Five Seven Five.
(I just spent well over 3 hours putting this whole post together, and of course it got fucking deleted when I went to post it. So here it is again, a 9 hour masterpiece YOU BASTARDS!)
Afterwards, 10 minutes later, the paramedics came and fought to keep him on a stretcher (he kept trying to leave). They were asking me what had happened, so I spoke loose Japanese and drew pictures for them on a sheet of paper (consisting of pictures of a guy with eyes closed and eyes opened, and a little heart with BPM next to it). They kept asking me *epilepsy?* and would point at the computer he was at, and I was like NO! What he was doing was NOT epilepsy it was a massive fucking seizure.
I dont' know why people around me always have seizures, this is the 3rd person ASIDE from my sister....it seems very strange. I guess at least I was there and kind of knew what to do?
Alright, well that whole ordeal aside, lets get down to business!
So this story begins on a night where Tim and I went to Shibuya to meet up with Nat & Co. to celebrate Nat's going away party. Since I've taken COPIOUS amounts of pictures of Shibuya, here's a little video clip of the place as well. In the background you can hear a female J-Pop four-some bouncing around on stage, I never did get around to taking their picture.
There's a giant Nova sign. If you look carefully in some of the previous pictures you can see that there's almost always a Nova sign anywhere near a train station, but I figured I'd take one nice big one for good measure.
The pink rabbit with a beak, Oshiage, the Japanese LOVE him.
Shibuya cross-walk. Again.
Heading down a busy Shibuya alley.
This is one of about 100 busy alleys in Shibuya. They all start to look the same after a while, so just imagine this...100 times over.
Nat and Tim, eating at the "Ron Jeremy" restaurant. In fact, this is the first restaurant I ate at when I first arrived in Japan. Man, those were the days. Things were so new back then, now I'm just a crusty and weathered old Jap vet.
I ordered the spicy rolls featured in the top right hand of this menu, it's 6 out 7 bad-ass Japanoise rockers approved.
I was trying to take a picture of everyone at a nice low angle, without looking at my camera's screen. I was a little too soused and care-free, so It didn't really work that well.
That's Eriko, Jesse and Hiromi. I'm pretty sure I spelled two of those names wrong...
Eriko (grey skirt) is on the left, then Tim's head over Jesse's shoulder, Hiromi, Nat's friends and Nat...all in front of some crazy lantern wall.
If you've seen the movie "Lost In Translation" then you're familiar with this karaoke bar. Yup...Bill Murray was in there at one point.
This is the front entrance to said karaoke bar.
This is the front entrance to where we ended up drinking. The outside had a deceiving nautical decor.
Whereas the inside was nostalgically similar to an old person's basement. Complete with musty odor and exposed ventilation shafts.
The beer was pretty cheap though, so you won't here any complaints from me.
Aw, look at that cute couple. Jesse was studying in Japan for 4 months a couple months ago, but they actually met at college in Chicago.
I dub this photo: Deriko.
Yup. I think you know where this is going.
And yes Emily, they just make that sign with their hands on their own. You can't stop the power of Japanese cuteness.
A couple hours later we were all well hydrated (well, dehydrated, but who's counting).
At which point Nat and her friends split off since she had an early flight, Tim took off for some personal matters, and Eriko and Hiromi suggested that Jesse and I go with them to a "photo club" to get stickers with the 4 of us on them.
Like I said, I think you can figure out where this is going.
So behold. The photo club.
Basically the downstairs is just like any typical pachinko arcade, but if you take the elevator up there is an entire floor dedicated to photo booths. Traditionally no boys are allowed in photo clubs unless they are accompanied by girls.
Ah, but now the choice of WHICH machine.
It's hard to word the experience that is "photo club," but I'll tell you this much- they take sticker photo booths to a fucking COMPLETELY different level. This WHOLE (green screen) room is ONE photo booth.
Nick in Buffalo would have a field day with one of these puppies, it kicks Walmarts' "Glam Shots" ass.
Um. I'm not sure why my camera was recording this, but who the hell cares! Hear the crazy J-Pop music? Yeah, that shits everywhere.
This is the two ladies editing our pictures. In teenage-Japanese-girl spirit, there are two touch screen monitors so that more than one girl can add changes at a time.
While they were doing that I decided to nab another shot of the photo "booth" (room).
That's where the camera was housed. It was a pretty creepy wall...well...as creepy as walls can get I suppose.
So this is the two girls Japanese-ing out our pictures in REAL time.
In this video you can see Eriko scrolling through just a few of the ba-jillions of choices the menu offers.
I hate to make you go through all of these videos, but I feel it's necessary you at least visually sample the amount of work that was put into the final product.
Each painstaking stroke will eventually add up to be a priceless masterpiece. It's hard to explain, but the menus on these machines are so fast that most non-natives have trouble navigating through them in time (even those fluent in Japanese). I think it's just one of those skills you acquire during your navy uniform wearing schoolgirl days.
After completing the self-adhesive timeless works of art that are Photo Club Stickers, the next step was to take them to the official cutting table, and expertly scissor them into sticker quadrants that could be evenly distributed to all participating parties.
The machine also offers the option to send 2 of the 4 photos to 2 cell phones as well. Only in Japan would you have a sticker club machine that sends sticker club photos to your Japanese cell phone.
America is so fucking far behind in sticker club technology.
I took pictures of the other two pictures with my digital camera (how redundant...), so those will be posted later. These ones were the sillier of the 4, whereas the other 2 pictures Jesse and I are more along the lines of Backstreet Boy/98 Degree style poses.
After that little adventure we all headed back home. As I've mentioned countless times, the train station usually is pretty freaking busy, but most of my previous pictures are coincidentally when the stations are virtually empty. This picture is definitely a more accurate representation of a standard Japanese train station, at this particular moment everyone is waiting to catch the last train of the night (12:30 a.m.).
The next day, on my way to work, I got stuck behind some random little parade. It was a bunch of dudes carrying a shrine, you know the kind where...like...a bunch of dudes are holding two big sticks, and there is a platform being held up on the two sticks? Yeah. That kind of shrine.
Things really don't phase me too much any more though, my first reaction was just, "Eh. Why not. It's fucking Japan."
After work I went to the Apple store in Ginza, and for some reason everyone was just walking around in the streets. It's typically a pretty busy street, so it was definitely out of the ordinary, I guess cars were being blocked off that day.
Eh. Why not. It's fucking Japan.
That night I introduced Tim to quarters. We were just sitting at the kitchen table, and shootin' the shit, and I started to bounce 1 yen pieces (equal to the value and size of a penny) into a bowl. Tim commented on how it was a pretty pointless act, and I explained to him how there is a popular drinking game based on it called "Quarters." He quickly replied on how Americans take drinking to a whole different level, in Australia they just drink until they get pissed, but in America we make a game out of it just to force the other person into drinking more. Then he went on to tell me how an American had taught him about beer pong recently, which lead to me telling stories about the infamous Buffalo Beer Pong Tuesdays.
