So long, Kinoko Collection
Less than a year after its release, Kinoko Collection, a smartphone game centered around a conflict between anthropomorphized mushrooms and bamboo shoots has been taken offline.
Following the title’s launch in December, Tokyo-based studio CMIX announced last week that it would no longer be able to support Kinoko Collection on account of financial difficulties.
Servers were subsequently shut down on July 1.
Why should you care about some defunct Japanese mobile game? Well, it has an interesting backstory. Kinoko Collection was based on a real life feud between fans of two brands of chocolate, Kinoko no Yama (Mushroom Mountain) and Takenoko no Sato (Bamboo Shoot Village) — both of which are made by the same company, Meiji Dairies Corp, strangely enough.
That’s the thing about Kinoko Collection. It’s strange. On so many levels. It’s like a bizarre onion where, when you peel back the layer with all the cutesy anime girls in fungi outfits, you discover that a bunch of people in Japan are engaged in a bitter argument over which sort of candy is better.
I’m not sure I want to live in a world where something that esoteric and conceptually entertaining isn’t celebrated. So cheers, Kinoko Collection. I’m glad you existed, if only for a little while.
きのこれ公式 [Twitter via Anime News Network]
