Thompson River University

Arcade Soldiers: Early Japanese Shooters in Dialogue with Hollywood Militarism

This analysis argues that early Japanese arcade shooters from the 1970s and 1980s, featuring human protagonists and settings like jungles, engaged in a dialogue with American Cold War-era social imaginaries and Hollywood militarism, rather than solely reflecting financial motivations for international market appeal (mukokuseki).

• The paper argues that 1980s Japanese arcade shooters such as Front Line, Commando, Ikari Warriors, Contra, and Metal Gear were not merely market-driven mukokuseki (culturally odorless) products, but engaged in an ideological dialogue with Cold War American culture and post-Vietnam Hollywood ambivalence toward militarism.
• Japanese developers, lacking a domestic tradition of celebratory war narratives after the 1945 defeat, drew on American war films introduced during the postwar Occupation, especially Hollywood action films set in Southeast Asia and Central America.
• Rambo was a key model: his disillusioned, retributive hero, victimized by his own government, offered Japanese audiences a template for processing a 'bad' war in which flawed protagonists are betrayed by the state.