Damn. Those were the days...
That, and Beer Ball. (Two-hand-touch ultimate frisbee on concrete in inline skates while drinking, and doing shots when the other team scored.)
So we decided to play "Yen-ers" with a wine glass and Korean vodka. Every now and then we'd mix some melon soda in with the vodka. I swear to shit the melon soda tasted DEAD ON with Bubblicious bubble gum (original flavor). It was the damndest thing.
The melon soda is the really thick green fluid in the middle bottle on the left side of the picture. To the left of the soda is a bottle of sake. To the right of the soda is Japanese vodka. In the middle of the table is Japanese change.
Yet none of these things struck me as foreign. Living in Japan has definitely become second nature.
The champagne glass on the right side of the picture is filled with water, to clean the Yen in when we pick them up off the floor. Again, Tim seemed impressed with the American ingenuity.
Japanese Yen if you've never seen them. Now that I think about it, I'll take pictures of common Japanese currency when I get home (I'm typing this at work right now). Again, I'm so used to using Japanese money that it has just become normal to me...it'll be weird going back to the American system.
ESPECIALLY since America doesn't include taxes in it's prices. In Japan if a flat screen TV says Y208,000.00 ($2,800) you LITERALLY pay that amount at the register. All of their listed prices- in every store, restaurant, udon cart, etc. includes tax- so you pay exactly the amount you see on the tag/sign. It's super super convenient.
So that blue/silver can with the lemon on it, in the background of this picture, is a can of chu-hi (basically, tsu-chu ((Japanese vodka)) with fruit juice in it) and can be found in all convenient stores for around Y230.00. So when you bring a can up to the counter, and drunkenly fumble around for change, you know it's going to come to EXACTLY 230 Yen.
The next morning, after kicking Tim's ass at "Yen-ers," Jesse and I strolled around Akihabara (about the umpteenth-million time for me). BUT this time I was determined to cast all dignity aside and take pictures of EVERYTHING.
Our first stop was an arcade. Arcades are a dying breed in Japan, but the ones that have still hung around have some pretty serious machines in them. These capsules were impressive VR chambers for a game where you control a mech and, of course, fight other mechs. The large screen TV on the right side of the picture lets everyone in the arcade observe the war that wages within the game. So the TV switches between all of the views of the players, and also shows top-down views of the battlefield with everyone fighting each other (as seen 2 pictures down).
This is a Japanese "Salary Man" bustin' a groove to Dance Dance Revolution Ultra Remix 2: Hyper Edition. For a guy with a tucked in shirt, he was pretty freakin' good!
This is the TV screen showing the battle of the mechs. You could also take free printed diagrams/layouts of the battle arena, so that you could strategize a plan at home (or with friends) pre-battle.
I couldn't resist playing Guitar Freaks 2. It's been so long since I've had my Guitar Hero fix!
Playing with only 3 buttons on the fret seemed like kind of a cop-out.
But to even things out, I couldn't understand a goddamn thing that was going on. Between the ultra-fast Japanese menus and the brain melting Japanese vocals, holding the guitar was about the only thing that felt even vaguely similar to Guitar Hero.
Half-Life 2: The Arcade Game. It's seriously just regular Half-Life 2...but you can play it in an arcade. This highlights why arcades are dying- I'd much rather pay $50 to own the game, as well as play it in the comfort of my own home. Then again...high scores...
This is the first picture I've left uncompressed this whole trip. Every other picture I've taken has started as an enormous 6 mega-pixel monstrosity, only to be compressed 60% down- leaving it a mere 600kb jpeg. BUT, I felt that this enormous map (it's about 10' x 10' and glued to a wall near the train station) of Akihabara should be left uncompressed so that you, my loyal viewer, could navigate the streets, alleys and wonders that are AKIHABARA: ELECTRIC TOWN.
No stop to Akihabara would be complete without going to Yodabashi! The enormously enormous electronics chain that dominates Tokyo.
It's impossible to convey the scale of this store, but I took a couple pictures of the interior anyways.
It's simply 9 floors FULL of electronics. Imagine 9 Walmarts, that only sold electronics, stacked on each other.
As far as I know this is the largest Yodabashi store, whereas the rest of them range is size from a typical convenient store to just 1 Walmart.
Yeah. Like I said, it's pretty difficult to capture the size of the store. Just believe me. K?
Sony has a new line of DSLR cameras coming out, I'm not sure if these have hit State-side yet, but I suspect that they will come out in Japan first.
They had about 8 floor-models out to play with, so I took this one for a spin around the ol' block. It's a DAMN nice camera. Then again, a Y178,000.00 ($1,780) camera BETTER be!
CAPSULES!!! Hehehe...it really puts our American quarter machines to shame.
So obviously Japanese have an addiction with collecting things. If you're familiar with Pokemon than you can see the genius in what Nintendo did. They took an existing Japanese addiction, capsules, and then created a fantasy world where animals come out of said capsules and fight.
Guess what for the first Pokemon toys came in...
Fortunately there are a ga-zillion different types of capsule toys. Unfortunately it makes me want to collect them that much more...or should I say "Catch them all?"
I settled on the machine with the sexy rabbit girl picture.
But I was a bit torn between scandalously posed schoolgirls...
...and the...scandalously posed...schoolgirls.
On our way out of the store there was this massive line, I think they were all purchasing the PSP Slim that was just released. Or at least, that's what they all seemed to be buying.
I'm not sure if it's the same in American right now, but there are about 5 different color PSP Slims to choose from AND Final Fantasy: Crisis Core DID just come out. Seems like two reasons enough to be standing in that line.
Right before we left the store we passed through the Gundam section. Hundreds upon hundreds of boxes packed with plastic robot pieces you get to assemble and paint yourself. Most prices starting at around Y10,000.00
Gundam is serious in Japan.
And I'm serious as cancer when I say rhythm is a dancer.
Once we left Yodabashi, we passed some more capsule machines on the street...which is to be expected since in Akihabara they are almost as popular as vending machines.
This display in particular shows more rabbit girls and Dragon Ball Z characters (bottom right). Every time I see DB:Z stuff here I think of Eli, Dudley and Zach. Aw, I miss those guys...
Alright! So. This is your standard Akihabara collectors/comic/anime/game/music/manga shop. If you copy and pasted this picture about 25 times, side-by-side, you would have an image that resembled 1 block of Akihabara.
Air Soft. I haven't seen many of these guns being used around Japan, but with the amount of them I see in stores I have to imagine that they sell pretty well. We have one in our apartment (pics of it in the last post). It's supposedly a Western-foreigner tradition to be GIVEN an Air Soft gun so that if your apartment gets cockroaches you can shoot them with it.
