Ghost of Tsushima, a new game developed by Sucker Punch Productions and produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, places players in the shoes of Jin Sakai, a 13th-century samurai hoping to liberate his island home from the clutches of the invading Mongols. The game plays much like other “map games,” inviting players to explore the island and find interesting collectibles along the way. Many aspects of the game are customizable; you can change your armor, your bow color, your weapons. You can even pet foxes that helpfully show you the way to shrines. The game is beautiful, with lush fields of pampas grass and surprisingly detailed NPCs. It’s a fun game.
But today, I’m not here to tell you how fun Ghost of Tsushima is. I’m here to talk about poetry.
Jin preparing to write some haiku.
One of the collectible mechanics in the game is composing haiku in particularly scenic areas of the island. There’s always a little mat set out, as if someone has always been there before, leaving the designated haiku spot tidied up for the next visitor. The actual mechanic of composing haiku is limited, but appropriate; Jin looks around himself, with the player guiding his view via the right joystick, and picks out details in the scenery that catch his eye. These details are pre-determined, each representing a line of the haiku. The player chooses the three lines of the haiku one at a time, deciding which lines might go best together for whatever theme they’re trying to convey. Then, Jin reads the haiku aloud and is rewarded with a headband.
In an article for Kotaku, Ian Walker argues that the haiku in Ghost of Tsushima aren’t very good. Jim Kacian, the founder and director of The Haiku Foundation, explains that haiku are about, in part, the experience of discovering revelations through observing nature, and explaining the “thing-ness” of the subject at hand. Instead of engaging with the physical world around him, Jin focuses on more abstract ideas. For example, one haiku spot asks Jin to reflect on “refuge.” One of the options for the first line of the poem references a “golden temple,” which is, in the context of the game, a dense forest of yellow-leaved trees. In other words, the idea of a temple is somewhat abstract. It’s not literally a golden temple, but instead a refuge-like overhang of trees. True haiku might make a more literal observation, and a golden temple would be, well...a golden temple. Haiku is more than just a certain number of syllables.
Besides issues with the mechanics of haiku in Ghost of Tsushima, there’s also an issue with the historical accuracy of a samurai’s use of the form. The game has done a good job (or at least a passable job) of acknowledging the class issues surrounding the system of samurai and shogun prevalent in 13th-century Japan, and one of the subtle ways that the game emphasizes the vast divide between rich and poor is through haiku. Jin is educated, and he’s spent most of his life learning skills that will help him later in life—including art. Unlike the farmers and peasants Jin saves throughout the game, he’s had time and money to learn about art and relaxation in addition to fighting styles. When the opportunity to compose a haiku presents itself, Jin views it as a welcome chance to sharpen his mind for battle.
While it’s true that Japanese warriors—including samurai and even WWII fighter pilots—have used poetry as a way to reflect on big events and war, the representation presented in Ghost of Tsushima seems inaccurate. Haiku isn’t the only form of Japanese poetry (hello, what about the tanka?!), but it is the one Americans are most familiar with. By including only haiku in the game and representing it as a tool for sharpening one’s mind for battle, the game communicates that it’s less concerned about accurate representation and more concerned with making content that easily digestible for westerners.
In fact, a lot of the game seems to operate on the assumption that the player will be western and uninterested in the details of Japanese feudal life. There’s not much explanation of why the samurai seem to have so much money (although Yuna mentions the issue a few times), nor is there any discussion of the reasoning behind Jin’s family’s strict honor system. Instead, the game lies on tropes that have been around forever, especially ones involving honor and duty. Yet invoking Japanese ideals without explaining the reasoning behind them seems disingenuous, and ultimately disrespectful of the culture that informs the game.
Takijiro Onishi, soldier and poet
Let me give you one example of the role of poetry in Japanese warfare. Takijiro Onishi, who’s often credited with inventing (or helping to invent) the kamikaze pilot strategy, also considered himself an amateur poet. He gave one poem to a group of young men embarking on a suicide mission: “Today in flower/ Tomorrow scattered by the wind—Such is our blossom life/ How can we think its fragrance lasts forever?” Unlike a lot of poems in Ghost of Tsushima, this one begins with a specific natural image (a flower), describes that natural image in nature, then offers a reflection. While the fragrance could be the literal fragrance of the flower, it’s also the kamikaze pilots’ lives. Life, like a flower, is beautiful but easily scattered to the wind. How can we expect that type of joy to last forever? It’s a powerful image to offer pilots prepared to die for their country, and it’s just one small example of how poetry, and especially traditional Japanese poetry, intersects with war.
I don’t have good answers to the issues I’ve brought up, and I’m not going to pretend like I haven’t had an excellent time playing Ghost of Tsushima, but representation is important, especially in a game that strives to be so historically accurate—sometimes at the expense of fun.
Of course, Ghost of Tsushima is ultimately a video game, and it cannot provide players with limitless possibilities for constructing haiku, but it might have been nice to see some other traditional forms of Japanese poetry represented, or a better explanation of why poetry played such a vital role in feudal Japan. Because the plot of the game focuses so heavily on honor and duty—two ideals that feel like more of a stereotype of Japanese culture than anything else—it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the game also provides little nuance for its poetry composition, but I’m still left wanting more. I want haiku with specific natural imagery and fewer abstract themes. I want someone, anyone, to explain why poetry is important, even for a warrior (as a side note, there’s one mention of how poetry calms the mind before battle, but that doesn’t really get into it). In a game that seeks to immerse players in the world of feudal Japan, and in one of the few video games that integrates poetry into its mechanics, I wanted better.
It is an undeniably beautiful game, though.