Super passionate fan base. A notoriously secretive industry. And social media algorithms that encourage people to follow their worst impulses for 15 minutes of fame. It’s a volatile cocktailand one that can explain why scandalous leaker who called himself Midori, lied about being Japanese when he was actually a disgraced leaker known as MysticDistance from many years ago.
Apologies if none of this has scanned for you. Let’s go back a bit. Heading into the Summer Game Fest and non-E3 2024 season, where rumors swirl about the status of various games, whether they’ll be shown, and what it means if we don’t hear about them, the Twitter account MbKKssTBhz5— which went by Midori — posted all sorts of things with enough hits to make everyone take them seriously.
Midori had built a reputation for being legit after leaking things like Persona 5 Tactica DLC, Persona 3 Remake“The Answer” DLCand a Sonic party game Battle Royal. But recently, the account has begun to branch out into much bolder claims about Kingdom Hearts 4 it still is a few years off after Geoff Keighley confirmed wouldn’t be at Summer Game Fest, as well as codenames for several secret Nintendo projects, including the next one Splatoon game. “Watching Midori after the Nintendo leak is like watching Icarus gradually approach the sun,” one person wrote in a tweet that exploded at the beginning of the month.
But Midori doesn’t just post reams of obvious inside information about upcoming video game releases from Japanese publishers, the account also builds the persona of a Japanese leaker engaging with a seemingly mostly male American audience who runs Discord and writes in broken English. That was enough for some fans obsessed with Japanese games to develop a parasocial relationship with Midori, to the point where they were trying to figure out her age and asking her for her number.
“Thank you for the friend requests,” Midori published last October. “But I have a boyfriend so I don’t want to go out right now. You can enter Persona games so you can do this instead. I hope you find a cool girlfriend soon. Adding to the mystery surrounding Midori, the character has often talked about exiting the world of leaked video games entirely before eventually returning, most recently on Monday of this week.
“It’s just stressful to go on because of conspiracies,” Midori wrote at this time. “So now I feel uncomfortable. I think we should stop here.” The timing also coincided with several incorrect predictions surrounding Square Enix games appearing on the Xbox showcase, as well as Visions of Mana won’t be coming to PlayStation 4 (the publisher confirmed earlier today that it is).
Now it turns out that the only real conspiracy is that Midori was a mysterious new woman leaked from Japan, not an apparently white man Persona leaker formerly known as MysticDistance. “The rumors about my identity that have started to circulate and will continue to circulate recently are true information,” he said posted on June 13. “It’s ironic that I’m confirming information that will almost certainly end the long journey this account has taken.”
The confession was in response to an anonymous document are going around accusing MysticDistance of faking their new identity and relying on old or incomplete sources to spread new, unfounded rumors. Meanwhile, the broadcaster has been criticized on social media for using racist cartoons to masquerade as someone it’s not.
“Midori’s 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 wish I didn’t use,” MysticDistance wrote in response . “But it was never used to manipulate anyone or make it seem more credible.” He denied that the leaks came from old presentations rather than current sources, and said the new account had “freed” him to embrace the culture to fans of Sega and Atlus leaks in a way that his old MysticDistance reputation didn’t.
“I’m not going to tell anyone what to feel or what I think they should do in this situation. This is not my place,” he wrote. “I know there are people reading this post who feel betrayed. I will not invalidate your feelings or your decision to leave, nor will you express your feelings. MysticDistance also claims that its existing leaks will still be proven accurate. “In the coming months and years, more and more of the undisclosed information that I have published will be revealed,” he continued. “Of course, some plans will probably change as well. I hope everyone is excited about what they can expect from Atlus and Sega going forward.”
Midori is just the latest episode in a draining saga of a video game culture that increasingly seems off the rails. As game companies shy away even more from early trailers and reveals, and fandoms for the hottest games become even more desperate for scraps of new information, various leaks have attempted to fill the gap with varying degrees of success. In part, this is because business plans can be complex and constantly evolving. It might also have to do with a lot of alleged leakers getting one good piece of information and then can’t help but try to turn it into a whole identity and Discord community. Midori had indeed flown too close to the sun and now his wings had melted, at least until another one of his older random predictions proved correct.
Midori, aka MysticDistance, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
