Japanese politician Chisato Morishita has gone viral in recent days as the internet re-discovered her role as Samus in ads for Metroid: Zero Mission in the early 2000s.
Given the novelty of an actress who once donned the iconic Zero Suit costume becoming a serious, full-fledged politician, it’s no surprise that the internet has become obsessed with this Metroid factoid. But who exactly is Morishita and what were the ads she starred in?
Who is Chisato Morishita?
Nowadays, Chisato Morishita is Parliamentary Vice-Minister of Environment within the Prime Minister’s cabinet and a member of the House of Councillors. While her political career is accomplished, what’s really grabbed the internet’s attention was Morishita’s earlier career as a gravure idol (a model who appears primarily in ads or magazines mostly targeted towards male audiences) and actress.
The Metroid: Zero Mission commercial
Before switching to politics in 2019, Morishita appeared in a range of TV shows, movies, and ads throughout the 2000s. Her most famous role was as Zero Suit Samus in a run of ads, both print and filmed, for Metroid: Zero Mission, a remake made for the Game Boy Advance in 2004. In the commercial, Morishita wears the iconic Zero Suit Samus outfit and crawls through a series of vents while exchanging shots with unseen enemies before eventually transforming into Samus’ Varia Suit.
To further this Metroid lore, Morishita revealed in an interview in 2013 with Famitsu Weekly that she was handpicked by Metroid co-creator Yoshio Sakamoto to play Samus in the commercial, as he found her intense stare to fit Samus’ strength and convictions. Despite her long black hair being quite different from Samus’ canon blonde look, Morishita’s version of the character has since become iconic due to the commercial’s horror-movie style.
In addition to the ads, Morishita wrote a Play Diary for the official Metroid: Zero Mission website which, surprisingly, still works after all these years. A few signed prizes, including t-shirts and cardboard standees of Morishita as Samus, were included as part of a sweepstakes to whichever fans submitted the fastest completion times.
Despite the flood of video game adaptations from recent years, ranging from great (The Last of Us, Fallout, and Sonic) to less-than-perfect (Uncharted, Halo, and Mortal Kombat), there’s still no live-action Metroid adaptation on the horizon, which makes Morishita’s 2004 commercial the closest we might get.
