justchris said:
What are you talking about? The beauty of No More Heroes is that is is a product whose primary purpose is to actively make fun of its target market. It is, in all ways, a parody. A parody of other games, a parody of gamers, a parody of selling out. No More Heroes is brilliantly shallow. I consider it in all ways equal to Killer 7, just a different philosophical direction.
If you read my other posts I essentially said that is a big part of NMH, the sad fact is most gamers think Travis is awesome, fly and generally badass. When in reality he is a complete loser, he lives in a crusty motel with his cat, he has a blow-up doll, he rents porn movies, he's obsessed with trivial stuff like games and anime... he is most gamers but they didn't even realise it as they were exclaiming how awesome and great he was. But the game also is a bit of an elegy to people like Travis at the same time, Suda represented himself a lot in his character.
And if you play the game it becomes clearer and clearer he is a guy trapped in the dead-end town (reminds me of El Paso) who has to do monotonous jobs so he can escape into his fantasy land (and ultimately violence) for a short while before coming back down to paucity of reality. Its quite a common theme, especially in manga and no doubt in a lot of the films Suda has seen and takes inspiration from. In a way it is a parody of gaming culture but also an nod of respect for people who create their own sub-cultures in these kind of settings.
The game understands why young men like Travis exist and it satirises the kind of moralists who harp on about getting a job and being responsible and all the rest, just read the intros to each job given by the dude in black with the shades and this becomes really clear, especially on the last job where you have to launch your bike into the sea. He says 'nothing but dropouts' in Santa Destroy and 'the biggest drop-outs of all... they jump'... seems pretty clear to me in its message about young people with no direction or prospects in life.
There isn't one meaning, its multifacted, you can play and just treat it like you would a cheap manga- all fights, odd characters and over the top language- or you can see it as a parody of gaming and gamers, or you can go further still and pick up the few signals here and there about it essentially being a social commentary (which is what Suda said it was, with Killer 7 being the political commentary) about young people.
