Hideo Kojima receives Fine Arts Award from Agency of Cultural Affairs

Death Stranding and Metal Gear creator honored

Kojima Productions announced that its director, Hideo Kojima, has received the Award of Fine Arts from Japan’s Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology.

The honor is awarded by the Japanese government to individuals who excel in the cultural arts. Categories for the annual award include film, music, literature, dance, broadcasting, critique, and media arts. Kojima is only the second video game developer to have received the Fine Arts award, following Nintendo veteran Shigeru Miyamoto, who was handed the honor back in 2010.

As reported by Siliconera, Kojima was the recipient of this year’s award due to the director’s work on esoteric sci-fi adventure Death Stranding, which was praised by the cultural arts committee for its dynamic vision and scope — with attention paid to its overall narrative of segmented societies reconnecting through the protagonist, Sam Porter Bridges.

In addition, Kojima was praised for his esoteric approach to game design, and persistent desire to implement new and intriguing mechanics and narratives to his titles — a design methodology that resonates all the way back to his earliest works, including the 1987 release Metal Gear.

Death Stranding is available now on PS4 and PC. A “Director’s Cut” edition featuring additional content is now available on PS5, with a PC port launching on Steam and Epic Games Store on March 25.

Hideo Kojima Receives the Minister of Education Award for Fine Arts from the Agency of Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan.
(Full details here:https://t.co/vlUdJL9ehZ)#AgencyforCulturalAffairs pic.twitter.com/L1mjgFbjRv

— KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS (Eng) (@KojiPro2015_EN) March 9, 2022