Confessions Of A Tamagotchi Killer
Pitfalls of pixel parenting
In 2001, I hopped off a bus, somewhere in Suzuka, Central Japan. On one side of the road were rice fields, on the other, automotive mechanics. But I was most focused upon what lay at my feet. A small, pale blue plastic egg, its LCD display glinting temptingly in the harsh August sun. Some kind of kids’ toy. But there were no kids anywhere within earshot. I picked it up and a tiny black dinosaur danced around on the screen. Nice! A tamagotchi! I pressed the one big, rectangular button on the front. The dinosaur’s face enlarged and smiled. Then a heart appeared. I pocketed the thing.
As I walked off, I recalled my student, Yoko. Not a kid, but a mother of several, she was tasked with the unenviable job of keeping her offsprings’ electronic pets ‘alive’ while they were away for the day, dutifully engaged in their classrooms. In Suzuka Saty Mall Nova, 3 students and I were having a D and M about Euthanasia, late one afternoon, when a strange chirping began emanating from Yoko’s mission brown Louis Vuitton handbag. She reached in and retrieved 3 flattened plastic eggs, very similar to the one I later found. She examined them carefully. For the red one and the blue one, she thrice prodded their main button with her stubby index finger. She squinted at the green one, then let out an “Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” of horror and proceeded to press the button rapidly for about 5 seconds. It looked like she was performing CPR on a frog. She looked up and slowly shook her head, like Dr. Green in ER, back in the day. “Dead one.” she said. “Kotaro will be sooooo angry.” I don’t remember how I got the serious conversation back on track after that surreal interruption. With any luck, I was saved by the Nova ‘end of lesson’ bell chiming. If you know what a ‘Westminster Chime’ sounds like, you can save yourself the hassle of clicking on the above link.
The night of finding my Dino-gotchi, I retrieved it from my pocket. I was greeted by a pixelated image of a supine dinosaur, with xx for eyes. An Incy-wincey, but unmistakable tombstone was next to it. “Fuck. I killed it.” I said, to no one in particular. I worked out where the reset button was and decided to try my dab hand at Dino-parenting for a second time.
During the day, the thing wanted pixel-snacks hourly. Unlike Yoko, for fear of getting a visit from Celeste, our scary Canadian boss in the big smoke, I did not take Dino-baby to lessons with me. At night, when I was out drinking and eating pub foods and smoking other people’s cigarettes, the thing mostly slept. It was clearly not sensitive to noise, even at drunken karaoke level. Rushing for the train one morning, I left my AI-kid behind on the kitchen table. During my classes that day, I found myself regularly fretting about its welfare.
I dashed to the table on my arrival back at the apartment, hoping for a miracle. Dino-kun was sleeping, tiny zzzs floating about him. I pressed the button. He opened his eyes, did an odd little pirouette on his tale, and died. A tombstone slowly grew up, next to him. “Faaark! 3 days!” Why should I care? Perhaps it was aspirations of future Fatherhood. Luckily, it would be 7 long years before I’d become Dad to an actual, sentient human (She’s almost 14 now, having long ago learnt how to feed herself as necessary). Late that night, when bumming the 27th cigarette of the week off my Irish friend Trudy, I handed her the Tiny-dino and begged her to take good care of it.
Like the great father I turned out to be, I quizzed her on Tamo-chan’s welfare, about six weeks after the izakaya adoption. “19 days is my record to beat!” She beamed, proudly. I bought her a beer and bummed another cigarette.
***
Flash forward a couple of decades; I was sucked into downloading a Animal Crossing-eque clone to my phone. Tsuki takes place in the peaceful Japanese country side, clear of the litter, car bodies, and endless overhead powerlines I recall from my actual time spent there. I played it for a while. But I realised it was basically all about harvesting carrots. Or paying $6.99 to avoid harvesting carrots so often. So I gave up and did something more interesting. Somewhere during the setup process, I must’ve allowed popups. Soon the guilt trips started rolling in.