The guns, despite shooting plastic pellets, are pretty freakin' powerful (I think there was one sittin' around Don and Matt's apartment at one point), and realistic enough that if you brandished one in the States you'd surely get capped by a pig.
This shit is EVERYWHERE. And as much as I'd love a foot tall plastic figure of a schoolgirl who's skirt i can look up, I just can't part with Y7,000 over one.
And if you're not into schoolgirls with provocative clothing, you could always just opt for the completely nude figures.
I'm trying to give you a sense of what these stores are filled with, but it's seriously hard as nuts to capture Japan with pictures. There's just too much shit EVERYWHERE.
So instead I will concentrate on the boobs. (The nudey figures on the top cost Y29,000.00 to Y108,000.00...that's a lot of Yen)
Boobs.
Boobs and maids.
So the capsule machines in the alleys tend to be a little more...well...what you would expect in Japan.
And here I wasted my Yen on a rabbit girl that's not even bending over and slapping her own ass.
This place is pretty bad-ass. There's two places that feel like American Embassies to me, the Apple store in Ginza and Game Hollywood in Akihabara.
It's an American import video game store :) And it seems "Bioshock" is such a hit that it deserves an adhesive balloon...? (At Y8,800.00 I'm glad I didn't bring my Xbox360, I would have shown NO self-restraint.)
It's pretty impressive that these guys have the games available on their release date (keeping in mind that they are shipped overseas). I'm considering buying "Halo 3" here just to say my copy is from Japan. (I'd love to buy "Bioshock," but since there's no multiplayer I'm sure I could find a used copy in a couple weeks, so I'm holding out.)
A couple more new games.
This was a find and a half! Ron and I used to play this on his Dreamcast (running an NES emulator) back when I first moved into Hadley. It's rumored that deep into the late of night you can still hear the shrill guitar wails of the thrash metal music coming from Old Man Hadley's computer.
Look Steve! It even made it here in Japan!
Unfortunately there are still posters around the shop for games that look amazing, but are in a language I'll never know (this one in particular appears to be Korean).
Ah, a sight for sore eyes.
After lolly-gagging around that shop, Jesse and I hit the streets for some more action. Or. Something.
Most "adult" (hentai) shops are somewhat inconspicuous, fronting themselves with new release movies and music only to turn into something entirely more sexual once you start going up the stairs (the general rule is, the higher you go up the stairs ((most shops in Japan have multiple floors)) the weirder the porn will get). This shop is one of the more conspicuous of said stores.
This massive billboard NEVER lights up at night, so I always see it but my camera never gets a good shot of it. So here it is in all it's day-time glory.
The robot always reminds me of Ron for some reason...
This is the type of hentai store that actually puts up a front. You can buy video games (and new PSP Slims! All colors!) and accessories on the first floor, but once you go downstairs things get more...boob...ie.
We ducked into a store that was very similar to Ikea, but that costed about 30x the price. After we walked up a couple floors (no, we didn't find weird porn) I caught sight of these bad boys. So, this one goes out to you Gimp.
This one too ;)
These bad boys are the SAME exact china balls you would find in Ikea. But instead of costing about $10, the smallest one alone was $68. And yeah, so that might be after tax, but GODDAMN! Can you imagine how much those chandeliers in the last two pictures must cost!?
After a healthy dose of trendy, modern art furniture and home decor, it was back to the more wide eyed, cat tailed, busty chested, spiky haired parts Akihabara.
Any store that has Final Fantasy and Metal Gear posters in the entrance IS my kind of store!
A life-sized Solid Snake (Pliskin if you're down with MGS2)...Brett, I nearly shit myself when I saw this thing.
The bun-gee cords attached to Snake are there so when people like me hump him, he doesn't fall over.
OMG!!!!1!!_IHRTUSLDSNK!
It appears that "Mario Strikers: Charged" is a new release. I wonder if that's hit State-side yet...
Any. ANY, store, that has a plastic wrapped schoolgirl outfit for sale, is NOT a place where schoolgirls should buy their uniforms.
The "No 18" sign is usually a give-away too...
And so our hentai adventures begin. 10 minutes from now I will have made you into a REAL man.
Again I am overwhelmed with the task of trying to capture the sheer volume of anime porn circulating throughout Tokyo. This is ONE aisle, of ONE floor, of ONE store...if you multiply that by 948,049,932 you'll have the number of aisles in Tokyo filled with hentai and manga.
Before we delve deeper into that subject though, let us first cleanse our minds with the Akihabara: Electric Town tunnels. If you can imagine slamming your head on the ceiling of tunnels, while being completely suffocated by every type of electronic device and component man has ever dared to dream, and this tunnel "network" extending for a good 4 city blocks in every direction...you have begun to enter all that is Electric Town.
Alright. Let the Grand Funk Hentai Railroad lead us into salvation...
(The is but one mere staircase, it is indescribable how many staircases look like this in AKIHABARA.)
For all you non-believers: Tentacle Sex movies.
(With what appears to be a sticker price Y160 lower than suggested retail price, and that's INCLUDING 10% more tentacle!)
Watch out behind you!...too late.
I don't know what show those "Wanted" posters are for, but it looks pretty rad. I'm guessing the "Franco Il Nero" dude, with $380,000 on his head, is the main character?
'gregorian chant' OooooOOooooh oOOoooHoooh OOoooooo 'electric guitar wail' dunn dunna dunna dun dun dunnnnaaaa dunna!
Behold. The advertising power that is Crisis Core. I've seen more posters, signs and billboards for this game than any other product in my life. And it cuts me a little deeper each time I see it, knowing that my Japanese is way too limited to let me enjoy all that is the Core in Crisis. Anyone know the American release date?
Cloud better make an appearance. 'shakes fist'
Some construction going on below the staircase we were climbing.
My story is: The mole people that reside under Akihabara have been terrorizing villagers more than usual lately. The Emperor has had enough and has sent a team of ninjas to hunt the mole people down (you can see the ninjas run by the openings occasionally, with their katanas held in the air behind them- dripping with mole people blood). This construction crew is uncovering the parts of the tunnels where ninjas have left mounds of dead mole people bodies. The incineration team will arrive in T minus 10 hours.
Annnnnnd back to the good stuff.
Screw girls bouncing on trampolines, this is where the shit IS AT!
This shop is a completely different shop than the one 10 pictures and 2 movies ago, yet it has the SAME EXACT red and yellow tiled flooring.
Oh, and shit-ton of porn.
'gregorian chant' OooooOOooooh oOOoooHoooh OOoooooo 'electric guitar wail' dunn dunna dunna dun dun dunnnnaaaa dunna!
Behold. The dirty laundry of females for sale. These are the things that Japanese dreams are made of.
