Brain-addled fans of the hugely popular Dragon Quest game series see it in everything around them.
Dragon Quest‘s Slime monster is one of the most recognisable creatures in Japanese gaming, popping up in most of the Dragon Quest games (and its own spin-off versions) and on huge amounts of merchandise. It has become so ubiquitous that Japanese Twitter users have found themselves mistaking common items for the amorphous blue blob when they’re out and about. It’s like the image of Christ turning up in shrouds, toast, and all over the place, but for the modern Japanese age.
While some of these images require a very large amount of both imagination and squinting, these Twitter users have all labelled the images with the tag “Dragon Quest on the brain” (ドラクエ脳) showing just how much the slime image, plastered everywhere (and with its own merchandise section on the Square Enix website), and other aspects of the game have sunk into their subconscious.
▼ While meant to represent a pumpkin, the cheese bears a striking resemblance to Dragon Quest‘s slime. Will this cafe be receiving a visit from Square Enix’s legal team?
▼ Slimes can even be found out on the streets, although looking rather less cute than usual.
One fan of Dragon Quest Builders recalled a particular mission in Chapter 2 which involved searching for, and then harvesting, potatoes. Just like real farming, but with less in the way of back-breaking labour and more in the way of fighting wizards and skeletons.
▼ What person, who has ever played a computer game, could resist smashing these barrels to see what coins or goodies are concealed within?
▼ This user noticed the (ever so faint) similarity between Dragon Quest X‘s Management Terminal Q485 and their bread maker.
It wasn’t just images that brought back memories of Dragon Quest; this Twitter user couldn’t help but add an extra syllable to this medicine’s name, changing バサグラン (pronounced “Basaguran”) to the name of an enemy from Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 3, バサグランデ (“Basagurande”).
This user quickly admitted that Dragon Quest must have turned their head funny, when looking at this cat shape caused them to think of Dragon Quest‘s Mirudorasu (called “Nimzo” in the English version).
While not exactly identical (or even particularly similar – we’ve made jellies that look more like Slime) these tweets tell us that some fans have clearly spent a good amount of time playing Dragon Quest, to the point where the lines between reality and game blur. Perhaps they should spend less time playing and try to get out a bit more, or conversely more time playing and less time emerging out into a world that tries to deceive them. It seems that from these images at least, and to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, Life imitates Dragon Quest more than Dragon Quest imitates Life.
Source: Matome Naver
Featured image: Twitter/@eeb_p