The Dark Side of Pikmin 😈

Nature, horrifying place. Cruel, unjust, merciless, yet also warm, nurturing and dignified. It is not hard to see how people have revered and respected nature with such awe throughout our history. It is truly magnificent from its broadest strokes to its smallest details. All throughout nature there is as much beauty as there is danger. The tiny patches of ground underneath our feet are fascinating microcosms of their own. Each telling a unique story. It is no wonder that Shigeru Miyamoto,  the a

cclaimed director of Devil World, would seek to further employ the video game medium in an attempt to recapture this sublime nature of… nature. According to a seldom verified myth, Mr Miyamoto was hanging out in his garden, standing in a place not too different from this one, staring intently at some grotesque flower for 48 minutes before he had fully realised the concept for Pikmin, his peculiar venture into the strategy genre. Regardless if this story is true or not, it is no secret that Pikmi

n borrows significant  thematic and aesthetic cues from gardening. From the pleasantly ordinary setting and the naturalistic ambitions, to the flowery operations of your playing pieces, Pikmin focuses on some bizarre  half-amusing observation that a gardener might look a bit like a spaceman and runs full force with it. Granted, although this is not too unusual for the company that also brought you noodle boxing and paintball squids, it is certainly striking. And I suppose Pikmin’s enviable  comm

itment to its goofy presentation has encouraged players to take its more thoughtful and serious elements in jest, wave them off as mere jokes. But are they? When Pikmin are sent off to helplessly die in hordes, when Olimar longs for his family and complains about his boss, when we collect an obscene  amount of treasure and fruit, when castaways pile up like a festival camping spot. Is it nothing more than a funny gag, or is there more to it? Do these disparate elements amount  to something else

in the long run, that makes us see these games for more  than just the strangest flower in the pot? I undoubtedly believe yes, absolutely. So why not tag along on this excursion? As we find out how Pikmin is a gardening game  that is about everything but gardening! [♫ Pikmin - Title Theme playing ♫] Everything you’ll ever need to know about Pikmin can be found within the original game. Launched for the now cult-classic, then object of ridicule, the Gamecube, Pikmin is a simple action strategy ga

me where you command vegetable troops around a miniaturised garden world. Its vibrant exterior is at first glance quirky and a bit cute, but will not shy away from getting alien and unsettling. Despite being set in what is essentially your backyard, the threat of nature itself is still palpable, and together with a constant ticking clock the player’s vulnerability is underscored from the get-go. Using little more than its mechanics, Pikmin manages to present ideas in a compelling and thoughtful

manner, and since the series has remained relatively unchanged throughout the years, its themes are mostly consistent and enduring. In other words, the first Pikmin provides the groundwork which every subsequent game builds upon and is the lens through which we understand them. Its concise and focused structure  lends it an uncontested sort of purity. One might even say it's coincidentally  the best game ever made. In the original Pikmin, we’re introduced to  the interstellar space trucker Capta

in Olimar, whose spaceship, the S.S. Dolphin, gets struck by a meteor during his travels and crashlands on an inhospitable planet. Upon waking, he discovers his trusty vessel has been broken up into 30 supposedly crucial parts all hidden in inconvenient locations. Unfortunately, the energy of Olimar's  life support system is running low and the atmosphere of the planet just happens to contain high amounts of oxygen, an element extremely toxic to his people. It’s now your job to find these scatte

red splangos, repair the ship and escape within 30 days or else it's game over. Luckily for Olimar, he's not alone in this endeavour, as he quickly stumbles upon the mystical carrot people: The titular Pikmin. Strange earthly beings that grow  from the ground like plants and reproduce by throwing junk and bug carcases into big onion spacecraft. While having little strength on their own the Pikmin are characterised by their large collectives, and similar to ants use their vast numbers to gather m

aterial and defeat enemies much bigger than themselves. Using a whistle conveniently built into his spacesuit, Olimar finds that he can dictate and control the Pikmin to do his bidding, making his herculean survival task a lot more manageable. Perhaps even plausible. And that’s essentially what you do in the game. One lonely Pikmin soon multiplies  exponentially into an entire army, which you then use to complete a myriad of important objectives. However, you don’t ever control any of the Pikmin

directly, instead your role as Olimar sees you taking indirect control. Having them follow you around in formations  and assigning them tasks to perform, by literally throwing them at your problems. Olimar himself doesn’t really get his hands dirty, rather he’s the team leader conducting the Pikmin’s workflow. In some roundabout way, the player  controls both Olimar and the Pikmin, but the game still places a clear contrast between them. On your travels Pikmin will increase and decrease in numb

ers around their firm unchanging whistle blowing nucleus. Pikmin die and get replaced all the time with no great fanfare, but rather a whimper, such are the merciless rules of nature. You may catastrophically lose 100 Pikmin and still be able to bounce back with relative ease... But you can’t lose an Olimar... In comparison to how the Pikmin die after one hit, Olimar has a health bar which triggers a game over if depleted. Quite unsurprisingly, there is only one Olimar and as such he takes prior

ity. In this way, the game signals that  Olimar has more value than the Pikmin. Olimar is unique, a character, an individual, but the Pikmin are merely a collective,  replaceable, a resource for Olimar to exploit. These two themes of resources and exploitation will manifest themselves in different ways with each passing game, but whether it be mechanically or narratively, they are nevertheless recurring cornerstones throughout the series. The Pikmin themselves are the most clear example  of wher

e these two aspects go hand in hand. As a resource the Pikmin are  conveniently quantifiable. Their carrying capacity is measured  through firm and strict numbers, while a larger crowd will reliably  decrease enemy health bars quicker. Because the Pikmin can be reproduced ad infinitum, the game can’t measure their value further  than the time it takes to reproduce them. Meaning that the loss of Pikmin life is a cost of resources, the penalty being the time it takes to grow more Pikmin. In turn,

