, sneaking past guards or using tools and costumes to distract them. So, this kind of new genre that was an evolution from other genres is one of the ways that Kojima and his designers looked to kind of push the envelope in terms of industry and industry expectations.

And on the latter end, the cultural end, in terms of the questions of our times, Kojima always wanted to have stories in his games that reflected this gameplay and would comment on larger moral issues and geopolitical trends. So, in the Metal Gear series, if we’re going to stick to this particular game, which he’s most well known for, there’s a broad anti-war, anti-nuclear weapon message. And this message dovetails with topical themes that are reflected in the games of the time. So, for example, Metal Gear Solid has this story that deals with genetically modified soldiers. And this story reflects some of the ideas of, you know, there’s a general again, anti-war and anti-nuke feeling in the game, but this particular aspect of the story reflects contemporary debates about genetic modification and gene therapy that erupted in popular culture after the initiation of the Human Genome Project in the 1990s. And there was this talk about cloning animals and even humans that resulted in a lot of ethical debates and controversy. So, he had the idea to include aspects of this debate within the game itself, in the story.

What I think makes Kojima a really compelling figure is how these two aspects feed into one another. So, the story fuels ideas that are expressed through play, and vice versa. The play reinforces the themes of the stories. So, I think there’s a lot of game designers who use games in one of these ways, right? They like to tell really sophisticated stories in games, or they’re really good at coming up with different types of game systems and mechanics.

 And Kojima, I think, is the rare example of a designer who can do both. And I think this kind of idea is maybe very common in indie games, right? Art games, where games are designed to impart a kind of message and they’re more artistic maybe, and they’re not necessarily designed for commercial appeal. What I think makes Kojima interesting is that he is making commercial games, right? These are games that are designed for a mass audience. And yet he is really concerned about imparting this kind of message that stays with the player. And I think that’s quite rare in commercial games, and I think that’s kind of what distinguishes this concept that I call progressive game design from lots of other theories related to experimental games or critical games or critical play that are more commonly attributed to art games and indie games and experimental games. He’s using commercial games to talk about things that he can’t do, that many actually artists can’t do, in commercial media otherwise, right? Metal Gear Solid, for example, it has the trappings of Hollywood style and this military action game facade, but it’s highly critical of American foreign policy and geopolitics in ways that I’ve almost never seen in any Japanese or even American action film. So, there’s this sense that he’s using games to talk about things that he’s unable to do or many other artists or creators are able to do in other formats.

Professor Hartzheim’s Background

MC Fabian (05:55):
That’s a very clear framework for understanding the potential of games. It makes me wonder about your own journey. Many researchers have a unique story about how they arrived at their current field. I’m curious how your own experiences shaped your path. Could you tell us a bit about your background? What was your path to becoming a researcher in new media and game studies?

Professor Hartzheim (06:16):
Uh, well, I went to graduate school for film and media studies, and I was at UCLA. And while I was there, a lot of scholars, it was still a pretty classical film studies department. So, there were a lot of scholars who did classical film studies, but we also had several scholars who were doing really innovative work in emerging subfields within media studies, like media industry studies or studying transmedia. Transmedia is this kind of study of media across different platforms. And I took a lot of classes with Professor Steve Mamber, who was an IBM scholar and was teaching courses in electronic culture, and he taught a course in video game studies, which I believe was one of the first such courses offered in a grad school at the time.

 So, I was lucky to go to school in this environment where I received this classical film studies training and methods, but I still had exposure to really fresh ideas and approaches. And I was able to combine some of these approaches in my dissertation where I looked at the manga and anime industries and the dispersed production of transmedia franchises. So, that explains some of my educational background. Professionally, I also worked as a reporter, as a journalist, and I also worked as a game planner for a game studio. And I’ve written about some of these observations. It’s informed by this background in different professional fields, journalism and in production.

The Significance of Japan as a Research Context

MC Fabian (07:30):
Your research is deeply embedded in the context of Japan, home to giants like Nintendo, Sony, and of course, Kojima Productions. It seems like the perfect place to study this field. Let’s talk about that significance. What makes Japan such a significant and rich environment for studying video games and new media? What unique cultural or industrial dynamics do you find here?