For a mere Y9,800 you TOO could have a bag of dirty laundry...
...OR, you could MAN UP and buy the Y20,000 SIGNED panties, and breathe in the sweet sweet smell of...'cough'...victory?
How many pictures must I show you before you BELIEVE that Akihabara is the greatest place on Earth?
Perhaps these OLD-SCHOOL die cast metal Transformers will persuade you? Mwuh hahahahaha....
(Note the Optimus Prime that Transforms into a battle station, pictured in the top left. You KNOW those were the shit.)
"Roots." The convenience store that is...just vending machines. Uhhhh...errr...at least it's a place to rest and smoke?
Akihabara during the evening.
I want to play this game so bad. So so bad :(
Some inconspicuous looking stores that sell music, DVDs and games. The big screen TV's facing the sidewalk are playing recorded footage of some seizure inducing top-down shooters. Those games are the shit.
Suprise! Tentacle Sex!
Just because a store sells cool obscure games doesn't mean it isn't packing some CGI tentacle sex. I hope you've learned your lesson.
Back upstairs (the tentacle sex was downstairs, with all the manga/hentai) I sampled some audio listenings. The CD on the far left, "Hardcore Syndrome," is a top seller in a lot of shops I've been in- so I decided to purchase it.
I also settled on buying "Ages" a Sega sampled techno album. ("Ages" is Sega backwards...get it?)
I'm hoping to scour the internet for some of these albums, it seemed like anything with the words "arrange album" on it was pretty decent.
The album on the far right, "Who the hell do you think I am?," had some pretty solid electric guitar in it. So. Yes. If you find this album, let me know.
These were some of the top-down shooter games. If you find any of these let me know too ;)
Another shop. Man, I'm really going to miss walking in and out of all of these video game stores. The best thing we have in the States is if a GameStop is next to an EBGames...that's pretty fucking lame compared to this.
So remember the rabbit girl I bought from the capsule machine earlier. Oh yes. It is time!
These were all of the figures that that specific capsule machine had to offer, I was DEFINITELY hoping for the rabbit girl.
Behold. Rabbit girl. Pieces.
Oh! Before I forget! Remember that mech game in the arcade, with the TV that shows you the battlefield? Here's one of the free printouts of the battlefield (so you can strategize at home). Um...yeah. It's basically just your standard A3 sized paper, you know...8.5"x11"...um...blueprint...schematics...er...Tactical Map...[for ZEON side]...
'cough'
geek.
Annnnd back to rabbit girl.
Sexu.
(Yes, the "u" is intentional. See, it's funny, because, at night when your walking around drinking, the guys that are trying to sell you prostitutes say, "Sexu? Sexu?" and hold out there pinkies. I haven't quite figured out what the pinky is for, but it never gets old yelling "Fuck off you fuckin' cunt! I don't want to have bloody sex with you!" Yeah...Tim taught that to me. I speak British-Australian now.)
(Emerik, I suppose "Sexu? Sexu?" is a variation of "DVDDVDDVDDVDDVDDVD...")
OOOooooh boy. Crap. I wasn't ready for these pictures. See, basically since I've been taking a shit-ton of photos:
A) I don't have time to sort through them,
B) I don't have an internet connection, so when I go somewhere to use one I need to be timely about it.
So when I'm bored at work, or in the mornings before work, I just go one by one through my pictures and type out the captions in a .txt file. That way when I get to a place with internet I can just copy and paste all my comments into my blog, and then slap the pictures into it one by one, without having to sort through them.
So yeah. I've noticed that as my time in Japan has progressed, so has the outrageousness of my adventures. What you are about to see EASILY top the Akihabara adventure. Well...in my opinion at least.
So first off, in this picture the top row is me, Tamomi, Danika and then Marina at the bottom. (Marina had her tongue pierced a couple weeks ago, it was nostalgic listening to her mumble over a swollen tongue. Obviously by this night she could talk fine.)
Ahhhh boy. Ah boy.
I think the look on my face says it all in this one.
(The black girl is Tracey, who is from Toronto! We bonded over memories of "Clone High.")
Haha, Dave and his lady. (I teach with Dave on Sundays, and with Rachel as well ((you'll meet her soon)).)
So the new people in this picture are Sharon, on the left, and Gio in the middle. It was Gio's Birthday.
Ah yes. Rachel and Danika. They live together. I teach with Rachel on Sundays, and I trained with Danika. Good kids they are. Good kids.
Some man-on-man massages on the balcony. Haha, I just remembered that that night I didn't want to smoke my last clove, so I bought a random pack of cigarettes from a little mom and pop convenient store. The coolest looking pack of cigarettes were called "Cobras," so I went with those.
They were filterless.
I longed for my Trucker Jacket.
Something funny is happening?
Ah shit. So at this point we're playing some half-ass drinking game and everyone is being very drunk.
And...blurry.
And then dudes started making out. It was because of the drinking game, but still, that's a fucking FULL ON kiss.
'clink'
I love how the 3 people facing me are giving me the most suspect looks EVER. The hat doesn't help the situation.
Annnnnnd then Dave's girlfriend was humping me like a zebra.
Yeah. During the drinking game she had to act something out, and someone told her to act like a horny zebra. I vaguely remember volunteering to be a female zebra...
This wasn't the first time I've done that.
This was absolutely a turning point in the night.
Our rowdy-ness was bothering the neighbors, so they decided to call the police. Of course 5 police came to the apartment (Japanese police have very little to do, so they often travel in packs). I guess when Rachel answered the door they were afraid to do anything, and then finally the one in charge asked to come in (after we started to make some more noise) and when he walked into the living room he looked like he was going to piss his pants.
I doubt the poor man has ever seen so many gaijins (foreigners) in his life. He just stood there speechless. So as seen in the picture, the guy in the purple shirt offered him a drink.
I don't think it helped the situation.
So he asked Rachel for her passport, and then someone offered to show him their gaijin card (a card you have to have if you're not Japanese. It's similar to the Star of David except we don't wear it on our sleeve ;) OOoooooooo!). So this gave the copper the bright idea of asking for all of our gaijin cards. Of course, this is extremely illegal ESPECIALLY since we were in an assigned residence.
After a couple minutes of us speaking drunken Japanese to him, and him speaking horrible horrible EngRish to us, we decided to just leave the apartment and go play outside.
Of course there were about 7 cops at this point all standing outside, with no fucking clue what to do about the situation. Their "dicks in the hands" if you will.
So here's the best part: because drinking in public is legal in Japan, we all stumbled out of the apartment, and past the police, with bottles of vodka, whiskey, Jager and beer in our hands (or mouths). They just stared at us, speechless, probably silently praying that we would all return to our respective countries in the morning.
Instead we were headed to the nearest playground.
This was probably one of my greater moments in life. Two glasses of whiskey on the rocks in one hand (I'm palming both of them), a cigarette in the other hand and a Japanese girl under my arm.
