How About That Thing?

The 3D era of Mortal Kombat isn’t looked upon all that fondly anymore. I’m sure the community has their reasons, and I probably agree with two or three of them. Lord knows deathtraps were the ultimate definition of double-edged swords.

Originally, this article was going to be about Onaga: The Dragon King, and his unstoppable army. The army of The Dragon King made up a generous amount of this era of MK’s story, what with Quan Chi and Shang Tsung wanting to resurrect it, and Raiden and his champions wanting to stop it. And I guess Nitara was there too. I had been convinced that MK as a whole had pretty much retconned Onaga and his army out of existence, outside of cameos in certain character dialogue and endings and the like.

Then Mortal Kombat 1 came out. Yeah, game 12 of the franchise is Mortal Kombat 1. It’s confusing as hell, but this is a franchise that considers its crossover with the DCU canonical, and its 2011 reboot as game number 9 instead of 8, so I’ve long since given up on making sense of this shit.

SPOILER: a lot of elements of Deadly Alliance, Deception, and Armageddon found their way into the plot of MK1. Shang Tsung and Quan Chi forming a deadly alliance, a mysterious entity known simply as Dumashi guiding the way, an army of unstoppable warriors who served a dragon king… Technically, they renamed him to Chen, or something like that, but I’m just glad they kept him. They pretty much crunched Deadly alliance, Deception, and Armageddon together into one game, and in all honesty, I’m okay with that.

But if there’s one omission I actually do miss, it’s probably the kamidogu. AKA, these little guys right here.

What are kamidogu, you probably ask? Well, clearly you haven’t played Mortal Kombat: Deception, or even bothered looking up a longplay on YouTube, but I’ll humor you and tell you everything I was dumb enough to memorize and retain for years instead of learning something useful like how Microsoft Access works.

Long ago, before there were the realms, and before Mortal Kombat even existed, there were the elder gods, and there was an entity known simply as The One Being. And I guess there were titans somewhere in the ether as well, according to Mortal Kombat 11, but they don’t factor into this. The One Being clashed with the elder gods for ages until one day, he was destroyed. His consciousness was divided up into little jewel type things known as the kamidogu, and they were scattered about into the vast emptiness of preexistence.

As time went on, the kamidogu ended up spawning the realms. Every denizen of the realms, from the lowliest insect to the strongest warrior, is but a microscopic fragment of the entity formerly known as The One Being, and the kamidogu quickly became the focal point in which all realms come into, and cease existing.

Most individuals who seek to conquer the realms through the Mortal Kombat tournament are in search of the kamidogu. It is believed that these individuals are under the influence of The One Being, whether they themselves realize it or not.

When all the kamidogu are gathered, they can be merged into one ultimate kamidogu. This results in the realms murging together into one realm. And according to Onaga’s unused ending in Mortal Kombat: Deception, it results in the wielder of the one kamidogu, and the ruler of the one realm to become the vessel for The One Being as they continue to assimilate the whole of existence into themselves.

Or at least, that was the case up until the franchise got sorta-rebooted in 2011, anyway. When 2011 came into existence, the kamidogu, and most evidence of the fabled One Being was retconned out of existence. Which sucks, because I always thought the whole thing was pretty cool.

I’ll own up to being a bit of a mythology buff. Even if it’s the mythology of a fantasy or scifi series like this, little bits and pieces like this really add to the world you’re playing in, you know?

Not to mention that out of all the mythologies, real or fictional, Norse mythology is probably my personal favorite. And the story of The One Being reminds me quite a bit of Norse mythology’s origin of existence. If I remember the audiobook a friend of mine got me for Christmas one year, Norse mythology also has the story of there being one being who existed in the ether of preexistence who died, and the worlds that we all know and love formed from the remains of his corpse and his consciousness.

It’s a fascinating take on how we came to exist, and the MK version is equally so. Unfortunately, like a lot of things from the 3D era originally, it got retconned.

Technically, the kamidogu still exist in Mortal Kombat X, but rather than being sacred items that can make or unmake existence, they’re glorified boards to break in the “test your might” tower. Meanwhile, the god like tool that can make or unmake existence is now something called the jinsei. Where as the kamidogu were giant jewels full of power and mystery, this jinsei appears to basically be some sort of fountain, or koi pond, or whatever. I don’t know, it seemed significantly lamer by comparison.

The MKX comic book, which I only recently found out existed, brings back the kamidogu. However, instead of powerful tools of the gods, they now appear to be some sort of convoluted ritual dagger things that can grant you god like powers for a brief time, but require a ridiculous amount of mortal blood to work, and you run the risk of killing yourself in the process. I think. Honestly, I just read the description on the official MK wiki, and it sounded like an absolute mess. In fact, the entirety of the MKX comic book sounds like a mess.

Maybe in the future, the true kamidogu will make a comeback. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part. Either way, for reasons I still can’t explain, I remember these big ol’ gems surprisingly fondly.