Professor Hartzheim (07:51):
Well, it’s great for quick and easy access, obviously, to all sorts of primary materials and secondary research materials and stuff that I just like to read or watch or play, obviously, I can find that pretty easily here. That said, you know, the giants you refer to, Nintendo or Sony, they are probably more liable to like send you a cease and desist letter than cooperate. They’re very protective of their IP, as is well known. And so, if you want to research those games, you don’t necessarily need to be here. Many people write essays and books on Legend of Zelda or the importance of Mario and no need to be here to play Mario games. It’s available everywhere, worldwide now. Even material, easier to kind of purchase through libraries and through e-commerce sites.

So, in terms of like big game studios or big game, well-known games, I don’t know if you need to be here for that. What I would argue is maybe the big advantage of being in Japan is to really see and understand media within its socio-cultural and industrial context.

And if I can go on like a little bit of a tangent here, when I was in grad school, I said I was a journalist. I had previously been an editor for a pop culture website, and I was a reporter for one of the big Japanese newspapers. And a lot of my work involved kind of going through newspapers and just kind of seeing what was written about Japan in the newspapers. And what really struck me with a lot of these stories is how so much of the reporting relied on kind of outdated stereotypes of Japan. At the same time, I had been working in Japan as a reporter, as an editor, what I also read in academia didn’t necessarily jive or match the stuff that I was seeing and doing in a professional capacity.

So, this was like when there were a lot of weird Japan stories coming out that were pushed by the media and some academic circles as well, that were trying to push certain narratives or assumptions about Japan. I can’t pretend that I wasn’t also maybe influenced in some way, but maybe these, you know, these stories might be even more ubiquitous today with all sorts of social media influencers, and they spread all sorts of stuff using AI or just clickbait about Japan. And part of the reason why I wanted to focus on Japan in grad school and then eventually live in Japan was I wanted to help correct some of these inaccuracies that were being spread by media and social media and even academia by people who didn’t really live here, didn’t speak the language, or didn’t really have updated beliefs about the country. So, that is, I think, one of the important things about being here is you can have a much stronger and accurate understanding of media.

Studying at Waseda

MC Fabian (10:17):
Okay, understood. That’s been very insightful. Now I would like to shift the focus to any potential future Waseda students listening from around the world. Hearing about your research, I’m sure many would be excited about the chance to study these topics at Waseda. For students interested in new media and game studies, what makes Waseda’s School of International Liberal Studies a unique and ideal place to learn?

Professor Hartzheim (10:40):
There are challenges, I think, studying games and new media in Japan. For one, there are no media studies, I should say. There are lots of places that specialize in design, like media design or film production. But in terms of like film studies or game studies, there aren’t that many places to do that just as a single department. In fact, I don’t know of any outside of maybe art schools. Compare that to like the US or parts of Europe, there are dedicated programs where people can get BAs and MAs in game studies and film studies. You’re seeing now calls, like job calls for game studies positions.

People that study games are in all sorts of different departments. You have people studying games in like literature departments from the perspective of aesthetics, or in sociology departments from the perspective of industry, or in economics. There are people looking at kind of the economic structures of the games industry. And so, there are all these game scholars kind of scattered across different areas, different schools. You don’t have this necessary concentration of scholars in a single campus. Most scholars end up assembling or gathering in academic association meetings or conferences or symposiums. So that’s one of the challenges.

Within this environment, I think Waseda has a couple advantages for students and researchers who want to study games or new media. One is that we have SILS. I’m speaking in English, so I’m assuming to like an English-listening population, but one of the advantages SILS has is that you can study in English. All the classes are in English. And for our undergraduate students who come here in English, they can study classes in media, various media subjects, new media, old media, journalism, and they can with a background or some ability in Japanese, have a leg up in the job recruitment process. So that’s where a lot of our students come from.

But if you’re looking specifically at games, probably our other big advantage we have is the Waseda Game Lab that I initiated with my colleague Joachim Scharloth in the SILS program. And we’ve used it to host guest speakers and workshops in game studies and development. And we’re expecting to grow it with more events and activities in the future. So, it’s right now a kind of emerging platform for game studies. We hope we can make it into a place that people want to come in Tokyo to study games at.

