A hyper-passionate fan base. A very secretive industry. And social media algorithms that encourage people to follow their worst impulses for their 15 minutes of fame. It’s a volatile cocktailand one that can explain why a notorious explorer who went by the name Midori lied about being a Japanese woman when he was actually a disgraced detective known as MysticDistance from many years ago.
I apologize if none of these scanned for you. Let’s go back a bit. Heading into the Summer Game Fest and non-E3 2024 season, in which rumors swirl about the state of various games, whether they’ll be showing up, and what it means if we don’t hear about them, the Twitter account MbKKssTBhz5—who went by Midori—was posting all kinds of articles with enough punchlines to make everyone take them seriously.
Midori had built a reputation for being legit after leaking things like Persona 5 Tactics DLC, The remake of Persona 3“The Answer” DLC.and a sound battle royale party game. But recently, the account began to branch out into much bolder claims about Kingdom Hearts 4 still being a few years off after Geoff Keighley confirmed wouldn’t be at Summer Game Fest, as well as the code names for several secret Nintendo projects, including the upcoming Splatoon game. “Watching Midori behind the Nintendo leaks is like watching Icarus gradually approach the sun.” one person wrote in a tweet that broke near the beginning of the month.
But Midori wasn’t just posting a bunch of apparent inside information about upcoming video game releases from Japanese publishers, the account was also creating a character of a female Japanese explorer engaging with a seemingly mostly American male audience, one that ran a Discord and wrote in broken English. That was enough for some fans obsessed with Japanese games to form a parasocial relationship with Midori, to the point where they were trying to figure out her age and ask her for her number.
“Thanks for the friend requests,” Midori posted last October. “But I have a boyfriend, so I don’t want to date now. You can meet at Personal games, so you can do that instead. I hope you find a cute boyfriend soon.” Adding to the mystery surrounding Midori, the character often talked about exiting the video game world entirely before finally returning, most recently on Monday of this week.
“It’s just stressful going on because of the plots,” Midori has written in that time. “So now I’m not comfortable. I think it’s good to stop here.” The timing also happened to coincide with some incorrect predictions about Square Enix games showing up at the Xbox showcase, as well Visions of Mana isn’t coming to PlayStation 4 (the publisher confirmed earlier today that it was).
Now it turns out that the only real conspiracy was that Midori was a mysterious young female explorer from Japan, and not apparently a white male Personal stream formerly known as MysticDistance. The rumors about my identity that have started to spread and will continue to spread recently are accurate information,” he posted on June 13. “It’s only ironic that I’m corroborating information that will almost certainly end the long journey this account has taken.”
The confession was in response to a anonymous document going around accusing MysticDistance of faking their new identity and relying on old or incomplete sources to spread new, unsubstantiated rumours. Meanwhile, on social media, the whistleblower has been criticized for embracing racist caricatures to masquerade as someone they were not.
“The Midori persona as it is may not be a real person, but it is what I believe to be an accurate representation of a real person, albeit in a particularly weird way that I’d rather not use,” wrote MysticDistance on answer. “But it was never used to manipulate anyone or to appear more credible.” He denied that the leaks came from old presentations rather than actual sources, and said the new account “freed” him to embrace Sega and Atlus fan culture in a way that his old reputation as MysticDistance did not.
“I will not tell anyone what to feel or what I think they should do in this situation. It is not my country”, he wrote. “I know there are people reading this post who feel betrayed. I will not invalidate your feelings or your decision to leave or express your feelings.” MysticDistance also claimed that his existing leaks will still be proven accurate. “Over the coming months and years, always and more unannounced information will be revealed,” he continued. “Of course, some plans will change as well. I hope everyone is excited about what to expect from Atlus and Sega next.”
Midori is just the latest episode in a cultural saga stemming from video games that seems increasingly off the rails. As game companies pull even further away from trailers and early reveals, and fans of the hottest games become even more desperate for new information, various discoverers have tried to fill the gap, with varying degrees of success. In part this is because business plans can be complex and constantly evolving. It could also be about many would-be whistleblowers getting a piece of good information, and then being unable to help themselves from trying to spread it to an entire community of identity and discord. Midori flew too close to the sun, and now his wings are melted, at least until another one of his oldest random predictions is proven right again.
Midori, known as MysticDistance, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.