I think Danika is showing us that she impregnated Rachel.
So we finally made it to the playground, which of course lead to a "who can get over the bar" competition on the swings.
Rachel was on a swing to the far left, outside of this photo, and I think she almost beat Sharon on height, but then she slammed her head against a tree branch. She had a golf ball-sized lump on her head after that.
If my parents saw this (or Ryan M. or Matt V. or maybe my sister) I KNOW they would instantly think about a picture they found in my room in high school. It was a picture of a night I went out with Ryan and Matt to see Star Wars Episode I, but when it was sold out we just drove around collecting things from people's lawns and then setting it all in front of an old people's home. That night when I got home Ryan took a picture of me standing on the roof of Matt's car, holding a bottle of Sobe up to my mouth (I swear it was just Sobe, but my parents never believed me).
This picture is so incredibly similar it's scary. Accept this time I'm holding a can of chu-hi (alcohol) to my mouth, and I'm standing at the top of a kids climbing toy...in Japan.
I've come a long ways.
Because the people on the swings were moving so fast, taking a long shutter shot just made the swing set seem empty. Neat.
Hehe. Look at 'em go!
Pretty.
This is one of those big metal cage/balls that you can hold onto, and someone can spin. I spent a good 5 minutes spinning other people, and then climbed in the middle and took this shot.
After the playground lost it's luster we decided it would be a FANTASTIC idea to start walking to the river. Well, everyone walking except for Rachel. Rachel would ride her bike 30 feet then fall over, stand up and repeat.
Look Emily, it's the Japanese "peace sign" again. I'm tellin' ya', it's in their blood!
So here we were, sitting on the peaceful banks of a Japanese river (there are about 8 of them in the Tokyo area).
Aw. A "Dawson's Creek" moment.
So if you take a long exposure picture, and someone else takes a picture of you with their flash on, it looks like this.
The other side of the river.
At this moment in time, my exact thoughts were "This picture gives me an idea..."
"If you go in I'll go in!"
I was really hoping someone would take me up on that. And they did.
If he makes it 10 feet out without getting eaten by a Korean mutated amphibian "Host," I'll go in too.
Alright, 5 more feet and I'll feel safe.
Derek's shirt is already coming off.
And Sharon commandeered my camera to prove it.
2 out of 2 strangers LOVE Derek's crotch.
I SAID "Smile like a donut," not "Smile like a blowfish."
But I guess you sorta had the right idea ;)
HEY KIDS! LET'S SHOOT UP!
(It was a tie between typing that, or "I LOOOOOVE NINJA MAGIK!")
Marina holds her breath...but forgets to jump in.
Rachel tests the water.
Is Derek naked!?
Nope. But he is about to put those swim lessons to good use. Yet, I somehow doubt this is what my parents had in mind.
Haha, when the hell does this shit get deep!?
Oh. It get deeps WAY past where the camera can see. Of course.
I've got crabs.
Danika finally decides to come in. (Keep in mind I didn't take these pictures, Sharon was in charge of my camera.)
Tracey will be happy when she finds this posted on the internet someday.
Haha. Well Emily, it appears that if any female is in Japan they naturally do the 2 fingers in the air?
"What? I'm not drunk!"
Sexu.
Rachel. Covered in mud. Soon to share it with everyone else.
Oh man. Well at least I can take solace in knowing I didn't take that picture.
Zombie?
Derek emerges from the middle of the river. (Yeah, at some point I decided to see what was out in the middle. Then it dawned on me that that's something you shouldn't do when inebriated.)
Dave says, "You guys are blimey idiots." (Dave is from England.)
I'm a fucking ninja, even when I'm not trying to be one.
All my chest hairs are wet. All 10 of them.
Sinking like the great Titanic, Rachel struggles to keep her cigarette from falling victim to the murky river below.
If that's not the pure definition of precious, I don't know what is.
Mud hug!
Hello :)
We're in Japan.
This is what happens when I put Sharon in charge of my camera.
Something amazing is about to happen.
See. I told ya'.
(Rachel, where is your hand going?)
Hahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahaha. 'sigh'
Who are those good lookin' kids!?
Awwwwww, I bet they'd have pretty babies.
(Ow ow!)
If it was a crime to look damn good, we'd be arrested, locked up and deported without trial.
Rachel...on the other hand...
Is this one of those pictures where you look back and laugh...
...or the kind where you kick Derek's ass for putting them on the internet?
The river. It was still dark.
Danika'a always just full of smiles!
I can't believe people actually followed us in there. It was so grimy!
Coincidental. Not ironic.
Way to represent America Junior with tact Tracey ;)
Soon after we all got out of the river we stumbled our way back to civilization. Those three and I split off from the rest of the group to go find food. Afterwards it was 5:30 a.m. and the trains were running again, so we hopped on the train, covered in wet muddy clothes and stinking like river drudge and booze, as we stood next to Japanese "salary men."
I think I'm starting to understand why the Japanese aren't too keen on foreigners.
Later that day when I was in Ginza this cat was perched on top of a sign where the stairs came out of the subway. It had 3 kittens under it's head, and someone put a towel under it.
I wasn't too amused by the cat. In fact just knowing that it was laying inches away from a deep hole had some ideas running through my head.
What was amusing was that every single Japanese person that walked by HAD to stop and take a picture of it with their cell phone. The Japanese can't resist cute.
The next day was epic in it's purest sense.
Saturday, September 22, 2007 would be burned in my mind for infamy.
I called in sick for work (since I usually work on Saturdays) in order to make my spirit journey to my proverbial mecca, the TOKYO GAME SHOW!
Now don't get me wrong, attending the Electronic Entertainment Expo's (E3, if you will), including the last one ever, is always pretty fucking bitchin'. And a damn good perk to living L.A.
BUT
TGS is like E3, but with hot/adorable Japanese "booth babes" instead of hot American "booth babes," AND world class cos-players. AND crazy Japanese games that will never make it to the States.
That's tough to beat.
When I first got to the convention center there were about 50,000 people standing in a gigantic line at the front doors, all holding TGS tickets. I went up to the ticket booth and showed them a registration form I had printed from the TGS website, and they said in Japanese to go back where I came from and go in the doors there.
Since my Japanese is pretty rusty the only part I understood at first was the, "Go back where you came from," which definitely had me feeling kind of angry! Haha, but yeah, so I went back towards where they were telling me and there was an empty "Overseas" booth with a lone staff member sitting behind it reading a book.
I showed them my registration form, and they said to just walk on it. I asked if I owed any money, and she said, "Well it's supposed to be $10 but don't worry about it, you're the only person that's showed up so far."
