Hideo Kojima is a deeply Japanese video game creator, but most of his characters are neither Japanese nor even Asian. Why is that?
In both Death Stranding 2: On the Beach and his past games, it’s clear that the creator has focused on more Western faces. And it seems there’s a specific reason for this.
In an interview with IGN Japan (thanks The Game Post), Kojima was asked about his choice of the Japanese actress Shioli Kutsuna for Death Stranding 2. He took the opportunity to explain the technical challenges related to using more Japanese actors in his games.
Kojima explained that recreating Asian faces (not just Japanese ones) in computer graphics, especially women and young actors, has been a significant challenge over the years. This is due to their Asian skin, which appears “so smooth and beautiful that it ends up looking too artificial” when scanned and rendered in 3D.
The game director stated (via machine translation from Japanese to English): “It’s really hard to recreate Asian faces accurately in CG. Especially women and younger people, their skin is so smooth and beautiful that it ends up looking too artificial. This isn’t just limited to Japanese people; many Asians have incredibly fine and delicate skin, so when it’s rendered in CG, it tends to look fake.”
Additionally, Kojima notes that new technologies have made the process easier, though he still hopes to improve it further. “On the other hand, older people or those with freckles scan with more detail. I’ve tried using Japanese actors before, but they never quite looked right… That said, this time we used new technology, and I’m really happy with how it turned out. Of course, I still want to improve even more next time,” he added.