the exploitation of the Pikmin is expressed in a disinterest for them as individuals. Olimar may throw around Pikmin one by one, but apart from that they’re not differentiated from in more ways than their colour and buds. When playing Pikmin, we do not meaningfully engage  with them as anything but an anonymous collective, so their lives are trivial and our sympathy compromised. We don’t know what the Pikmin are thinking. Whatever their wants or needs are is a mystery, really, and their alliance

has no clear gain  apart from their supposed survival. In summary, the Pikmin have no real say when it comes to their work and are essentially unpaid labour for us to unfairly benefit from. Olimar’s mighty whistle will simply  force them to do anything he commands; wherever he goes they follow and wherever he points they charge. Somehow he hits some magical frequency that makes his subjects succumb without fail. How chilling… I mean even if they are funny little vegetable people that emit carto

on ghosts upon death I think the comparisons to unfavourable  labour practices are quite easy to make. Olimar doesn’t typically participate  in the heavy lifting so to speak, he’s fully reliant on his workforce and the fruit of their labour rather than his own. He’s for the moment the space bourgeoisie who owns the metaphorical means of production, and even if the Pikmin proletariat haven’t revolted just yet the unspoken conflict between the two is clear to see. Olimar’s spaceship is rebuilt on

the backs of Pikmin, from their blood, sap and tears every piece was transported and fitted back onto the craft, and at the end of the day  he leaves them empty handed. It’s fair to say that the Pikmin will need to band together and unionise to fight for safer working conditions if they are to be treated better by their crash landing compatriots in the future. But alas, Pikmin rights seem to be  nothing but a far flung dream for now. Now you may think we’re exaggerating simply for comedic effect

. And I mean, yeah, a little bit. We do certainly like having fun here, HAHA! But with that said I don’t think our interpretation is that far fetched either. I believe these are aspects that the developers  at Nintendo also considered to some extent especially when looking at  the 2004 follow up, Pikmin 2. Continuing from where the last game left off Olimar manages to return to his home planet, Hocotate, once more. No sooner has he landed before learning that the company he works for has fallen

into insurmountable debt. Scrambling to get their business back in order, his boss discovers that goods from the Pikmin world are surprisingly valuable, and immediately sends Olimar and his colleague Louie back to the trauma planet in a last ditch attempt to save the company from bankruptcy. Right out of the gate, Pikmin 2 delivers a thematic whiplash shift that drastically broadens the themes presented in the first game. The conveniently vague game mechanics and  barebones deserted island premi

se are gone, they can no longer justify our actions through a veneer of necessity. Instead we are given a clear theme that runs throughout the entire adventure, the pursuit of money and riches; a theme much more vocalised and blatant than whatever musings Pikmin the First theoretically contained about survival. The idea of resources and exploitation  are a lot more explicit this time around, because Pikmin 2 can no longer hide behind desperation, in Pikmin 2 the narrative is fuelled by intent. A

s such, we return to the Pikmin homeland with new intentions, as it were. We fittingly revisit some of the same places,  but with new eyes peering for new sights. The monthly time limit is gone, reduced to  the perpetual rising and setting of the sun. Our life support is no longer an issue and  the journey back home no pressing concern. This time around it’s all business. So our goal is exclusively focused on the gathering of goods to pay off the company’s debt. Any old junk will do, it all has

a price tag, every contribution helps. We must therefore explore far and wide,  traversing new and treacherous environments, perhaps descending down metaphysical dream caverns which transcend time and space, all for a chance at converting one man’s trash into another man’s treasure. In this way, we are in no short terms  commodifying the entire Pikmin planet. The angle of survival is gone, there is no necessity apart from the performed economic struggles back home. The Pikmin do not have to be a

part of this debacle, but they inevitably become part of it  because they are so conveniently manipulated and because their planet is supposedly an unexploited wilderness. In this game about money and ownership, it is pressing to note how the Pikmin are never considered in that equation, they’re not granted even a semblance of ownership. So Olimar and Louie are free to ransack  the planet to their heart’s content. Nothing more than animals, the Pikmin are simply made to watch and participate as

the space aliens collect the planet’s treasures. It’s clear that the Hocotate Freight company  perceive the Pikmin world as unclaimed land, and through their actions they’ve figuratively planted a flag on the soil. And for what? Some menial trinkets they don’t fully  comprehend the origin or application of? All gathered to be sold off as  curiosities to some rich pricks? The company has no grander purpose to  their excursion apart from monetary gains, they’re not conducting valuable research or

anything of the sorts here, Hocotate doesn’t need this junk. Granted, you may argue that the Pikmin don’t need this stuff either, but that’s kinda sidestepping the issue. It’s safe to say that the Pikmin don’t fully  comprehend what’s going on in this game and evidently it’s never of pressing concern  for anyone to make them understand either. In this case their blissful ignorance  is as beneficial as their unpaid labour. The exploitation of the Pikmin leads to the exploitation of their land. O

ne resource begets another. However, Pikmin 2 isn’t content stopping there. No, it further complicates the depiction of exploitation by adding another crucial link in the chain of command and asks the question: Who tosses the Pikmin tosser? Why, it’s the uncharismatic company president, of course! [President: "Shacho!"] Suddenly, the power dynamic of the original game is made more interesting by no longer rendering Olimar as the top dog. Not only is there someone standing  above him, but he is n

ot alone either, having been joined by his colleague Louie,  making Olimar a little less special, and dare I say, a little more replaceable. He doesn’t even need to do all  the executive commands anymore. Heck, Olimar can die now, and it’s only half the skin off your back. Both mechanically and thematically, Olimar is reduced to yet another expendable resource to be exploited. It is revealed that our little Hocotatian friends aren’t that dissimilar from the Pikmin. As a matter of fact, they too