The TGS was open to the press 2 days prior so most overseas attendees had already came and left, I LITERALLY only saw about 5 other caucasians during the whole day. It turns out that 40% of attendees are Korean, about 30%Japanese, and the rest is mixed. Only about 10% of attendees come from North America, so they shove us ahead of the line to try and promote more overseas visitors.
This is a picture of me questioning why I'm able to just stroll in ahead of 50,000 people that are waiting in line at the front gate. I felt like I was about to cross into some magical forbidden land.
It was time to walk through the door.
Behold: TGS.
Considering the amount of people waiting outside, the convention was damn near empty. Today is going to be the greatest day ever.
The first thing I saw was the giant banner for "Metal Gear Solid MOBILE." I must have had the biggest shit-eating grin on my face you'd ever have seen. My face hurt within 10 minutes from smiling so much.
I made my way down the escalator and made a bee line towards the "Metal Gear" sign. I passed these maids handing out fliers on the way. I see girls like this all the time in Akihabara, but I never feel comfortable taking their picture. At TGS your expected too...so there you go. These are the things that make Japan what I would consider the coolest fucking country EVER.
I visited the "Metal Gear Solid MOBILE" booth, and then skipped over to the "Biohazard Mobile" ("Resident Evil" in America) booth to check that out. They had hotties inside the booths that would upload the games to your cell phone, so I gawked, but I didn't want to pay to have Japanese games on my phone.
My next stop was the PS3 "Eye Of Judgement" booth. By this point there was a sizable crowd filling the convention center, so I had to wait in a short little line to play against one of the Sony girls.
When I saw down to play against her, she spoke NO English, so basically I just figured the game out on my own and she laughed the whole time while we talked in extremely minimal EnRish/Japanese. The game was pretty fucking cool, you've probably read about it before but in case you haven't: there's a game mat on a table, with a webcam-like camera on a stand looking down at the mat. You play the game like any other card based game, except the camera can distinguish what all the cards are, so when you look at the TV that the PS3 is hooked up too, there are CGI characters (represented on the cards) standing in place where your card is. Cool enough right? But what blew my mind was that I could hold the card in my palm and wave it around under the camera, and say it was a tank card, the tank would be sitting in CG on my hand, with it's turret bobbing up and down searching for a target.
The Sony girl was very amused that I was very amused by it. She kept wanting to play the game and I just kept playing with the cards.
After a good 15 minutes of that I wandered through the rest of Sony's massive booth. Then I saw this. The fucking Holy Grail. A "Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots" PLAYABLE demo!
Because the convention center was still slowly filling in I was only the 4th person in the row of 1 of the 2 lines. A Sony girl told me I'd be waiting 2 hours (each person gets 30 min.) and I was like "YEAH. THAT'S O-FUCKING-K!"
Watching people play "Metal Gear Solid" is amusing enough, I could watch those games all day long. But MGS4 is so fucking beyond what the others are, it's INSANE.
It's basically to the series what "Metal Gear Solid 1" was after the Nintendo series. This game is going to be unbelievable. And I'm going to pay up the ass to play it.
The TV's that Sony had set up all had the "No Video, No Pictures, No Cell Phone Pictures" signs on them. I played the "I'm a stupid foreigner" card, and it seemed to work. Whenever the staff saw me taking pictures they just smiled and nodded at me.
Note the "Dual Shock 3" sign in the top right corner of the TV screen? Yeah, that's fucking right. Sony finally paid off their lawsuit and is coming out with vibrating controllers for the PS3.
Playing MGS4 was fucking amazing and it fucking changed my life. That's all I have to fucking say about fucking that. Fuck!
Actually I have one more thing to say. The entire menu system was in Japanese except for the equipment, for some reason all of the weapons and equipment were listed with English names. The people that played ahead of me were OK at best, some of them sucked pretty bad. When I stepped up to bat I played like a fucking champ. I didn't die at all, I was choking bitches like a mother fucker, and I was the only person at TGS so far this day (as far as I was aware) that actually made it to the end of the demo. The Sony girl clapped for me when I finished it.
Ugh. That was so fucking fun. Life sucks now that that's over.
This is probably about 1/4 of the Sony booth. All the screens you see are demos people can play of PS3 and PSP games. Sony, hands down, had the largest booth at the convention. There was one portion of it that was just an enormous closed-off theater that you could go in and watch all the new game trailers in. I sat through the whole thing, which lasted almost an hour. The "MGS4," "Metal Gear Online," and "Final Fantasy XIII" trailers were INSANE. (Yes, most of the trailers were in English and subbed in Japanese, so I did understand them.)
But this is the only part of Sony's booth that matters.
I don't know what Lievo is, but I want them to come to my next party! They put together a bitchin' day full of modeling competitions. I passed these girls when I was on my way to some more booths.
Ugh.
Yeah. I never want to leave this place.
After walking a half way through the convention center I stumbled upon this gem. It was Konami's booth, which had it's own MGS4 training camp. You could sit in a massive line, and then eventually be on the other side of this fence, playing demo's of MGS4.
Pffff. That's so 20 minutes ago.
It didn't take long to find Microsoft's Xbox360 booth. They had a lot of demos going, but the show stealer was definitely the playable FULL copies of "Halo 3" multiplayer.
I didn't try it out myself, considering the game is coming out in 2 days it didn't seem worth wasting time standing in line for.
I just happened to pass the Microsoft stage at the EXACT moment this little guy came out. I actually audibly laughed when I saw this, it's just SO fucking Japanese.
I wished Kate and Ron were there to see it with me. (If you're not familiar with one of the greatest games of all time, this is the prince in "Katamari Domacy".)
Ok, with "Halo 3" and the "Katamari" prince both in eye-line, it was too good to not take a picture.
The next line I waited in was full-on demonstration of "Ninja Gaiden II." They were pretty strict about using cameras inside, but when you walked in it was a very traditional Japanese room. A totami mat was in the center of the floor, with pillows to sit on. And the mat was surrounded by white gravel and bamboo plants, as well as rice paper walls. At the front of the room was a projection of the guy demo-ing the game.
It was easily one of the goriest games I've ever seen in my life. I'll be VERY surprised if they don't have to tone it down. There were times when he'd be slashing heads and arms off enemies with Wolverine-esque claws, then switch to a katana and slice bodies in half while slinging the blood and guts off the sword all over the room. It looked great, but it was WAY over the top!
Graphically I wasn't as impressed with everything else I had been seeing all day. It only looked marginally better than "Ninja Gaiden" on Xbox.
I DID stand in line to demo "Assassin's Creed." It played very very similar to "Prince of Persia," except BETTER. Which is a fucking tough thing to pull off!
My next stop was at a demo booth for a game called "Paper Man." It was a FPS, except all of the characters and weapons were cartoony and flat, comparable to "Paper Mario"...except with guns. The game was actually pretty decent, but sitting next to a Japanese girl in a super-tight, cut-off halter top and camo short-shorts was MUCH more interesting. Of course the girl I was with didn't speak much English, so she laughed a lot and kept putting her arm around me and putting her head on my shoulder.