Curriculum and Student Projects

MC Fabian (12:57):
You touched upon Game Lab. Can you give more specific examples of what students can expect to learn when they would go to your classes?

Professor Hartzheim (13:06):
I teach a class in game studies. It’s a big kind of lecture. And I teach a seminar, a zemi, in media convergence. Most of the students in this class, they get an overview of the fundamentals of the area of study, which is game studies or media convergence, what are the kind of key debates. And then for the seminar, for example, they’ll do a graduation thesis on a topic that’s related to the class theme.

 So, I’ve had students do all sorts of stuff related to games, related to animation or anime. They’ve had, you know, if I think of some of the most, let’s say, the longest ones at least, one student did like a whole intertextual study on an anime called Bungo Stray Dogs. I don’t know if you’ve heard of that one. Uh, it’s a very kind of literary anime. Most recently, I had a student do a really fascinating study on anime tourism, and she had gone to a town in Kyushu to look at how an anime production had kind of integrated with the local community to, uh, kind of promote its city through the anime and through tourist activities, tourism activities. And she had, I think, a very nicely critical look at some of these practices.

So, I mean, that’s, I think, some of the stuff that students have done in the past. In terms of game specifically, I’ve had more and more students, however, they’ve been clamoring for stuff where they can actually, like, make games and design games. And that’s not my background so much, but I’m going on sabbatical for about a year or so and thinking of taking that time to actually kind of, maybe take some game design classes, make some observations in game studies departments, game design schools, and come back and offer some kind of curriculum that can speak to some of these students and their desires to, especially what I would like to do is make games kind of like, or at least encourage students to look at games in the same way that Kojima and some of these other progressive game designers are doing, which is to make games that have some kind of critical component that can answer some of the larger issues of our times through play. So, that’s a lofty goal, but that’s something that I’m thinking about doing in the future.

MC Fabian (15:08):
So in sum, we can say that students can really indulge in whichever area they want to, and the curriculum is constantly evolving.

Professor Hartzheim (15:15):
Yeah, maybe it’s too much because sometimes I feel like I don’t know what they’re talking about anymore, especially when they’re doing stuff like in social media. There’s more students doing stuff like in VTuber analyses and influencers. So, I’m learning, constantly learning from their work. It’s great in that way. I’m like, I’m always kind of learning and benefiting from their research. At the same time, I’m like, I do need to be able to understand what they’re doing. So, I maybe need to impose some kind of limit in the future on the scope. But for now, it’s working okay, and I again, I enjoy like being exposed to these other ideas.

A Message to Future Students and Researchers

MC Fabian (15:47):
Professor, it’s been an incredibly insightful conversation. Before we finish, do you have a final message for students around the world who might be thinking about studying at Waseda, or even researchers who might be considering taking up a position in Japan?

Professor Hartzheim (16:00):
I think both SILS and our graduate school, GSICCS, their advantage is that they are these broader liberal arts programs. GSICCS is maybe centered more around communication and cultural studies. And they do have a very interdisciplinary focus. For some students and researchers, this can be frustrating because there’s maybe not enough of a center. But for some students and researchers, I think this can be really liberating because it does invite a lot of different kind of approaches and ideas. I’m in that latter camp because I think this environment has allowed me a kind of freedom in my research and thinking that is unsual not just in Japan, but I think academia more broadly. And I think we have the ability to resist or critique some of these kind of dominant narratives or dominant ideas about Japan in popular culture in general, if we choose to do so. So, I think that is one of the kind of advantages we have here at SILS and GSICCS for maybe academics who are looking to step outside the box of their particular fields or disciplines.

MC Fabian (16:58):
Thank you so much for your time and sharing your expertise with us, Professor Hartzheim.

Professor Hartzheim (17:02):
Thank you again for having me. It was a pleasure.

Conclusion

MC Fabian (17:11):
And thanks to all our listeners for tuning in. For more conversations from the corridors of Waseda University, don’t forget to subscribe and tune in to the next episode on “Rigorous Research, Real Impact.” Until then, take care and stay curious.