are tossed  around to do someone else’s bidding. We can no longer satisfyingly point fingers and pin the blame on these guys, because while exploiting the Pikmin and their world, they’re not even directly benefiting from it. They’re merely another cog in the machine, made to endure the ugly underbelly of their business while the rat ass responsible keeps his hands clean. [*President noises*] Needless to say, this depiction of Olimar lends the character a new sort of depth that came to define him

from here on out. In the original Pikmin, we could only  define Olimar in contrast to the Pikmin. We could sort of deduce that he was more of a clueless oaf than some romanticised explorer, but our view was nevertheless fuelled by his irrefutable dominance over the titular carrot people. That relationship to the Pikmin is still the same this time around, nothing has changed in that department, rather we are given more context to the other side of Olimar, the role he has in his society, who he i

s to his people: Which is to say just some regular guy  with an unflattering delivery job. He’s a space trucker, forced to endure long shifts and overtime for a presumably meagre wage. At best he is some sort of middle manager, the medium between his employer and the Pikmin, but in every other facet he is at the bottom of the ladder. All the hard work he does is merely for the benefit of his boss and the hope of his continued employment. Even when his work tasks suddenly revolve around  hoarding

riches, it is still not for him to keep. Unentitled to his own labour, forced to brave immense dangers, Olimar must once again risk it all because… Oh, would you look at that? It seems the suffering you went through on the Pikmin planet has given you crucial workplace experience. Put that on a resumé! So at the detriment of his own time and well-being, Olimar has to bear the burden and walk an extra mile in his downtrodden shoes. Filled with a longing that is hauntingly  similar between both of

the games, he is only thinking about returning to his home and seeing his family again. In the first Pikmin he is prohibited  by the circumstances of an accident, and in the second he is forced  to work perpetual overtime. In a surprisingly bleak and morbidly comedic  depiction of working class struggles, crushingly long hours away from what’s really important to you is metaphorically the same as being stranded on an uncharted planet while suffocating to death. And this longing never dissipates

, instead it remains one of his strongest character traits throughout the entire series. Olimar is an exhausted worker who can never quite catch a break. Again and again he will find himself  in Pikmin planet predicaments, and as always his one motivator is the faint chance of maybe seeing his wife again. Pikmin 2 speaks loudly through  its working class overtones, giving us a refreshingly crass interpretation  of the groundwork established in the first game. It’s not too shocking that this woul

d be made in an industry that expects employees to crunch and sacrifice their personal life to monstrous projects which mostly benefit some faceless executive. It should be relatable to anyone who’s ever been stuck at a dead-end job, forced to give their all for little acknowledgement. Is it any wonder that the first game’s  promotional tie-in song Ai no Uta was such an unexpected breakaway success  that it outsold even the game itself? With its lyrics of unreciprocated hard work and self-sacrif

ice, the Pikmin’s struggles directly translates to the plights of the worker. Especially resonating with the Japanese  salary men according to legend. Which is not too hard to believe, I’d buy it. So at the end of that long dark tunnel, when the debt is finally paid off and the company saved from bankruptcy, what awaits Olimar? Why... Why, more work, of course.  You’re not surprised, are you? As soon as he has painstakingly pulled  the company up by his bootstraps, Olimar is once again-again for

ced to return  to the Pikmin planet for the third time. The ride never ends. You see, the moment his boss Shitshow realises that the gathered wares was barely a fraction of the planet’s riches, the goalpost is moved and he sets his next sight on becoming "filthy rich", as it were. The sole problem is that when returning back to Hocotate, Olimar catastrophically forgot to bring along his companion Louie, stranding him somewhere on the Pikmin world. In what may seem to be an uncharacteristically 

brave and heroic move, the president decides to return in Louie’s stead, replacing him for the rest of the game. Is he doing this out of the good  of his heart or fear of litigation? I’d say neither, I take it he’s simply that desperate for riches and left no other choice with Louie gone. That shortsighted quest for money is quite succinctly expressed through the boss’ first course of action, which is to replate the company ship with a tacky gold finish in preparation for their next expedition.

Keep in mind that this is literally  the moment when he’s out of debt, not when he actually has the money,  just the part where he is ONLY broke. It’s no wonder Hocotate Freight  always seems to be in trouble, leaving Olimar to perpetually pick up  the slack of his careless superior. When you think about it, I suppose Olimar’s boss  is the real true final "boss" from a meta angle. Here we are, replacing our bumbling colleague  with the rare shop floor sighting of the manager, twisting the narrat

ive by being  handed the reins to the oppressor. The president’s fate is now in our hands, he will be no more competent or incompetent than we make him. Muddying the waters of our sympathy. I think it’s curious that many people default to the interpretation that Louie is the true hidden villain of the story, what with him taking control of a giant spider mech as the final battle and hiding the secret that his hunger was the cause of the massive company debt in the first place. And yeah, maybe Lo

uie is an asshat, but he’s our asshat. We do not fall for underhanded tactics  of infighting and shifting the blame. The real villain always was and forever will be the capitalists, and the ultimate challenge of Pikmin 2  is not losing sight of our principles. The boss needs you, but you don’t need the boss. Stand up, my Hocotatian comrades, through unity we may slay the Bulborb yet. Pikmin together strong! The way that the Hocotate Freight Company LLC treats their employees is however not an is

olated incident caused by unfortunate circumstances. Within this unbalanced system their unfair treatment is perpetual. In the periphery of Pikmin 3’s narrative our weary workers are still doing the same old crap as before. It seems that their suffering never ends. Once again, Olimar and Louie are sent back to the treacherous Pikmin planet in hopes of collecting even more valuables. It turns out the company has somehow found itself in yet another tricky financial situation and as always it falls

on  the workers to pick up the slack. Despite the debt unofficially being caused by one of the company president’s poorly conceived business ventures he still yells orders and commands to his henchmen while relaxing on a far-away beach somewhere, more rude and crass than ever before. [President: "Those Pikmin are company property, not yours! If a fellow employee needs them, I expect you to share!"] ["How else are you supposed to get my treasure out of that cave?!"] [President: "You imbeciles! H

