MGSGnosis

“but in the current digitized world, trivial information is accumulating every second, preserved in all its triteness. Never fading, always accessible."

David Bowie in MGS

As some fans may know by now, “Diamond Dogs" was a concept album by David Bowie inspired by the George Orwell novel 1984

Bowie was known for having different onstage personas for each album,for Diamond Dogs the persona was called “Halloween Jack".

song by song breakdown of Diamond Dogs

The E3 2015 trailer for Metal Gear Solid V shows a cassette tape with “The Man Who Sold The World,a song by David Bowie,written on it.

It is also believed that Bowie's inspiration for the song came from a family member diagonsed with schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia plays a role in the novel VALIS by Philip K. Dick,in which a work of fiction within the novel is inspired by the 1975 film “The Man Who Fell To Earth" starring David Bowie.

MGS3 has a minor reference to Bowie's 1969 hit Space Oddity (which doubles as a reference to the film “The Great Escape")

The title of the song obviously reminds us of 2001: A Space Odyssey, a film that Hideo Kojima is a big fan of.

bowie2001.com

Then there's the Ziggy Stardust character. The lightning bolt and androgynous appearance makes me think of Raiden (a word that means “thunder and lightning” in Japanese)

Also check out David Bowie and the Occult

MGS3 Promo Book: The Countdown

I recently found a copy of Metal Gear Solid 3: The Countdown,a cool little promotional book released in Japan. It contains an interview with Hideo Kojima,synopsis on previous games in the series,production notes,a portion of the virtuous mission's script,as well as stuff that can be found in the original Snake Eater instruction manual such as instructions on CQC controls & camouflage, character art,and historical timeline.

If anyone knows Japanese and wants to translate the Kojima interview or any other part of the book,please let me know.

Here are a few images from the book