Thanks to the extensive use of motion capture actors in the modern era, when a video game knight swings a sword to take down a fearsome dragon or a grizzled space marine aims a bazooka at an invading alien army, somewhere out there is a real person who performed the dramatic movements and cool poses. Of course, since the whole point of motion capture is to apply those movements to a totally different-looking frame, the actors themselves tend to live lives of relative obscurity.
At the recent Tokyo Game Show, though, fans got the chance to meet the real Revolver Ocelot, as the actor behind the pistol-loving Metal Gear Solid character showed up in costume and showed off his skills.
It seems Raiden wasn’t the only character from the Metal Gear franchise who was being cosplayed at during the show. Twitter users also shared pictures of this spot-on recreation of Revolver Ocelot’s uniform from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.
Ocelot shows up in just about every game in the series, and since the narrative spans several decades, his appearance and role changes greatly from one installment to the next. Sometimes he’s a handsome but inexperienced man, and other times he’s a grizzled amputee puppet master who seems to be possessed by his newly grafted forearm.
But one thing that never changes about Ocelot is his love of one-handed guns. They don’t call him “Revolver” because he loves kaitenzuhi, after all, and whenever he shows up to fight, taunt, or otherwise antagonize the player, you can be sure Ocelot is going to punctuate his actions by twirling a set of pistols around.
The man responsible for all that fancy firearms fetishism is the same man shown here, Tornado Yoshida, Ocelot’s gun-spinning motion capture actor.
▼ Video at the bottom of the tweet
Yoshida doesn’t just share Ocelot’s love for showy gunplay, either. Like the Russian-born Metal Gear character, Yoshida is fascinated by cowboy culture, as shown by the multiple videos of him performing at Western-themed events dressed in blue jeans and Old West headwear.
Oh, and by the way, no, Tornado isn’t a Japanese name that just happens to sound like the English word for a destructive whirlwind. It’s obviously a stage name, and while we’d ordinarily snicker at the sheer amount of swagger it takes to tell people, “Please, call me Tornado,” we’re not about to argue with a guy who’s this quick on the trigger.
Source: Hachima Kiko