ow could you leave AN ENTIRE SPACE SHIP behind?!"] ["I don't want to see your face around here until you bring it back!"] Having had some personal experience with the dangerous planet doesn’t seem to have humbled the president to the perils his workers have to face, rather that has evidently just emboldened his self-perception, making him fancy himself an expert in the matter. In his own warped worldview, the boss is able to  do the work at least ten times better and faster, meaning that his emp

loyees should  obviously strive to do the same. This culminates in Olimar and Louie making it  back to Hocotate by the skin of their teeth, only to be turned around at the front door to go back to the planet AGAIN, because they forgot to bring back  the debris of their demolished ship. Company property is apparently more important than workplace safety. All the while, Olimar has to silently bear it all with a smile on his face and the hope of once more returning home. Some things never change. H

aving said that, we cannot in good faith read all of Pikmin 3 as a continuation of the labour angle found in Pikmin 2. This is merely a little side story tacked onto the main course, meant to show us what happened to Olimar in the unseen parts of the narrative. Breaking from previously established ruts, Pikmin 3 thus takes on a new theme for the series, reestablishing that the core format can be skewed  and interpreted from many lenses and perspectives. Due to booming population growth and poor

foresight the people of planet Koppai have exploited their world’s natural resources to a breaking point and are just about to run out of food. In hopes of finding edible matter elsewhere the intrepid explorers Alph, Brittany and the other guy brave the long journey to the bountiful Pikmin planet. Contrasting with the previous game, this trio isn’t exactly composed of regular workers, but specialists on a world scale rescue mission. The stakes are high and our cast the right people for the job.

Although, that doesn’t stop Pikmin 3 from remaining true to everything established in the first game. The Koppaites crashland like utter buffoons, quickly stumble upon the Pikmin and promptly use them to ease their grandiose quest for survival, leading us through the same motions with similar motivations. At its core this tale is still about resources and exploitation, we are simply expanding what that entails. Resources can take on many forms and  exploitation can be performed at many levels. M

uch like Olimar’s predicament in the first game, our Koppaite compadres are likewise an agreeable bunch. Arguably even more so, considering that the survival of their entire world is resting on their shoulders. One might presume this was Nintendo’s attempt of subtly shifting the series’ ideals to better fit their sterile post-Gamecube image. Mind you, the overt corporatism of  Hocotate is still present in the game, but it’s drastically subdued by the prominent  altruistic lean of the Koppai expe

dition. The gang’s mission is as clear as it is sensible; we must feed the hungry and we must do so responsibly. As such, you travel around the planet  gathering fresh fruit of all shapes and sizes, focusing more on a diverse selection  to regrow rather than sheer volume. Every day, the explorers need to drink from  their juice stock to sustain themselves, always with strict and orderly rations  so as to diminish as little as possible. Evidently, the Koppai guys approach their task with great se

riosity because beyond their own survival there is something grander at stake. However, under scrutiny it’s hard not to conclude that whatever predicament Koppai has found itself in isn’t too dissimilar from Hocotate. While we are never given a particularly clear picture of their plight, as it’s never spoken about in more than vague terms, what we have here is still telling: [Pikmin 3 narrator: "Due to a booming population,  booming appetites, and a basic lack of planning."] In other words, the

planet Koppai has faced  growth that doesn’t match their production. The vague comedic undertone might suggest  shortsighted gluttony on a global scale, although it’s not far removed from the prevalent sci-fi concerns of food shortages. The Koppaites may not have resorted  to eating Soylent Green just yet, but their predicament is still similar to the man-eating dystopia Charlton Heston had to endure. Ecodisaster has made the natural resources dwindle and perish, regrowth is out of the question

and demand is only rising. In comparison, Hocotate may still be self-sustaining, but the signs of over-commodification and class disparities  will still surely lead them down the same path. Koppai is much the same, they’re merely  a few steps ahead in the apocalypse race. With this in mind, it’s no wonder the Pikmin planet would be as tantalising for Koppai as it was for Hocotate. The place absolutely brims with fruit, much like it previously burst with treasure. With little difficulty, our micr

oscopic friends are able to explore a few modestly miniscule square metres of the planet and swiftly gather enough food matter  to avert their worldwide catastrophe. This natural richness is cleverly conveyed through the game’s more inventive incarnation of a ticking clock. Every time you collect a fruit, it’s processed to produce canisters of juice to bring back to Koppai. Every evening, our explorers must drink a bit  of it to sustain themselves for the next day. However, as many players have

noted, this restriction never provides much pressure, as your daily gathering easily surpasses the daily consumption, leading to an ever expanding and untouched surplus. I don’t find this relaxed time restriction to be detrimental, though. Rather, it’s effective mechanical conveyance, showing us how bountiful the Pikmin world is through our own actions, using context that makes immediate sense  to us as gamer brained individuals. I sincerely don’t think Nintendo expected players to actually run

out of food and lose the game unless they actively tried to do so. It’s merely a neat and tangible lose state to contrast with the predominantly triumphant tone of the adventure. The Koppai are doing fine, they will make it out okay in the end. Even when Louie shows up and steals the entire juice stock, the player will quickly regather more fruit and mitigate the damage. Clearly, on this world, food is never an issue, not even when you run out of it. Coming from a planet on the brink of collapse

