Ghost of Tsushima players have ensured that a torii that was destroyed in a tropical storm on the real island of Tsushima will be fully repaired, thanks to their financial contributions to its Kickstarter.
In September, Typhoon Haishen was the first super typhoon of the 2020 Pacific typhoon season, battering countries like North Korea, South Korea, Japan, and northeastern parts of China with 195 kilometer per hour winds. The path and power of the typhoon led to high waves and flooding, as well as mudslides and the destruction of buildings. The island of Tsushima is accustomed to monsoon conditions, but the impacts of Typhoon Haishen were unprecedented. One of these was the destruction of a torii, a sacred gate marking Shinto shrines.
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Starting a Campfire, which is the Japanese equivalent of a Kickstarter, for the toppled torii, the priests of the shrine looked to outside help to restore the landmark. The total required for the repairs is ¥5,000,000, and thankfully, this has been reached. However, donations continue to pour in, quadrupling the original target to ¥20,000,000 from more than a thousand supporters. Yuichi Hirayama from Watatsumi Shrine, thanked the gods for their charity and also noted that a lot of the donations have come from fans of Ghost of Tsushima.
Torii feature in the game, which is set on the island during the thirteenth century, and they signify the way to Shinto shrines, which then give the player charms that offer different perks or buffs. Furthermore, Ghost of Tsushima was praised for its dedication to detail and accurate historical representation of that place in that time period. "There's like a notion that Westerners don't understand things (about Japan), but that hypothesis itself is mistaken," said the executive director of the Yakuza series, Toshihiro Nagoshi.
"There are numerous things I bow my head to, like aiming at setting a game in that time period...I could go on and on," said Nagoshi. "I feel an earnest sense of a job well done." Lots of others felt that same "earnest sense of a job well done," and Ghost of Tsushima sold more than five million copies, and a sequel is almost a certainty at this point.
Hirayama hopes that once the pandemic is over that the shrine will be visited by the supporters of the campaign, and it's a heartwarming story of people all over the world coming together for a good cause.
Featured Image Credit: Yuichi Hirayama, Sucker Punch ProductionsTopics: News, Ghost of Tsushima