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Acrosatan

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

The title is the name of a monster from an old Ultraman series, a tiny model kit of which we saw today in a retro toy store in Akihabara. I don’t remember the cost, although it was probably low (under $20). However the Mandarake in Akihabara sold a Y2,100,000, approximately 20cm tall vinyl toy of another Ultraman monster, still bagged and in great condition. That’s US$21,000 approximately. Even for an unopened toy from more than 30 years ago that seems a tad steep 🙂

Akihabara is where the otaku (maniac fans) go for all their manga, anime, games and toys. It’s also the best place in Tokyo to buy electronics, play video games, or eat at maid cafes 🙂

The ‘big’ franchises these days are Monster Hunter (both the games and the merchandise), which is massive and featured in every store; Neon Genesis Evangelion (yes, even after almost 20 years the franchise is as strong as ever, bolstered by the recent films) and Queens Blade (the series of ecchi gamebooks has spawned a mini merchandising empire).

We checked all the major shops yesterday, and most of the minors, paying particular attention to the figure stores and the game stores. I managed to find the latest volumes of Guyver and Bastard!!, and picked up a Monster Hunter artbook and a slew of TCG cards from such series as Duel Masters (the 52nd expansion just came out!?!), Monster Hunter & Queens Blade (yes every big franchise gets a TCG…)

No Railfan yet Jim, and you can bet we’re looking everywhere. We’ve even discovered there are three games in the series (Japan, Korea and amazingly Chicago!) but the PS3 sections in stores are tiny and the used PS3 sections are tinier still.

In fact game stores are mostly about DS and Wii these days (unsurprisingly), with the next biggest section being PSP. PS2 still has a healthy following, but 360 sections are small and, as I said, PS3 sections so tiny they are hard to find. This will all change in time though, as the system is picking up steam. Not to mention the 800 lb gorilla of FF13 about to be released.

Even so, in most game stores the section of shelves devoted to advertising the upcoming release of Monster Hunter 3 on Wii is typically bigger than the entire PS3 sections!

Above left is a maid, who was handing out fliers advertising the maid cafe you can see in the middle photo. On the right is a shot of a billboard used to advertise all the maid cafes just in the Akihabara region. What was a novelty when we were here in 2006 has become a local tourist attraction, and as you can see there are a great many cafes now. Basically they are (apparently) overpriced restaurants serving average quality food, the attraction of which is the waitresses all dress in maid outfits.

< In Animate

The above was taken (on the sly) on the 5th or 6th floor of Animate (one of the mega otaku shops) and shows just the maid outfits they sell for cosplay. The professionally made Bleach outfits ($100 and up) were much more impressive, but as they were next to the counter I couldn’t get a shot due to the no photography rule 🙂

A couple more random Akiba shots. Once again, I’m guessing AW is boggling at the fact that you can just find gashapon out on the streets here. Put it this way – there are so many in just the few blocks of Akihabara, they have to put some out on the street!

In Japan, ninja slice kebab meat.
In Japan, some drinks are bionic.
In Japan, well I’ll let you work out this photo 🙂

We actually walked to Akihabara via Ueno, and spent some time in the park before most people were up.

This next shot is of the two statues outside Ueno Zoo entrance, overgrown with vines. Can you identify the two animals?

< What are these?

When I review the days shots, especially the ones KLS loves to take of me eating, I’m always struck by how it seems as if I had posed or hammed it up for the camera. The rightmost shot (dinner) is an ‘American Dog’ (which was eaten cold, but was actually decent). The middle shot though is more interesting, since it was a piece of chicken at KFC. And it was great. Here’s proof:

< Mmmmmmmmm

I bet most of you will like this video though!

And what better way to end todays entry that this way?

< Lest you forget

Posted in Family, Games, Miscellaneous, Otaku | Comments Closed

Verschwende deine Jugend (aka The Arcade Post)

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

Today in Akihabara (you can read more about our day’s events tomorrow, this post is all about video games), I sat down to play Death Smiles on the 5th floor of a Taito game arcade. Next to me was a Japanese man playing DoDonpachi Dai Fukkatsu, the best ‘bullet hell’ shooter ever made.