I'm pretty sure I fell in love.
Later on I saw her wandering around the booth. That's future Mrs. Heck right there.
Do I really need to say anything?
It didn't take long before I became privy to following around the large groups of professional photographers. Wherever they were, a Japanese Idol was sure to be nearby.
An Idol would essentially be America's version of a super-model. Except in Japan MOST Idols not only look pretty, but they are expected to release J-Pop albums AS WELL AS star in porn videos.
Japan doesn't do anything half-ass!
I crossed over into the 2nd half of the convention center (the show was divided between two buildings, so you had to cross in-between them to see both sections) and stumbled into the middle of a cos-play competition.
I stood there and systematically took and deleted about 30 pictures, nothing my camera could do could capture the essence of how amazing this show was.
So this is the picture you're stuck with for now.
Capcom's booth didn't have anything that really impressed me, there was just a lot of Japanese RPG and fighting games. They've definitely focused mainly on the Japanese market the past 10-or-so years.
Of course "Devil May Cry 4" was the biggest title they had to show off. Isn't anyone sick of this series yet? Eh...I guess it's a good renter.
Square Enix, or Squenix as the kids say, was jam packed the whole fucking day.
It appears "Kingdom Hearts" has done quite well for itself over here.
Squenix will be selling these "Potion" drinks throughout Japan as a promotion for FFVII's 10th anniversary . I will scour Akihabara until the day I leave trying to find these, so help me God. 'shakes fist'
They were showing off their new versions of FF:Tactics (about to hit the PSP), FF:Online International and FFV, but of course Crisis Core was the hit of their show.
Check out Cloud's huge sword to the right of the kiosks!
I went to stroll back to the other side of the convention center after that, and when I passed the "Paper Man" booth this shit was going down on their stage.
I didn't have a chance to capture the whole into, but all of these graphics were starting on a typical projection screen, but then sliding down and being projected onto a cheesecloth-like screen, giving the illusion of being completely 3 dimensional object. It was pretty trippy.
And then all of the sudden these dancers came out...
...I was laughing pretty hard, but all the Japanese men around me were entranced by the sirens of "Paper Man."
When I crossed between the two convention halls there were about a thousand cos-players standing around having their pictures taken. We'll get back to them later.
Knowing that my first stroll through the TGS resembled the Family Circus comics where the son walks all through the neighborhood (yeah, NOW THAT'S old school!) leaving a trail of dotted lines behind him, I figured I'd give the whole place a 2nd walk-through.
Bandai Namco. Another very Japanese oriented company, but they distribute a shit-load of titles to America. They were showing off a demo for "Time Crisis 4" on the PS3, it looks pretty slick. Basically the light-gun they designed this time around is big enough that you need to hold it with two hands. The hand on the grip (presumably your right hand) will pull the trigger, as well as push the triangle/circle/square/x buttons. Your left hand will be on another grip protruding from the barrel, and will control a joystick much like the ones on the PS controllers. That way in this version of "Time Crisis" not only can you duck and shoot people, but you will actually control where you walk around. It looks pretty slick.
If I ever have a girlfriend who owns a "Metal Gear Solid" tank top I will marry her.
It's MGS's anniversary as well so here are a bunch of collectors edition items they are putting out. The MGS cell phones are pretty bitchin'.
D3 booth babe. You might know D3 from their most recently published game, "Puzzle Quest." A damn fine game.
They are also working on a new AAA title called "DarkSector." The demo was interesting, but I wasn't really wowed by the graphics. Yeah, graphics aren't EVERYTHING, but since it's just a standard run around and kill people game...graphics are petty essential to making it stand out.
"Guilty Gear" girl.
Some more Idols. Man, gotta love those Idols.
There was a booth dedicated to game science, and within this booth was this case of disassembled latest generation gaming devices. The PS3 is so fucking huge! Didn't they learn from the Xbox!?
They even had a side-by-side comparison of the PSP and PSP Slim.
This was the front of the booth. I like how the graphic art is all "Read Only Memory," "C++," "OpenGL," etc. There's very few places on Earth where name dropping programming terms is going to draw a crowd!
She made me play an archery game on the Wii. So I made her pose for my camera.
I took this picture to remember what was easily one of the top ten happiest days of my life.
Yeah yeah, it's just the TGS, but there was more to it than that. I was supposed to be hanging out here with a friend from work, but half-way to the convention center he started to feel sick on the train (hangover sick). So he turned back home and I went on alone.
Wandering around a video game convention, alone, in Japan, surrounded by Japanese girls in costumes, I guess it just dawned on me that I've come a long ways.
The noises and blinky lights don't leave much room for the mind to function as a philosophy calculator, so the feeling was brief, but yeah...it's tough to explain.
Maybe Tony C. (an old co-worker from back in Buffalo) said it best in an e-mail he had sent me that day (in response to me telling him how I was currently working in Japan):
"Hey Derek,
Pretty good for a young boy from Cazenovia, NY who grew up in a house with no address number!"
I don't like to toot my own horn...but I think I agree with him.
Oh well, enough of the serious stuff. Back to hotties in costumes.
Some pretty crazy booths. I forget what they were for.
Seeeeeeeeeeeeegaaaaaaaaaaaaa! I forget what Sega was showing off. Oh wait! It was some RPG fighter thing. It didn't look like a game that would ever make it to the States, but it looked interesting. That, and they also just played videos of all their upcoming titles on that big screen.
The part of Konami's booth that wasn't completely dedicated to MGS4. Again, this large screen was dedicated to showing videos of all of their upcoming titles.
This game ("Little Big Planet") is going to be fucking FUN. I saw down and played it with 2 Japanese guys and the Sony girl. I think one of the coolest things about video games is that you can sit down with 3 other people that don't even speak your language, but if you can interact and work together on a screen (the game is about solving physics based puzzles as a group) the visual communication is easily as strong as any verbal communication.
I didn't know what the Sony girl was saying over the PA system most of the time (I know she was telling the crowd what we were doing, and pointing out things that made the game unique...which was basically everything), but if I knew how to solve a puzzle and I pushed their characters around to show them what to do to help me I could easily make out her laughter and comments as to how "you can see that this game will work with foreigners over the PS3 network" ("PS3 network", and "gaijin" were easy to pick out).
As far as the game goes. After wandering around the Sony booth a couple time during the day I was SOLD. Between "MGS4," "Eye of Judgement," and "Little Big Planet" I don't see how I can NOT get a PS3 in the future.
