SECTION 5
SOUZOU [CREATIVITY]

4. Naifu to Sabaibaru Geemu
[Knives and the Survival Game]

Since I was young, I've had a hobby of breaking things.

In kindergarten, I would take precision instruments out of my parents' storage whenever I wanted and take things apart. The TV, the radio, the stereo. I would take all the electronic equipment apart. Bikes, cars…I would try to take apart absolutely everything. I wanted to know how they were made.

After I took them apart, I would put them back together. Making sure that they all worked normally afterwards was a lot of fun.

When I got good at it, I would take things apart and put them back together over and over again. In doing this over and over, even now when I get new parts or accessories, I will try and test them. Though the parts that I have work, I will think "why is this or that part necessary?" I love doing things like that.

One thing that I failed to disassemble was my Playstation. My first one broke, so I bought a second one. Then the second one broke. Then I bought a third one. However, I still had parts from the first two. I thought, "Can't I do something with these?" So I took the third one apart, but the first, second, and third ones were all completely different inside. "Ah, so that's why the response time of these Playstations is so slow…" I realized.

So then, thinking that all the pieces were still good, I stuck them all back together. I was going to make a SUPER PLAYSTATION!! I put it together a bunch of different ways, but it was still broken. So then I stopped buying Playstations.

When I was 9 or 10 years old, my hobby was writing computer programs. Personal computers had just come out, and using machine language, I wrote a program. I remember that my computers were a 6001 Mac II, a 8001 Mac II, and then a 9801 FR…

Though I wrote a really awesome program, I didn't do much with it. Though I was wondering what I was going to do with it, I still put everything I had into it. Floppy disks hadn't been invented yet. So all my programs were saved on a rectangular 30 cm personal tape recorder, which would go "piiii pirororo ppi" when you saved anything.

What's more, it was really irritating that even though I spent 3 hours working on a program and saved it, it would take up 50-60 minutes on a tape recorder. If I was in the middle of it and the tape was damaged, I would have to start the program all over from scratch. The tape would go "piiii pirororo ppi" and then "ERROR!" would appear. That happened many times, and I would yell, "It's not an error!"

I lost interest because of that. I wrote programs that could give an answer to a numerical formula, but I could calculate the answers faster on my own. I started to think, "Do I gain any meaning out of writing these programs?"

Because that was a time period when the possibilities of the computer were very limited, I think that I got into that hobby too quickly.

When I was about 12 years old, the "in" thing was analog. For example, the construction of a piano. I took apart a piano we had at home to see what I could do with it.

Because the piano was tall, in order to properly put it back together, I wrote down the position of the pieces and had to try many times. I couldn't put the keyboard back, so I wondered what I should do. Then, I started taking apart the piano at school. Upright pianos are unexpectedly easier to take apart.

I would take it apart in the music room after school, and many times a teacher would see me. "What are you doing?" they would ask, and I would answer, "I'm repairing it. This hammer is really bad." The teacher wouldn't say anything back. Because they knew that I was good at music, they didn't think I was lying.

From that time on, I grew accustomed to taking things apart, and not only that, but of course I grew able to put them back together too.

The most difficult things to put back together are electronics. The Playstation was like that, and I understood the written warning that says "If you open this the warranty becomes invalid." However, I opened it. Then, the only thing I did was to take it apart.

The next thing I became fanatic about was knives. Collecting knives. It was an opportunity for me to have a knife if I was ever attacked with someone who also had a knife.

When I was 16, I was attacked. I was stabbed in the leg with a blade about 20 centimeters long. Also, I was slashed above my eyelids. Since then, I have always carried a knife with me when I go out, like Rambo.

I just hate using knives in arguments. People who pull out knives during arguments usually end up using them. It's dirty from the start. That's why I want to say, "Don't get in fights to start with!"

You start a fight, you neglect things, and then on top of that you pull a knife?

I also think that the person who pulls out a knife will have huge regrets.

Actually, that's what happens. People who draw their own knives think to make me draw mine also, so they yell "Ora!" and things like that while showing off their knife.

I slowly put my hand to my chest, and while shouting " Look out!" I draw it out. My 25 centimeter-long knife. My opponent is shocked that I actually pulled my knife out. Then, I place it up on a shelf while saying severely, "That was dirty," or "You're a dirty sneak."

"If you stab someone with that, you could kill them," I say.

It's your knife, but if you stab someone, won't they die?!

Limiting these kinds of guys, they will run away and hide while shouting curses at you. It's pathetic.

However, knives are mysterious. While you have one, you will walk around troubled by something. At first a knife was just a tool I used to stab someone, but knives are much deeper things, and there came a time when I get tired of their charm. I only collected short knives, but when I was a teenager, I had about 150 of them.

I continue this hobby today. I once thought they were dangerous and got rid of all of them, but I started again about 5-6 years ago.

Generally, I like small knives. I like to carve wood with them. It is even more meaningful to carve a piece of solid wood with a knife than it is to carve it with a chisel. I have carved a large bird before.

Recently, I received a knife from a player on the K-1 team.

If I say, "There's no reason to have a knive," it would become cheap talk. There are many things to talk about with knives.

"A person who always stabs others will be stabbed by others. So, if you carry a knife, you will definitely meet others who carry knives."

That is just as I say.

When I thought that I couldn't defend myself properly, I carried a knife. Though I was a very small person, when I carried the knife, I was stabbed after all. If I had been in the wrong place, I would have died. I wonder why I was stabbed, but when I carried a knife, it was just as I thought.

Speaking of which, recently, I haven't been carrying my knife that much. I display them all at home.

Now, something that is fun to do is the survival game. When the game starts, there are more than 100 people. It's 50 vs. 50. When youI can get 100 people together, there's nothing else you can play. And you will either win or lose. It doesn't matter if you are male or female. It's really cool.

Inside a mountain, you get 15 minutes, and then 20-30 minutes of break time, and then 15 more minutes. The game advances in this way.

When it's over, we all barbeque. This year, I wanted to have a barbeque with 100 people, but it never happened. It was very strange. Gathering a bunch of different people together was very interesting.

At the same time, I think about many things. In actuality, I try to gather together people who like war and bullets, but that's very prejudiced.

Because it's a game, the more we play the more fun we have, but we understand that real war is meaningless.

Death is a horrible thing. It's over in a split second. Also, there are many instances of people being killed by friendly fire.

The balls in the game are 6 mm BB bullets. Though they are plastic, they really hurt, and the leave a mark. Encountering a small troupe of 8 people, we fight with military tactics. However, even if you win with those military tactics, no one is at peace. Half of them are dead.

It is only playing. When I think that the people of this country might actually be killed in this way, I can't bear it.

I think that all adults should play this survival game once. You can show your true feelings. I think that a country cannot find true meaning if it is at war.