As Far as the Wall

When Sari and I were in Kyoto, I had one real objective beyond the temples and the tofu: I needed to see the Nintendo headquarters. Touch it if possible. Maybe lick the building a little, as a treat. We got as far as the outer wall before it became clear that disillusioned fans showed up regularly hoping to embrace Shigeru Miyamoto in person, and that the facility was not operating as a pilgrimage site.

Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Super Mario World—these games defined my childhood with an intensity I still find slightly embarrassing. Standing at that wall in the former imperial capital, in the actual city where the mythology was built, felt strange in a way I hadn’t anticipated. There’s something genuinely odd about loving something that completely. Something made by people you’ll never meet, in a building you’ll never enter, behind a wall you drove to from the other side of the world.

Kit Ellis and Krysta Yang from Nintendo’s official YouTube channel went inside and made a video about it. They saw more than I did—the lobby, a few empty rooms—which is both more than expected and exactly as much as you’d predict an official channel would be allowed to film. The building keeps its secrets. Even from Nintendo’s own cameras. Still better than standing at the gate.