, the untouched and unclaimed wilderness of this world is everything our protagonists could’ve hoped for. A lush paradise overflowing in natural resources  that are openly lying about, free for the taking. As the Koppaites discover this planet and explore its vast riches, they never ask who owns this or if they’re justified in their endeavour. As always, no one considers the manmade traces  and artefacts as real signs of civilization. They’re never seriously discussing the possibility of others

like them living here. At the very least, they’re certainly not humouring  the role the Pikmin would play in this matter. Pfft, of course not, they’re just the featureless carrot collective, the ant hivemind lacking  intelligence and comprehension, they’re nothing but mindless animals, unknowing and unfeeling. However, I think Pikmin 3 is the game that truly  breaks the camel’s back on that line of thought. Through small insinuations it becomes increasingly apparent that the Pikmin indeed do pos

sess some sort of self-consciousness. The Pikmin have always been a lot more clever  and sophisticated than we give them credit for. Ever since the first game, they’ve been able to build all kinds of marvellous constructions ranging from your regular old mound to structurally sturdy bridges. All with no greater specification than  a whistle blow and their own intuition. And this knack for creation is merely one facet of how they express their culture. When Pikmin gather in groups they joyfully s

ing the songs of their people: [♫ Pikmin singing Ai no Uta ♫] They play together, they sometimes communicate through gestures and they seem to have some form of language. [Yellow Pikmin: "Yo!"] Perhaps they lack the coordination the player brings to the table, but everything else is performed by them. After all, not even the greatest coach in  the world could teach a carrot to play fetch. The Pikmin are simply conducted to perform  the tasks they’ve always been able to do. So halfway through Pik

min 3, we stumble upon a curious data log from Captain Olimar, commenting on mysterious murals he’s been seeing during this latest expedition. We curiously look around to find this: A wall painting depicting the Pikmin’s relationship to their interstellar visitor, the tall and mighty Olimar. Imposingly capable, incomprehensibly knowledgeable, arriving from beyond the stars to give them the tools to do the impossible. With tiny hands expressing their own sense of perception, one Pikmin has observ

ed their role in the universe... And created... God. Their dreams and imagination stamped  onto the world, eagerly calling out: [Pikmin: "Yes, I am here! Can you hear me?"] What right does anyone have to use the Pikmin? To break the prime directive and  interfere with their budding civilization? The more we examine the Pikmin and learn about their ways, the more questionable their treatment becomes. The way the player is continuously asked to exploit them doesn’t rub right with their slowly emer

ging humanity. We descend upon their world, as travellers from faraway lands, abuse their trust to get what we want from them,  something we have come all this way to claim, and then we leave the Pikmin behind, giving nothing in return. Looking at it this way, it’s hard not to notice the strong colonialist motifs that are running rampant throughout the entire Pikmin franchise. [*record scratch noise*] Now, hold on just one darn second. I know there are like four viewers out there who stumbled in

to this video by accident and are wondering if we’re trying to cancel Pikmin or something. So for them: No, we’re not. Colonialism is a real thing that’s had a tremendous global scale effect on our world. Applying a post-colonial lens onto Pikmin isn’t an attempt to highlight it as outstanding among its peers, it’s merely an observation that it does indeed uphold certain colonial motifs. [*magic flash*] [Taj: "Hello, friend!"] These are signs that permeate media and which have been lended certai

n meanings through historical context. Questions that arise when we observe thematic ideas such as the exploration and conquering of the unknown, the acquisition of seemingly unclaimed resources or artefacts, and the overall representation of foreign cultures. Video games are ripe with these patterns, but Pikmin in particular displays additional detail that strengthens the reading. In Pikmin, we play as a stranger from a different land who arrives in the Pikmin’s world. This person quickly comes

 to use the Pikmin as their workforce to complete tasks that are extraneous from the Pikmin themselves. In this way, be it Olimar’s survival,  the debt repayment or fruit gathering, we exploit the Pikmin’s labour, we exploit their resources and we exploit their land. Everything is up for grabs whether it be food,  ancient artefacts or the indigenous population. Wiping out the local flora and fauna  isn’t even considered an issue. Overarchingly, we exploit their very culture, creating an irrevoca

ble dent in their lives  by our mere presence and harsh demands. In this exertion of our might, an immediately apparent power dynamic is formed. Despite being larger and sturdier than the Pikmin, our player avatars don’t possess the same strength as even a single Pikmin, rather their capabilities are presented  through commandeering and leadership, attributes provided directly by the player in stark contrast with the more rigid computer controlled Pikmin. The convenient mechanical shorthands tha

t make  for a comprehensive and readable experience likewise help to fuel this contrast  between oppressor and the oppressed. The Pikmin are neatly categorised by their looks and capabilities, we sort them by colour to do certain tasks and we grade their competence for said task by their individual growth level. In this way we other the local inhabitants, reduce them into little more than numbers and specimens. Like we touched upon before, in comparison,  our protagonists are clearly defined, vi

brant personalities with their own thoughts and voices, always distinguished as more important and valuable than the Pikmin. And this is a perspective  that is always maintained, we never take direct control of any one Pikmin  and we never get to consider their outlook. So by that metric all of the games are coloured by a certain gaze, we see the world from the eyes of the explorer, we can only understand and sympathise as much as they’re willing to. Take for example the various  mission logs th

at dot the games, which admittedly do express some  interest in researching the Pikmin, but they nevertheless mostly focus on  documenting the mechanics of the game, as in all the ways the Pikmin can be used as tools. Granted, this is just a glorified tutorial, but it’s nevertheless interesting how Nintendo presented it within the confines of the fictional world itself. They didn’t need to make this diegetic, but they did, and now that contributes to our view of how Olimar and the other space go

obers perceive the Pikmin. As pure utility that can only  bring them closer to their goals. [Log book: "Red Pikmin are good fighters."] ["Yellow Pikmin are good at digging."] ["Blue Pikmin can attack while swimming."] Even if the Pikmin are presented as willing  to help out with whatever you throw them at, no matter if you were personally invested in taking care of them to the best of your abilities, making sure that no one is left behind at night, there is still a clear power imbalance here. Th

