EXORCISM AND GHOSTWIRE: TOKYO
The power to dispel demons is in your hands – that is, if you know what to do with them
Ghostwire: Tokyo’s first-person magical fisticuffs are based on kuji-kiri, a set of ancient Japanese Buddhist hand gestures and symbols. The game takes inspiration not just from the original gestures, which were sometimes used to banish evil spirits, but from their reinvention in modern-day Japanese culture. Many Japanese people are introduced to kuji-kiri by manga, anime, and live-action films such as Rurouni Kenshin, Ghostwire’s game director Kenji Kimura explains. As a child, he used to perform them in the playground while playing ninja.
He recalls, “The English equivalent would be cops and robbers – [for us it was] ninjas and bad guys. And without really thinking about it, I’d be doing that kind of movement with my hands, because that’s just something I felt ninjas would do. And that’s part of our creative culture – it’s something that we’re exposed to so much when we’re small, without really knowing that it was kuji-kiri at the time.”
Kuji-kiri is a practice of symbolic ‘cuts’. The kanji for the gestures are ‘seals’, Kimura goes on: the idea is that you’re simultaneously slicing evil phantoms open and closing them up, rather than hurling a ball of energy around, as in many Western-designed magic systems. Some hand movements literally evoke swords being pulled from sheaths. Ghostwire: Tokyo also leans on the kuji-kiri system’s division of labour between a receiving and emitting hand: protagonist Akito favours his right hand for offensive spells while his left is used for defensive gestures, reeling in spirit cores, and picking up objects. “People may feel like the character is left-handed at times,” Kimura jokes.
NEW WAVE MAGIC
During the game’s development, everybody brought their own past experiences of the gestures and symbols to the table, creating a complex collective reinterpretation that also stirs in ideas from overseas. The game riffs on the ancient Greek philosophers Aristotle and Plato, for example, with spells divided into four elemental categories represented by geometric shapes inspired by the “Platonic solids” (the supposed fundamental components of earth, fire, water, and air). At one point
Kimura considered using the fiveelement system seen in Japanese Buddhism, but felt that European and North American players would prefer the four.
There’s a touch of cyberspace to the magic as well, echoing the game’s portrayal of Tokyo itself as a modern technological powerhouse as well as a city rooted in ancient traditions. Matrix-style maths equations play out in the background when you’re performing banishments, as though you are slicing, sealing and reprogramming your enemies all at once.
“WITHOUT REALLY THINKING ABOUT IT, I’D BE DOING THAT KIND OF MOVEMENT.”