Why do we fight over video games today? In the past decade, video games have become the site of intense scrutiny as culture wars in other areas of US politics have spilled over to the medium of the century. This has not only sparked controversy over the canon status of beloved virtual characters from comics to games, but also brought local art forms into sharp focus in a global market. In this course, we will dive into one particular such field that frequently comes up in culture wars controversies: Japanese video games. What if your partner was a virtual pop icon; and your monk a robot and a deity? We will approach the cultural specificity of game art from the perspective of an anthropology of religion, technology and morality to ask what do gods have in common with games.