e explorers we play as will approach  the Pikmin with wild disregard, which in turn allows us to haphazardly toy  with their lives without much repercussion. You may feel bad about losing your  troops in a treacherous battle, or because of your own clumsy  mistakes (let’s be honest), but once it’s all over you just  produce more and forget about it. Even if you are trying your best to not mistreat them there is simply no way of playing these games without exploiting the Pikmin. They are after al

l the main way that you interact with the world around you. Through this lens Pikmin admittedly  becomes a bit of a bummer, a little #problematic perhaps  and even somewhat irresponsible. After all, it is the one reading of the games that most firmly places you in the shoes of the oppressor, and there isn’t much in the text to circumvent that notion. Despite hanging out with them for most of the playtime, we never see the Pikmin’s perspective, and that means the only viewpoint we are given is th

at of the coloniser. For lack of alternative, they are practically validated in their actions because there is no meaningful contrast. Are Nintendo intentionally glorifying this form of oppression, or are they merely unfortunately insensitive? I’d lean on the latter, but still, it’s hard to shake how the mechanics of the games softly reinforce an essentialist difference  between the space travellers and the Pikmin. These motifs are still present and flow together a little too neatly for it not t

o be a real and sensible angle to approach the games from. To be charitable, I will say that we can still take these elements and suggest that Pikmin is a form of critique that displays the ills of colonialism by making the player complicit. And if that made you uncomfortable because it felt wrong, well, I guess you engaged with the text. [♫ Pikmin 4 Title Theme playing ♫] This leads us to the recently released Pikmin 4, which for the moment will have to serve as our grand conclusion. Pikmin 4 w

as preceded by some cute short films, a funky mobile application and the surprisingly excellent Hey Pikmin. (Yes, shut the fuck up.) All of which further amplified the Pikmin brand in their own unique ways, but I feel this latest game in particular was the first in a while to further the thematic throughline. I guess that’s why they gave it a number, signifying that it’s indeed the proper continuation of the first three games. Although, I know some of you may get hung up on the whole canonicity

debacle and focus on what order these games are set in, or what even constitutes for canon or not. I don’t care about that. What’s important is that these games share an identity in all manners of design and aesthetics, always expressing and evolving the core ideas in new ways. For the sake of argument, all of these stories take place somewhere at some point, and that’s good enough. At the end of the day, the themes are more important, because themes transcend canonicity. That’s a trademark Tran

sparency line right there! [*crashing noise*] [*laughs*] In Pikmin 4, Captain Olimar has once again for the first time crashlanded the S.S Dolphin on a mysterious planet and is forced to recover the missing pieces with help from the Pikmin. However, this time around things don’t go  quite as well for our Hocotatian homie, as he fails his survival mission  and never makes it off the planet. Instead, he sends out a last ditch  distress signal for the universe to answer. The message is picked up by

the emergency organisation the Rescue Corps, who promptly depart for the Pikmin world to Olimar’s aid. Only for them to also crashland  and become stranded. What a pickle! As the final hope, it is thus your job  to make an avatar that sorta looks like yourself and head off to the Pikmin world and sort out the whole ordeal. Pikmin 4 lends yet another perspective on the typical formula, this time with further distance than ever before. Our silent undefined protagonist enters  the fray with pure s

elfless intentions. They only express what we express and only act the way we would, because they are a stand-in  for us to project upon. Their mission is arguably the most agreeable  one so far; to rescue the rescuers. What could be more noble than a double rescue? Much like in Pikmin 3, we learn about the series’ designated "true" protagonist Captain Olimar from the outside. We follow in his footsteps by reading the logs and solidify his portrait through the many ways people speak about him. T

here is a veritable mythologization going  on around Olimar through sheer reputation; who people believe he is, or perhaps merely who they hope he is. For a considerable amount of the playtime Olimar is straight up missing, having vanished in the traces of  this mysterious fuzzball astronaut. Although quite unsurprisingly, it soon dawns on the rescuers that this strange individual is indeed Olimar, but warped and transformed by unknown circumstances into a Pikminesque creature who can withstand

the planet’s deadly atmosphere. Preaching the time managerial principles of Dandori and converting unassuming subjects to his ways, Olimar has become something akin to a Pikmin god, the post-modern Colonel Kurtz, [Jim Morrison: "This is the end."] who we must frantically tail deeper and deeper into his new world in the faint hopes of stopping him. Taking a grab bag approach to the series’ themes and motifs, Pikmin 4 zooms out the proverbial camera and gives us a comprehensive view of everything

the previous games have talked about. Olimar’s survival antics are simply a springboard for the rest of the story; ideas of commodification, worker struggles, resource mismanagement and the treatment of the Pikmin are still present. Observing a myriad of wildly different thoughts and convictions, it's striking that no one in particular takes true precedence. Because the protagonist is a silent blank slate,  the point of view is more or less our own. We are given no consequent voice to guide a ce

ntral theme, so the grand point of the entire game may appear obscured. However, for that reason alone, I think the holistic perspective is a good candidate. During your mission of locating the  various members of the Rescue Corps, you’ll soon stumble upon more people than you had accounted for. Ranging from unaffiliated researchers to clueless tourists, there is suddenly no end to this stream of far flung astronauts. It turns out that Olimar’s distress call had not been received by just the Res

cue Corps. In fact, by now everyone and their grandma  has had the message land in their inbox. Curiously though, no one actually came to answer Olimar's call. Rather, they took it as an open invitation  to his grand discovery: The Pikmin world. Like a goldrush of opportunity, all of these people thus went to the planet for their own personal reasons, all seeking something different. Komo has come here to find a solution to the ecological collapse of her home planet in the wake of heavy industri

alization. Chewy is a travel agent who has dipped the Pikmin world’s toes into the tourist industry through the Uncharted Planet Tour. Lapi, Boris and Frisé are all artists who have come to the planet in search of either inspiration or peace of mind. Mika and her students have taken the news of a hostile deadly planet as the perfect spot for a school field trip. Corgwin is a general contractor who somehow wants to build houses on the soil and I can only assume that Chowder,  the president of Tul