Kevin or Eli, if you're out there, that "Warhawk" goes out to you ;)
Yeah, the newest "Warhawk" has been extremely delayed (it was supposed to be a launch title for the PS3), BUT for a cheap downloadable game (I think it was only supposed to be $15) it's going to be a huge success. Not only do you fly your plane around and whatnot, but you can also control tanks, soldiers, etc. It's just a full-out war.
I would love to have this dragon on a side-table next to my couch.
Then again, I would love to have a home to put that stuff in ;)
Remember how I said Soft Air is pretty big in Japan, and you can find their guns all over Akihabara? If not, you need to pay attention better. But yeah, they were displaying their latest line of guns FEATURING a "Biohazard" (Resident Evil) Desert Eagle .50AE replica (as seen in the glass case).
I thought I had seen everything, and then this booth appeared out of NOWHERE. I had seen trailers for it earlier in the Sony theater, but they actually had systems set up with a playable version of it!
So I did the only thing a Derek can do in this situation. I stood in line for an hour to play it.
It was pretty bitchin', kind of a mix between "Counter Strike" and "Metal Gear." I think the game has a lot of potential, but I'm not sure how it will compete with powerhouses like "Halo 3" or "Call of Duty 4." I think it will do decently in Japan, where MGS seems MUCH more popular than I had imagined, but as far as in the States the action might be a little too slow.
Throughout the day there were different J-Pop groups performing on various stages, AKB48 obviously being one of them. Compared to American pop bands Japan ain't got shit, that IS the one thing America has conquered on all fronts (Pop Culture media). The Japanese are OBSESSED with American culture (which I've learned quickly just through conversations with my students), and try to emulate it in any way they can...even if it sucks ;)
So yeah, these girls were horrible. Haha...but they had a huge crowd because the Japanese love cute girls.
As do I.
I gave this little gadget a whirl and it was pretty fucking cool. Basically it's a golf-ball sized...ball...attached to a much larger body (the dome-shaped thing with 3 arms coming out. Those 3 arms connect to the "golf-ball.") with arms that move the golf-ball around as a sort of force-feedback technique. They had it connected to a laptop running "Quake 4" and you use this device in place of a mouse.
The advantages to this piece of hardware were things like:
-When your shooting, the golf-ball tries to force your hand slowly upwards, exactly how a real gun's kick-back would.
-When you move over different surfaces (glass, wood, lava, etc.) somehow the golf-ball conveys the feel of that surface to your hand. That was by far the coolest part. I don't know how it does it, but it works PERFECT.
-If you are using it to look around, much like you would with a mouse, and all of the sudden a monster attacks you, the ball goes ape-shit and jerks your hand all over the place. I actually commented to the sales reps that it seemed a little TOO powerful. If a 25-year-old male has trouble wrestling this thing into submission, how the HELL would a 12-year-old girl fare with this thing?
It's pretty difficult to explain in full detail how this device works and the advantages to it, so check out their website if you really want to learn about it. I had heard about this thing 2 years ago, and the article I read did a much better job describing it than I have.
I asked the reps when it would finally be ready (since I did hear about it 2 years ago) and they said it would be mass produced and on shelves within 2 months, and would sell for the price of $200 usd.
This actually reminds me of something I meant to mention earlier, but I'll explain it after the next picture.
Alright, now that you have something to look at while I talk. Because there were virtually NO other caucasians at this event, about half the times I was checking out booths a representative of that booths company (typically a man in a suit) would come over and ask me what I do.
The first time it happened (at the Sony booth) I didn't know what the guy meant, and then he asked if I was a programmer/developer, if I ran a company or if I worked with a magazine.
So throughout the course of the day whenever I spent more than a couple seconds at a booth I would usually be approached by a company rep.
After a couple booths I devised a story that I ran a company called "Trucker Jacket Inc." (which I did actually claim on my registration paper, so it was printed on my name tag) and that we were in the market to co-develop a AAA title with a major publisher, and that I was shopping around.
This would always make their eyes get all big, and then they'd hand me a business card (Which is a ritual in-itself. In Japan if someone hands you their card you should take it with two hands, read the entire thing, and then address them by their title on the card.). Because I had proper Japanese business-card etiquette you could tell they were sold that I was serious.
So long story short- because of my white-ness, the majority of the day I was approached by businessmen who assumed I was a big deal.
Hey Steve, there's "Airborne," it's the 3rd circle to the right :)
'shrug'
This girl in particular was SUPER COOL. She actually spoke English, so we spent some time talking about where we were from, etc. It turns out she actually loves video games. The whole time we were talking she kept touching me.
I fell in love for the second time that day ;)
These guys were showing off video glasses, but not just regular video glasses! Ones that can play certain movies (as marked on the DVD case) in 3D. They were pretty cool...but again, not something that would really catch in America. Japanese are a little more space conscious, and neighbor considerate. We Americans would rather have our huge booming entertainment system that sets off every car alarm on the street!
If amount of cuteness = "c" and Japanese crowd = "j" then c*100.967=j
This was a sweet "Biohazard" (do I really need to keep saying "Resident Evil" after that?) booth for the Wii. You could walk into it and it was modeled after the original "Biohazard" mansion. Very nostalgic of the nights playing RE1 in Eli's shed.
Alright, earlier I promised you we'd get to the cos-play later on. Well here we go.
I'm going to try SO hard not to make any jokes. But I want you to know it hurts me on the inside.
Younger Japanese are usually better at EngRish since it's fresh in their mind from taking it in high school, so I talked to the girl on the right for a minute. I considered asking her to marry me. The only set-back was that I couldn't tell if she was 14 or 25. That's the thing about Japan eh?
Not going to say anything.
.
.
.
UGH! The dude in the back left looks like such a douche!
Adorable.
Hey! I saw you inside earlier! Meh, guess 2 pictures won't hurt.
Her stomach deserved an award.
Well, the show was nearing closing time (5:00 p.m.) so I figured I'd get to higher ground and take some lasts pictures.
'sigh' I suppose all good things have to come to an end.
Don't cry Derek. Be strong. Be strong.
'sniffle'
This is about 1/20 of the whole show.
Hahahaha...remember the overseas counter I talked about, when I was first trying to get in? That's exactly what it looked like when I was there, except without any people walking around. Just a single woman standing there. That door to the right is the one that lead me straight into the convention hall.
Why are they making me leave. I don't want to :(
I'll be back again TGS.
'shakes fist'
I'll be back again.
When I went back home I decided to stop at Akihabara (which was 10 times busier than normal, with all of the tourists from TGS) to grab a couple things. These girls were dancing outside of the train station.
This is what Akihabara usually looks like during the day. Girls in maid (in the center mid-ground) and schoolgirl outfits handing out fliers or tissues with advertisements on them :)
Yeah, it seemed strange to me at first, but I'm really used to people trying to hand me packets of tissues with ads on them. I guess the Japanese really like blowing their..........
nose?
posted by XIII @ 20:26
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