Nine Years in a Coma / Please Stay Calm and Listen

About

Nine Years In a Coma, also known as "Please Stay Calm and Listen" (Japanese: 良いですか、 落ち着いて聞いて下さい, Iidesuka, Ochitsuite Kiite Kudasai), refers to a series of fan art and parodies based on a scene from the 2015 video game Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain that depicts a doctor and nurse looking at a patient from their perspective. In early 2022, a meme format in which a person is being notified that their favorite franchise did not receive a new installment while they were in a coma gained prominence among Japanese users where it was used as an exploitable for redraws.

Origin

On September 1st, 2015, the action-adventure stealth game Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain was released.^[19] In the prologue scene of the game, the protagonist Venom Snake wakes on the bed in a hospital in Cyprus and gets notified by a doctor that he spent the last nine years in a coma.

I need to tell you something. Please listen and try not to panic. You've been in a coma for quite some time. Yes, yes, I know, you would like to know how long. I'm afraid it's been … nine years.

On January 4th, 2022, Twitter^[1] user @sunaneko_ZEON posted a still image of the doctor and the nurse looking at the player, captioned, "Please stay calm and listen. New Year's break is over." The tweet gained over 36,100 retweets and 192,900 likes in two months (tweet shown below).

Spread

The parody format saw minor virality in early January 2022. For example, on January 6th, 2022, Twitter^[20] user @harunyameko posted a tweet using the image, which gained over 150 retweets and 1,000 likes in two months. The format saw a surge in usage following two viral tweets posted in February 2022. On February 16th, Twitter^[2] user @Shirakami_Amaki posted a a joke about the long hiatus of the Japanese manga Hunter x Hunter using the format. The tweet (shown below) gained over 42,000 retweets and 218,100 likes in three weeks.

Translation: "OK. Please stay calm and listen. You have been asleep for 4 years. And the serialization of Hunter x Hunter hasn't resumed yet."

On February 18th, Twitter^[4] user @Earl_Enigma dubbed @Shirakami_Amaki's post, mimicking the voice of Hōchū Ōtsuka,^[3] the actor who voices the doctor in the Japanese version of Metal Gear Solid V. The tweet gained over 19,600 retweets and 79,700 likes in three weeks (shown below).

HUNTER×HUNTERが待ちきれないので
声を当ててみました。 https://t.co/J4Yy692dho pic.twitter.com/tAF5n7TyuK

— エニグマ伯爵 (@Earl_Enigma) February 17, 2022

In the following weeks, the tweets attracted major attention both on social and traditional media. On February 18th, Japanese voice actor Jouji Nakata^[6] quote tweeted^[5] @Earl_Enigma's meme, praising their voice acting. Japanese online news media Netlab reported on the trending tweets on February 22nd.^[7] In late February 2022, a large number of parodies based on the scene started appearing on Twitter^[8], Pixiv^[9] and Nico Nico Seiga.^[10]

On March 1st, Metal Gear Solid V director, Hideo Kojima, reacted to the parodies on Twitter (tweet shown below).^[11] Kojima also provided the backstory of the scene,^[12] revealing that the character model for the doctor is the British actor Ian Moore,^[13] known for his appearances in commercials for a Japanese naviation app.^[14] Kojima's posts were covered by Japanese and Western media outlets.^{[15][16][17][18]}

Various Examples

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Search Interest

External References