bo Real Estate, is looking to bite his filthy teeth right down into that budding housing market. In a surprising reflection of our contemporary times we also have the online streamer Molly, who's here in her desperate search of content and followers. (Like and subscribe, by the way.) And then of course there’s Fawks, who’s solitary notable achievement in life has been to provide the circumstances for Pikmin 4 to be the first and hopefully last Nintendo game  to ever include the term "venture cap

italist". *shudders* *strange noises* I suppose it always comes to this sooner or later. It starts with one person finding an undiscovered, uncharted planet, who then goes home and tells some friends about it. And those guys in turn tell other people about it. All of a sudden you have a situation where everyone both knows about the pie, and wants a piece of that pie. All with their own impressions of what they wanna do with the land and what they wanna take from it. Through the growing town’s sq

uare  worth of interstellar visitors, we get just about every possible angle on what this world is good for, most of them substantial enough to constitute  the main theme of its own Pikmin game. In this microcosm of opinions, it becomes clear  that the true subject is the planet itself. And what could it then represent  if not the untouched natural world? It is our planet, both literally and figuratively,  as the last resort, the final frontier. Now, the Pikmin games have always had a peculiar r

elationship to our own reality. Judging by the environments, cultural artefacts and blatant geography, it's no secret that the games are set  in blown out micro portions of Earth. The components are all familiar, it is merely the perspective that is novel. Through the eyes of a clueless  and befuddled miniature alien, we explore ordinary gardens in ways that make them appear exotic and mysterious. We rationally understand that this is familiar ground, but the games never allow us to fully feel i

t. We visit unremarkable locations, the fauna is all wrong and there is no sign of humanity apart from our ghastly traces. We never get a good glimpse of this world,  so the picture is forever incomplete. This has unsurprisingly led to the common fan speculation observation that humanity is indeed absent,  undone by some untold catastrophe, and that we’re now walking through the abandoned remains, silently reclaimed by nature. Through radioactive mutation or aeons of evolution, the fauna has tra

nsformed into Pikmin, Bulborbs, Snagrets, Breadbugs and all other kinds of freaks. I don’t mean to diminish this interpretation, because I think a sensible message resides at its core: That our world is fragile, our presence fleeting and life precious. Nature is beautiful and we must fight to protect it, or else we will cause our own demise. However, I don’t find the post-apocalyptic angle to be absolutely essential. Primarily, there isn’t much pointing towards humanity necessarily being dead, r

ather we’re just perpetually out of view. Maybe we are present somewhere  behind the camera, maybe we aren’t? It doesn’t make much of a difference, does it? When faced with the dramatised concerns of our little space travellers and their Pikmin pals, it’s evident that humanity as we corporeally know it has no greater significance than the places we’ve created and the trinkets scattered about. Familiar spaces that become the scenes for the action and subject for the quirky lenses to run rampant o

ver. I think it’s important to acknowledge that humanity can be present in more ways than Chibi Robo-esque lumbering giants, because it allows us to more thoroughly  and honestly engage with the text. The truth is that humans are all over Pikmin. Humanity’s presence is meaningfully  found in the traces we leave behind, the everyday items we create and use in our lives. We are equally present in our roles as players, perceiving the events and sights in the game and in turn decoding them from our

cultural context. But perhaps most important is in the form  of all of those goofy space travellers. Be it Olimar, the Koppaites or the Rescue Corps, the people in the Pikmin games have always  been cheeky representations of humanity. Inheriting all of our character flaws, complicated bureaucratic structures and performative cultural practices. If the Pikmin planet is the exaggerated  hostile stand-in for the natural world, these space aliens are equal approximations of our societal presence. Th

e overplayed division between the two only further seals the deal. The explorers can’t breathe oxygen, so they must wear protective suits shutting them out from the rest of the world, they commandeer and conquer the local wildlife, their lives are more precious and their goals more important. It comically reflects how we commonly  assume ourselves as external from nature, as heightened individuals independent and  unaffected by the ebbs and flows of the elements. We have constructed our own worl

d around nature to shut it in and control it. We believe ourselves to have  fully tamed the universe, but when we suddenly find ourselves trapped in its jaws we are quickly rendered helpless and confused. Much like a Robinson Crusoe-type, Captain Olimar must use his predicament (and 100 Friday's) to reconstruct himself through introspection, come to terms with his insignificance and embrace his place in nature. Only then can he come out at the other end a more realised and humble person. In thes

e dramatic meetings between astronaut and celestial body, I believe Pikmin takes the firm stance that we aren’t independent. We’re not magically enlightened meta-physical beings, no, like any other animal we too exist as a part of nature. We must work for survival, we must sustain ourselves, we must breathe the very air. In this way, I think the environmental leaning gains a more refined edge. We shouldn’t see the Pikmin world  and its visitors as separate, because they are two sides of the same

 coin, disembodied halves of ourselves. Together they reflect the reality we live in, the uncountable clashes between society and nature. All of the ways the world around us is recontextualized through utility and application, when the one home we have  becomes the ultimate resource to be exploited. The horror can only be rationalised by  extracting ourselves from the equation, as independent and unphased entities, no different  from impartial aliens ready to move on elsewhere. Pikmin is not fri

ghtening as a post-apocalypse tale of our ultimate demise, but rather as a proto-apocalypse, chronicling the circumstances that spur and perpetuate this situation. In contrast to previous games, Pikmin 4 is the first time where the cast is drastically larger than a few key characters. For all intents and purposes, these colourful  castaways act as a portrait of humanity. One that is a bit bumbling and clueless,  sometimes concerningly indifferent, at times alarmingly selfish,  but also noble and

agreeable. The main hub shows us a growing range of people, both benevolent, malevolent and everything in-between. When we come here we are always allowed to talk to them, emphasising how they have their own thoughts and ideas, dealing with their own problems in their own ways. They all understand this place, the natural world  of the Pikmin planet, a little bit differently. Through their perspectives we see that nature  can not be defined by a singular line of thought, and likewise that humani

