Hideo Kojima Reacts to New Metal Gear Solid V 9-Year Coma Meme

Hideo Kojima reacted to the new Metal Gear Solid V coma meme which has been taking Japanese Twitter by storm these past few days.

If you regularly hang out on the Japanese side of Twitter, you must have noticed a certain meme making the rounds since late February. The meme uses the intro scene of Metal Gear Solid V, with a doctor and a nurse speaking to the player.

In the original scene, the doctor announces to the players: “Please stay calm and listen. You’ve been in a coma for 9 years”. Now, Japanese Twitter users are parodying the scene and using it as an internet meme template.

The meme started with a viral tweet from @Shirakami_Amaki on February 16, going “Please stay calm and listen, you’ve been in a coma for four years… and Hunter x Hunter‘s serialization hasn’t resumed yet”.

Hunter x Hunter (the x is silent) is a legendary manga by Yoshihiro Togashi, who’s also the author of the excellent Level E and Yu Yu Hakusho, and the husband of Sailor Moon’s Naoko Takeuchi. However, due to Togashi’s health, Hunter x Hunter has been on indefinite hiatus several times these past 16 years. Personally speaking, when I first saw this tweet last February, I didn’t find it funny at all. We’ve been making the Hiatus x Hiatus joke and variants for over a decade now, and it’s been milked to death.

However, what truly launched the meme was the hilarious video version dubbed by @Earl_Enigma:

“Please try to stay calm and listen. You’ve been in a coma for four years. I will tell you the truth. Well… Hunter x Hunter‘s serialization…. has not resumed. *starts panicking* Stay with us! One Piece isn’t over yet either, but at least Demon Slayer ended! There’s even an anime now!”.

MGSV 9-year coma meme takes Twitter by storm

This tweet has now over 80,000 retweets and 235,000 likes. What makes it so hilarious is the fact that Earl_Enigma imitated the voice of Hochu Otsuka perfectly. Hochu Otsuka is the seiyuu (Japanese voice actor) originally voicing the doctor in the game. Outside Japan he’s mainly known as the voice of Jiraiya in Naruto. Younger anime fans know him as the voice of Urokodaki in Demon Slayer.

Since then, tons of hilarious variations of the meme have emerged, most of the time replacing the doctor and nurse with characters from Japanese pop-culture such as Uma Musume. Even legendary artists like Sattou ended up making their own version of the meme.

You can find many more examples by looking up “落ち着いて聞いて” on Twitter. And as the meme kept spreading, it eventually reached Hideo Kojima himself.

Hideo Kojima reacts to the MGSV 9-year coma meme on Twitter

Hideo Kojima shared his surprise on Twitter. Understandable, considering Metal Gear Solid V was released 7 years ago in 2015 and yet that scene was never particularly meme’ed on till now.

Hideo Kojima: “Lately, a lot of people are sending me tweets of the MGSV intro in the Cyprus hospital. I was confused at first, then realized the “9-year coma” scene became an internet meme”.

As explained by Netlab, in a follow-up tweet, Hideo Kojima mentioned the doctor in this scene was motion capped and modeled after British actor Ian Moore.

Ian Moore is a popular actor in Japanese dramas and appeared in a Navitime ad from several years ago. Navitime is a popular GPS app in Japan. Ian Moore’s presence in MGSV wasn’t a secret, as several fans pointed out he’s credited in-game. However, the piece of trivia sent Japanese Twitter into a new uproar, with Kojima’s tweet reaching over 60,000 retweets.

The MGSV 9-year coma meme hype is still ongoing on Twitter, and it’ll probably reach English speaking fans soon. Which variant of the meme is your favorite? Tell me in the comments below!