"Since the game's set in a magical kingdom, I made the required power-up item a mushroom because you see people in folk tales wandering into forests and eating mushrooms all the time," he added.
Shigeru Miyamoto included them as a doorway to the fantastical setting: But these are not signs of cultural critique or expression of any particular mood of the time.
series has many references to mushrooms: that you stand on, fight as enemies, eat for power-ups, etc. The choice for enemy eggplants was probably nothing more than a convenient, wacky joke, and in the case of Kid Icarus, that is confirmed by the lead designer. But again, why not? Wrecking Crew had enemy wrenches, but that is not evidence of any hidden meaning. Yes, some games did have eggplants as enemies. Eggplants still carry this symbolism today. This play-on-words is not new and can be seen in Edo Period artwork, where it was first associated with a fortunate "first dream of the new year" (hatsuyume, 初夢). That can't all be organic coincidence, right? And in some cases, a game designer would reuse ideas from one project to the next.Īre there cultural reasons for using eggplants as a prize? Yes, the Japanese pronunciation for eggplant is a homophone for " to accomplish/to build up," making it a fitting punny symbol for something that you collect for points. Think of how many video games, especially in the '80s-'90s, featured a character who throws bouncing fireballs. And there's a certain amount of cross-pollination, where game developers were influenced by each other's works. So why were eggplants included in so many games in the first place? Well, why not? It's not an uncommon thing to eat in Japan. There are at least eight game series for the NES/Famicom that feature eggplants in some fashion and roughly half use eggplants purely as a treasure to collect: You collect eggplants, among many other things, for points. But like Ice Climber (1985), it did not cast eggplants in a negative light. The first "eggplant game" released in America was probably Dig Dug II (1982). NES developers simply had the freedom to express their sense of humor, so many of them did so. I don't think eggplants were seen as eviler than anything else in any NES video game. If you want to be reminded to come check back later, or simply find other great content to read while you wait, this thread provides a guide to a number of ways to do so, including the RemindMeBot or our Twitter.įinally, while we always appreciate feedback, it is unfair to the OP to further derail this thread with META conversation, so if anyone has further questions or concerns, I would ask that they be directed to modmail, or a META thread. Of course, we know that it can be frustrating to come in here from your frontpage or r/all and see only, but we thank you for your patience. So please, before you try your hand at posting, check out the rules, as we don't want to have to warn you further. Making comments asking about the removed comments simply compounds this issue. We remove comments which don't follow them for reasons including unfounded speculation, shallowness, and of course, inaccuracy. Here is our classic boilerplate explaining better than I can:
If you care about karma, the mods have done some of these posters a favour, because our regular readers have extremely discerning tastes and a fondness for the downvote button. But that doesn't change what our readers demand from posters in-depth and comprehensive responses. It can often take time for a good answer to be written as well so. Japanese-language related punning? Children hating on eggplant? Children/programmers loving eggplant? The deep spiritual meaning of eggplant? (That last one is my favorite).įriends, I approach you with tears in my eyes and a ban hammer hidden behind my back: if you don't know the answer, please don't post a guess. The random guessing game is super intense today we've got all sorts of confidently stated possibilities. Seriously though, if you're after an actual answer to the question, you're not missing squat. And all those responses have been removed. You've come into the thread because it says something like 50 comments on the question. Hi team - but really, you guys already know the drill and exactly what I am about to say.