ty  is not defined by one person. This depiction of mankind is broad,  encompassing a little bit of everything, it even features a customizable avatar, effectively placing the player themselves smack dab in the middle of it all. However, despite their relatively strong influence on the game, it feels fair to say that this player character isn’t exactly the sole acting ruler who decides everything. They’re not even the captain, only a rookie  trying their best on the first day of the job. In cont

rast to the disproportionate might  characters like Olimar had in the past, this funky friend is expressly emphasised as one small part of a larger collective, a society if you will. If mistreatment of nature is contextualised through our employment of Pikmin to gather resources, exterminate fauna and build infrastructure, the player character is certainly complicit,  but they’re not solely responsible. The operation is spearheaded by a crew of specialists who all support the player’s deeds in d

ifferent ways, providing them with the tools and intel they  need to accomplish various missions and tasks. And saving castaways results in even more busywork to commit at their behest. Being pushed and pulled in all directions, the player avatar will act as little more than the Pikmin whispering chore kid for everyone else in their community. Meaning that at best, the player avatar isn’t exactly a mighty independent space captain, but rather just a pawn in  someone else’s game of Chess. From an

environmentalist angle, I think the message is pretty clear. While we may all be deeply concerned about issues of climate change, it is not feasibly your task to personally solve it, because we cannot pin all of it on one individual. (There’s more than one billionaire, after all.) Even if we find ourselves doing questionable things for a living, even if we acknowledge our role and change our ways, even if we campaign and encourage others to follow suit, it is still ultimately a systemic issue,

spurred by the neglect of governments and corporations. It is societal structures (like capitalism) that exploit nature through pollution, deforestation and mass extinction. As individuals we can do our best to achieve small victories, and we should for the sake of all of us (like guillotines), but we cannot reasonably expect to carry the entire burden and provide all of the answers ourselves. I think the same applies to Pikmin 4, and the powerless role the player avatar finds themselves in. We

are participants, yes, but we carry no real influence and have no true solutions. At the end, everyone has been rescued and happily returns home, but the damage is done, while the natural world is once again left behind as something "extraneous" from your little commune. So it goes in Pikmin: We are recurringly faced with slightly relatable goals which we overcome through fantastical means. But the victories are always temporary,  the outcomes relatively small-scale. The shoddy ships keep crashi

ng, the company keeps getting into debt, Koppai has no reason to confront  their excessive consumption and who knows how many more helpless castaways  will accumulate from Olimar’s report. We never face the problems at their core,  nothing is ever truly changed or improved, we just have to hope that things  go better from here on out. I’m left unsure if anything is ever  actually learned in these games, but I suppose that merely reflects how conclusions and solutions are even harder to find in r

eal life. In the two decades since the first game we haven’t solved any of the problems depicted in this series. They are large troubling burdens on modern life, the hanging questions of our times. It would be dishonest to pretend that there is  a simple outcome to be found in these games, that they somehow could present us with all of the answers. Because they can’t, let’s be real here, it’s… It’s fucking Pikmin, dude… I suppose Pikmin can do little else than act as  a striking reflection of th

e world that made it. Perhaps that’s why Nintendo let you play as yourself in the latest one, so you could more easily make the parallel to real life. Because I do think Pikmin  is largely about humanity, about our actions, mindsets and systems,  only filtered through a lens of distance. In this way, it seems humanity lives on for yet another day in our persistent caricatured presence and the audience that can find a sliver of themselves within. Will we free ourselves from these troubles, or wil

l they spell our demise? Will there be a day when the post-apocalyptic reading becomes definitive? Well, I suppose at whatever point there is no one around to continue making Pikmin games. Look, the Game Boy Micro has an 8 hour battery life, there is just no way we’re dead. Who do you think cut and slapped a sticker on this perfectly grown banana? There isn’t even any corrosion on this battery stuck in the snow! Have you seen this kitchen?! My current, non-apocalyptic kitchen is in a worse state

than this shit. Ultimately, when looking through  all of the Pikmin games like this, we reveal how many different dimensions there are to the basic core concept of commanding hordes of carrots. All of the ways societal power structures are enacted and maintained. Throughout the years, the original Pikmin’s  simple framework has been reinterpreted and recontextualized to such richness that it now undeniably carries all of this potent meaning. Its simplicity and singular focus speaks  louder and

more broadly with time, enabling us to suddenly and easily make all kinds of interpretations ourselves in hindsight. It is a flower that continues growing  and blossoming the more we feed it. It’s safe to say that Pikmin has a message that only keeps getting more relevant the more it is allowed to speak, and as such I can simply hope Pikmin will  continue delivering on that core promise. There are so many Pikmin and so many Olimars out there, surely we could always learn about a few more. Kiki:

Thanks for watching this video all the way to the end. Hope you liked it, and if not... Well, I'm sorry? Anyway, this channel just turned four years old! Wow, can you believe it? I can't. Alicia: And if you want us to keep going for another four years, you should consider supporting us on Patreon: patreon.com/transparens And if you do so, you’ll get access to our Discord, you get audio companions and much much more! And you know what? There’s a lot of people who have done this. Just look at all

of these goobers: And new this time are: ある, Limberbutt McCubbins, NIACO and Paul Szadurski. There you have it! And if you've listened this far, I'm gonna give you a little hint about the next video. It's about some variety of One Piece, but not at all in the way you're probably thinking right now. Maybe we'll talk about pirates  some other time? I don't know. What's a good pirate game? Monkey Island? Sid Meier's Pirates? Skies of Arcadia? Uncharted Waters? Capt'n Havoc? Gosh, remember Claw? Dan

g, I wish pirates were real… [Reggie: "I feel just like a purple Pikmin."]