The 100-Yen Democracy: The Gift of Courage

"Video games are just toys."

Yet behind these lighthearted words lies what I believe is the most noble form of democracy — one humanity must protect.

In Part II, we explored Mario's bond with players as the "Hero with a Thousand Faces," and the "It's You" campaign that has celebrated Mario's relationship with his fans for over 40 years.

Chapter 5

The Emptiness Beyond Efficiency

The low prices and convenience of modern sales models may well be a blessing. But behind that sweet temptation, we risk losing the most noble part of the meal — the resolve to savour every mouthful, and the pride that comes from everyone sitting as equals.

Two convictions from Part II point the way. There is the warmth that embraces everyone, embodied by Gunpei Yokoi and his faith in mature technology; and the integrity of a Kyoto merchant — honest and uncompromising in business — embodied by Hiroshi Yamauchi and his ideas about "a box people buy out of necessity." What both teach is that the essence of a video game lies not in what it can do, but in a single question: how sincere it is towards the player.

In a world where technology evolves vertically and at an ever-accelerating pace, Nintendo stubbornly keeps to its horizontal perspective, convinced this is the only path rooted in the reality of human life. It is pushing back against a torrent of efficiency that dilutes the soup with water and puts the status of a hero up for sale. This is resistance in the digital age — and, at the same time, a prayer to protect the soul of a culture.

If the pursuit of convenience ends by stripping players of their agency and reducing everyone to interchangeable consumers, it will mean the death of video game culture. The reason is simple. The moment boredom sets in — boredom being the greatest enemy not only of the games industry but of the very idea of entertainment — entertainment dies, just as it did in the Atari Shock, the video game crash of 1983.

The true tragedy of the Atari Shock was not market saturation but the collapse of a universal trust between players and creators: the belief that this dish is worth their precious time. The dilution of the broth by today's subscription models is, ironically, only a re-enactment of that same crisis of trust — the one bred by mass production decades ago — now wrapped in the sophisticated veneer of digital convenience.

That is exactly why we must reclaim the weight of the controller in our hands, and the transparent fairness a single coin once guaranteed. We must rediscover the raw, innocent longing — "I really want that…" — of the children who stood, candy in hand, yearning for the finest soup, painstakingly prepared back in September 1985; a soup that never betrayed them.

For 40 years, we have worn the mask of Mario and conquered countless stages.

The intimate bond between soup and bowl, the democracy of the ¥100 coin, and the hymn to humanity that is "It's You"...every thread we have woven so far runs toward a single question: why are video games so beautiful, so precious? Let me close this long reflection, then, with my own answer, and with the most important legacy this mere toy has left us.

Chapter 6

What the Hero in the Red Hat Gave Us

At the end of this long journey, we return once more to the simplest of questions:

What, truly, was a video game?

It was never just a showcase for the latest technology, nor a disposable commodity built to kill time efficiently.

Built on the trust between soup and bowl, and guaranteed by the colourless, transparent fairness of the ¥100 coin, we were handed a gospel: "It's You." This is what pioneers like Gunpei Yokoi and Hiroshi Yamauchi committed themselves to protect: an overwhelming affirmation of human existence, a truth that holds no matter how the times shift or how far technology climbs.

For 40 years, we have worn the mask of Mario and conquered countless stages. This is not merely a record of play. In every moment we fell into a pit yet pressed the button to try once more, in every formidable boss we beat and the achievement that surprised even ourselves; we were using the human form of Mario to confirm, step by step, the power to overcome that lives within us.

What the hero in the red hat handed us, in his small gloved hands, was a spark: a modest but irreplaceable flame called courage, to carry into the hardships of the real world.

The Humble Honesty of the Toymakers

Looking back, perhaps we can truly understand Hiroshi Yamauchi's reference to hardware as "a box people buy out of necessity," and Gunpei Yokoi's devotion to "lateral thinking with mature technology," precisely because they refused to let video games be deified as high art. They knew entertainment saves the human heart not when it stands as an authority or a luxury, but when it works as an everyday, honest tool that anyone in the world can wield.

My thoughts culminate in this almost awkward sincerity. Video games have been honoured around the world and have become symbols of peaceful diplomacy because they realised an ideal the real world could not: a space where rich and poor, powerful and powerless, young and old can all savour the same soup from the same bowl. Within the virtual realm of the digital, they elevated the finest entertainment into something everyone could share.

Shigeru Miyamoto made Mario human, and not merely for the sake of graphical evolution. Was it not because he hoped that when we players face real adversity, we might remember that little human figured called Mario still moving forward?

Mario became human. He was not an all-powerful, all-conquering figure; he struggled while bound by gravity and limitation. The reason we are moved to see him haul himself up out of the dirt is that it is not merely an event on a screen — it is an affirmation of our own will to live on. Over 40 years, the vessel of Mario (It's You) has grown from a temporary refuge for the soul into a charging station that powers our ongoing courage.

To keep offering these simple truths — not wrapped in the luxury trappings of the latest tech, but served in the sturdy, honest bowl of mature technology, within everyone's reach — is the unwavering answer to entertainment that Nintendo has protected since its founding in 1889.

Even as modern business models chase efficiency, settle victory by spend-rate, and sell off experiences cheaply, I choose to believe. I believe that in the spine-straightening resolve and thrill we felt before an arcade cabinet, clutching a single ¥100 coin...we were at our most human.

In Closing: Setting Out Again with a New Bowl

We now hold the Switch 2 in our hands — a new bowl, yet an unfailingly honest one. What it serves is the finest soup: rendered with cutting-edge technology, yet still flowing with the soul of Yamauchi the pioneer, the compassionate lateral thinking of Yokoi, and the warm-blooded humanity Miyamoto pours in.

Video games will go on turning us into heroes.

The next time you grip the controller and lock eyes with the man in the red hat, remember: the one who wears that hat, laces those shoes, and saves that world is no one but you. It's You.

The new bowl and the new dish are ready.

Games are just toys. And yet, in the story of our lives, there is no more sincere companion. Time marches on, so let us eagerly seek the next adventure together. And, thanks to the creative minds at Nintendo - who continue to champion the company's original ideals - we can do just that.