'I work and
     work, yet my life gets no easier
     I stare at my hands.'
     – Takuboku Ishikawa (1886-1912).

Played during the Backloggd’s Game of the Week (6th Jun. – 12th Jun., 2023).

In the post-war years, the myth of work as a vehicle for social success was shaped by Japan's exceptional economic recovery. Getting a job came with the promise that it would last a lifetime, without the worker having to endure another job search. The construction of this social myth was intensified from the autumn of 1960, when Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda unveiled his Income Doubling Plan (Shotoku Baizō Keikaku), which aimed to stimulate the economy through a spectrum of liberal and social measures. The plan was largely successful, with Japan's GDP growing at double-digit rates: by diverting public attention from foreign affairs to economic issues, Ikeda had succeeded in grounding confidence in the government in GDP performance. This very favourable situation enabled Japan to gain a high international standing and stabilise its domestic situation. The downside of such a system, however, is that it is particularly susceptible to losing the support of the general public should the economic situation swing the other way.

     The freeter and the myth of self-discovery

The collapse of the economic bubble in the 1990s led to a reconfiguration of the labour market. Unemployment soared, and companies could no longer sustain the myth of a permanent career: in effect, they sought to retain their best and brightest while relying on a young, unskilled workforce to serve as temporary expedients. These part-timers are known as freeters, and they are the subject of a rather subtle definition in Japanese capitalist theory: on the one hand, they are presented as individuals marginalised by the labour market, but on the other, part-time work is described as an opportunity to discover more personal passions and to refocus on something other than the professional world. In other words, part-time work frees people from the constraints and boredom of a lifelong career. This ideological illusion enabled the Japanese government and corporations to justify their harsh socio-economic policies with the support of the cultural production of the time.

The drama Shomuni (1998), adapted from the manga of the same name, was a big surprise for Japanese television, dominating the ratings in a very unexpected way. The drama focuses on the female employees of the Shomu ni division of the Manpan Corporation. The least efficient women are sent to this department to do the most menial tasks, as the company hopes that they will leave on their own to avoid paying financial compensation. Unfortunately, the women of Shomu ni are content with their positions and use their free time to indulge their passions. Unconsciously, Shomuni presents unskilled work as a vector of emancipation for those who are able to take advantage of the opportunities it offers.

     Gamifying labour: capitalism's hidden prison

Beyond dramas that 'focused on cool young people imbued with a sense of freedom and personal agency searching for happiness' [1], video games also play a role in shaping this idealised image of low-skilled work. While Shenmue (1999) highlighted the mind-numbing repetitiveness of work, Power Shovel glamorises the construction industry. The player is given control of a power shovel to perform decontextualised tasks such as moving sand, digging holes or demolishing buildings. The task is not an easy one, as the controls are rather unintuitive and the timers extremely tight. The player is urged by the angry voice of the taskmaster to learn the controls as quickly as possible. The goal is not so much to have a detailed understanding of the various manoeuvres, but rather to memorise fixed sequences so as to repeat the same movements as quickly as possible without having to think. The game's tutorial fully embraces this alienation, as the player is invited to follow a shadow worker whose inputs are slowly and mindlessly displayed on the screen.

There is something terribly oppressive about Power Shovel, which manages to reproduce the alienation of manual labour while wrapping it in a modern fantasy. In the arcade mode, the most tasteless tasks are interspersed with more playful challenges, such as serving soup with the shovel, catching turtles, or reducing a luxury car to rubble. These cathartic challenges help to make the job fun, with the protagonist's paycheck treated as a scorecard. The yelling of the taskmaster, even if it carries the weight of hierarchical domination, is rather amusing in the context of the game. Power Shovel oozes ideological cynicism, and the title never really hides from it. While the tone mimics that of a Japanese game show – Ichirō Nagai's voice lends itself well to this – the game proudly displays the colours of the Komatsu company, which distributed many copies of the game to its employees.

