The Katamari Series Is A Cosmic Horror Story

Fear.

A concept we are all too wary of. Each one of us possesses individual unique aversions of fear that permeates, festers, mutates, and dwells within the dark recesses of our conscious and subconscious minds. Nothing strikes more fear than what is unknown and unknowable, and to flirt with the void could be enough to drive one insane.

One may look at the charming, sugar-coated, and optimistic exterior of which the Katamari series represents itself as; BUT YE SHALT NOT BE DUPED, NOR BE SO FOOLHARDY! These games are an anthology of the cosmic indifference and omniscient ambivalence that far exceeds our comprehension of our purposelessness. That we are insignificant in the grand scheme of things; but an atom of a speck on a grain of sand in comparison to our conceivable notion of the observable universe. We merely abide to the whim of forces beyond our imagination…

So, the King of All Cosmos gets absolutely space-crunk hammered on celestial lean - and being the binge-drinking Magaluf mad-lad that he is, ends up destroying all the entire universe sans the Earth (and presumably the Sun too).

Naturally, it’s up to you - the Son of the King of All Cosmos (The Prince) to fix your father’s boozy galaxy-blasting bender. Before we even set foot on Earth’s terrestrial plain to Marie Kondo away all this mess, let us just take the time to appreciate that in this universe: aliens exist, that they are an omnipotent race of super-beings capable of leveling entire stars systems, and that these baguette-brained extraterrestrial life-forms use Earth as their personal little living hub.

As The Prince, you’re flung onto Earth from the heavens, tasked to litter-pick the world with a trash-heap snowball magnet; all in order to construct a dense enough clutter-cluster ball and fashion it into a solitary star in the blank canvas that has become the night sky (thank you, dad).

This alien technological marvel is what is commonly referred to as a “Katamari” (塊) which roughly translates to “clump” or “clod”; but the full title of 'Katamari Damacy' hides a disturbing truth to those who don’t understand the Japanese language. Damacy, or “Damashii” is an alternate spelling of the word “Tamashii” (魂), which means “soul” or “spirit”; meaning that the phrase “Katamari Damashii” approximately translates to “Clump Spirit”. Does this mean we are rolling up spirits?

Now this can go one of two ways: In Japanese folklore, “Yōkai” can be described as a supernatural presence (namely monsters and spirits) that can possess objects, creatures, and even environments. There is an underlying ideology in Shinto and general Japanese spiritualism that adopts “animism”; the concept that all objects inherently reside a spirit of sorts, and depending on whether or not the spirit is a peaceful or vengeful one, can bestow fortune or ill-fortune from being within its presence.

It’s a way of thought that can give an appreciation to everything that we own. Fast-forward to the consumerist culture we find ourselves in today - of how much we own, barely use, collect, and throw away. It’s little wonder how we don’t nearly cherish the useful things we have in our lives enough; for people, places, things, and titles that shouldn’t be so readily replaceable. That we instead derive our purpose to have more as to fill a void within ourselves.

And like in real life, in Katamari Damacy, we don’t just collect debris or general objects - in fact, you accrue plants, trees, fauna, personal possessions, homes and buildings, islands, and even humans. Are we as humans just living Katamari balls? Attaching value to the things we amass from mere contact and exposure? Is the ball we roll an extension of our ego, ever-increasing, and hyper-inflating to the point of dwarfing the real you (The Prince) who must strain to push this boulder until our time is up and we are finally judged?

Or perhaps does the spirit referred to in “Katamari Damashii” mean that we are harvesting the souls of life on Earth? Are you the harbinger of a mass culling, a rapture, under the guise of redecorating the heavens? Is this the price we humans must pay, as to fix The Prince’s daddy’s issue?

Because boy! There are plenty of daddy issues here. Your father is a narcissistic, immature, impetuous, ego-driven, megalomaniac who doesn’t take any responsibility for his actions; but will instead seem it just to berate and control his only son, all the while getting in your way and desperately trying to be relatable and down-to-earth. Think “The Devil Wears Lycra (and a Ruff)” with about as much self-awareness as David Brent/Michael Scott from ‘The Office’; but a little reminder: he’s also essentially a deity.

A deity much like those from ancient greek mythology. The type of gods who would just mess around with humans for bants; but who’ll occasionally mess things up on Earth so bad, they’d need to fling a few children down there to correct their mishaps. And just like those ancient greek myths, the burden lies with our dashing little 5cm Prince - condemned to roll this colossal ball, not too dissimilar to the fate of Sisyphus, forever rolling a boulder up a mountain.

Yet another bone-chilling horror that plagues the psyche can be found within the aforementioned tale, but can also be seen as somewhat inspiring in its absurdity. In the fable about a man condemned to perform an arduous and redundant feat for eternity. Philosopher Albert Camus suggests in his essay ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’ that Sisyphus may be content with his new life as it has a purpose, function, and a goal. The absurdity of the impossible task doesn’t sway him, but instead breathes new respect into life and to living it’s fullest.

Perhaps in restoring the night sky and atoning the sins of humans for polluting their world with junk was to condemn his son, The Prince, to be sacrificial lamb after all. To cleanse the world of material pleasures and to create anew in the heavens…

In the sequel We Love Katamari, we witness life after the first game. With the galaxy restored, all recognition and appreciation by Earthlings is given solely to the King of All Cosmos - despite the fact that he caused the initial problem and did little to resolve the issue. The Prince was just a lackey, a grunt, another cog in the machine. All of your previous efforts serve to fuel the hubris of your father.

The real work was done by you. You were on the ground level, sleeves rolled up like the objects on your Katamari; while the face, the frontman, THE MAN takes all the credit. Meanwhile, the people want a sequel regardless of the consequence or rationale. And so, you are sent back to push that rock up that hill with an encore. That, in itself, is a horror all too real.

We also get a glimpse of a patterned paternal abuse through cutscenes from the second game. We learn that what we experience as The Prince was conditioned through his grandfather onto the King. That The King only knows how to parent as his father taught him, and is instilling this generational rite of passage for his son into royal-hood. That even gods imprint the faults of themselves into their creations, so too does the King perpetuate the cycle of emotional abuse to his kin. As The Prince in-game and in our own lives, do we break that cycle or spin the spokes further?

While I was replaying the series, in one level, a girl and her mother were walking hand in hand along their pre-planned route. It so happened that the little girl was picked up by my rolling rock of rubble, but the mother did not panic; she just accepted it and continued on her path. I think she knew that her child would serve a purpose beyond her daughter's life, and that she may one day join her like reverse mitosis, if or when the time comes… the mother found peace in chaos.

I’d like to think she knew her place in the universe. That even if we are small and insignificant to an indifferent universe, that we continue to find meaning in the meaninglessness of it all. That we each have our own menial obstacles we must overcome and control like a Katamari.

To build anything great (positive or negative), you must start small and build momentum and stature in order to gravitate and consume larger and bigger things. That you must become as big as the thing you wish to pursue in order to obtain it. That no matter how small you may start off being, with diligence and care, you can amount to monumental singular achievements; all to reach your potential, and to be refined as another light in your own night sky.

...or perhaps i’m just exhibiting “Apophenia”: the perception of vague, barely tangible connections by attributing deep profound meaning to a video game about rollin’ up stuff.

Perhaps the scariest thing here is this quasi-woke essay on the Katamari series!