     Job insecurity and the fiction of happiness

The player gradually finds their bearings and adapts to the rigid controls. Unsurprisingly, the first-person view allows for much better control of the machine, and is undoubtedly the best perspective for working efficiently and beating the most difficult timers, thus fully assimilating the player to the worker. The 'Licence King' mode, which tests the player's skills, feels like a compulsory passage. The reward is, ominously, the promise of a job, which only adds to the capitalist malice. The bright colours and the Taito mascot are further subterfuges that mask the harshness of the workplace behind the prospect of amusement, as long as one is willing to put in the effort to succeed. The same themes can be found in the drama Furītā, ie o kau (2010), in which a young man, disillusioned with the traditional office job, turns to part-time work in order to break free from social expectations – namely to get married, start a family and become a homeowner. He also finds love while working in the construction industry.

Christopher Perkins argued that the success of Furītā, ie o kau was indicative of a new shift in the representation of the freeter in the late 2000s. He wrote: 'rather than illuminating and exploring a number of important social and economic challenges currently facing Japanese society, the series is content to tell a story of personal development that falls into sentimentality: maintaining the image of family as the locus of welfare provision and rendering risk a moral challenge to be overcome by resilient individuals, rather than a complex of structural challenges to be addressed by the state' [2]. Power Shovel was already a manifestation of this reality. The title is quite enjoyable to play once the initial difficulty barrier has been overcome. But therein lies its problem. Despite the game's promises, the player never becomes the 'King of Komatsu'. Instead, they always play the role of a slave worker being berated by the taskmaster: that is the secret magic of capitalism.

__________
[1] Christopher Perkins, 'Part-timer, buy a house. Middle-class precarity, sentimentality and learning the meaning of work', in Kristina Iwata-Weickgenannt, Roman Rosenbaum (ed.), Visions of Precarity in Japanese Popular Culture and Literature, Routledge, London, 2015, p. 69.
[2] Ibid., p. 80.

The first game I'm playing off of my Obscure Game Recommendation List, thanks to JamesBuc.

Considering there are only two reviews on here, and one of them is by YourDadReviews so that doesn't count, it seems like I'll be charting relatively untouched territory here.

First, what I want to say is that I'm honestly impressed with how this game gives every single button an important function in controlling the Power Shovel (looking this up, that is actually what they are called). The left and right bumpers move the vehicle, the circle button and the square button fold the bucket down and up respectively, the triangle and x buttons raise and lower the entire lift, the up and down buttons raise and lower the extension part holding the bucket, and the left and right buttons are for changing your direction. It's a very unique system that kind of reflects how these things work in real life, or at least how I'd imagine they'd work. Every button serves to work the Power Shovel so you can achieve maximum efficiency, and honestly in concept I think it is actually an amazing idea. Execution on the other hand can be hit or miss.

The biggest hurdle to getting into Power Shovel does come from this complex control style. It's very unorthodox compared to many other arcade type games. Everything you do has to be carefully and procedurally maneuvered through, or else you fail. It's one of those things where I do have to wonder if the complexity is truly worth the hassle if it makes the game feel sluggish despite its arcade design.

Ultimately, I think it is worth the hassle, because it allows for one of the most entertaining arcade games I've ever seen. If you play Power Shovel, don't bother with the training stuff outside of learning the controls, because the real meat of this game is in the jokey Part Timer Mode. This mode has you doing all sorts of odd jobs with your Power Shovel like destroying some rich asshole's car to scooping tons of curry onto plates to driving over the abyss while platforms disappear beneath you for no explained reason while the hitler-stached otamatone yells at you in Japanese to the sound of the music also yelling at you in Japanese. Truly the pinnacle of human experience.

Nonetheless, these little challenges in Part Timer Mode are both comical and genuinely engaging for me, and if a game manages to do that, I'm in for a good time. I think my only gripe was the driving game, because there are platforms that disappear and reappear ala Mega Man, and the Power Shovel has kind of funky controls in regards to driving. They're reversed, so Left pushes you right and right pushes you left and you have to hold both to go forward. Just feels a little odd to control when you're on a time limit.

Well, this was pretty short, but the game is not very long, and given it's an arcade game, finishing it isn't really required to enjoy the whole package. I want to again thank JamesBuc for the recommendation, and I hope more people try out Power Shovel, it's a pretty solid time.