He was a savant. He may have been, and I swear I am not exaggerating here, the single best arcade gamer I have ever personally witnessed playing. His ability to dodge bullets was borderline supernatural. He did things I would not have believed a human could do had I not witnessed it. To understand: a ‘bullet hell’ shooting game is one in which the challenge is based not just around destroying the enemies, but also avoiding the seemingly unavoidable curtains of bullets they shoot your way. Not to go into too fine a detail, but success in the game results from practice, memorization, complete understanding of ‘hitboxes’ and awesome, just awesome amounts of skill. He demonstrated all these things in a way only a true master could.

The shot on the left is me playing, but you can see his hands and his game to my left. The rightmost shots were taken by KLS to try to show the sorts of obstacles he was seemingly easily overcoming. To watch him dodge pixel-by-pixel through these clusters of bullets was awe-inspiring, and I felt very lucky to have had the opportunity.

In the end he beat the game on a single credit. I’ll bet their are only a handful of people on this entire planet that could do that…

The arcades in Japan are going as strong as ever, but they are adapting with the times. Conventional, single-cabinet games are relatively uncommon, usually relegated to a half of a floor or so of the five to eight story mega-arcades that are common in areas such as Ueno or Akihabara. In a typical arcade of this size, each floor will usually hold a particular type of game:
– one floor will be entirely UFO catcher machines (aka ‘claw machines’). This is almost always the entry level of the arcade.
– one will be entirely ‘Print Club’ sticker-making booths
– one will be dedicated to ticket redemption machines, which themselves run the gamut from RPG-like quiz games to things like Gallileo I showed the other day.
– one floor will be large scale linked competitive games, like Star Horse or Football Manager. The biggest arcades will have 10 or more consoles linked to a gigantic screen for such games.
– one floor will be dedicated to magnetic card based games, such as the various MahJong games or SquareEnix’s latest game Lord Of Vermillion
– an entire floor will usually be dedicated to fighting games. Popular titles not include SF4, VF5, Tekken 6 and the various Gundam battle games. One arcade I was in today had no less than 12 linked Street Fighter 4 cabinets. Players can save their stats onto a magnetic card and reuse it every time they play (this is very common for many games here)
– one floor will contain old school cabinet games, including retro games (which most of these are these days). Very, very few games of this type continue to be made. The most recent one – Death Smiles 2 – has even been distributed free to arcades to get them to stock it. In the mega-arcades, retro games are increasingly rare and if they are present are almost always shooters (including bullet hell ones by Cave or any of the games from the Metal Slug series)
These arcades are astounding, and it’s very hard to describe to a video game fan just how amazing they are to visit without actually going to one. It’s particularly heart-wrenching for me because they simply don’t exist in America any more – not even tiny ones with a half-dozen games. So visiting arcades is one of several things about Japan I really enjoy, and I’ve been trying to do it as much as possible this trip.

The above sequence is designed to be viewed in order from left to right. As you do, imagine 2 seconds in real time passing between each image. That’s about how long my game of Gals Panic S2 lasted 🙂 (To the two of you wondering, this was an anime style Gals Panic, not a bad-digitized nudie game style)

< Half-Life

Western PC games do notoriously poorly in Japan, so Valve had an idea to release Half-Life 2 in arcades over here. The result is what you see above, and was more ‘interesting’ to play than ‘entertaining’. My feeling is it was a bit of a failure, especially since I’ve only seen it in one arcade so far. (This makes me wonder where these large dedicated cabinet machines go when the arcades no longer want them…)

The above is a redemption game that simulates the classic Japanese fair game of catching goldfish from a pool using a tiny net. The real thing is a diversion for children (the net is made of paper, so catching the fish is harder than it looks since the paper will break if you move it too quickly), but this version seemed more appreciated by the same types that are content to waste their lives on Pachinko!

< Gundam

The above is a shot of a Gundam ‘pod’ cabinet. When you get inside it closes, completely encapsulating you inside. Multiple wrap-around screens attempt to make it seem like you are actually piloting a Gundam robot. You then fight others in a 3D action game. The big arcades have up to a dozen of these cabinets as well as a large screen on which those not playing can watch the fights in real-time on a tactical map. The pods are linked all over Japan, so even if no-one is playing at the arcade you can see how they fights are going. Basically it’s a persistent, large scale massively multiplayer Gundam FPS that you play in these amazing pods at the arcade. In fact it is so impressive I’m somewhat pretending it doesn’t exist because it makes me sad such tech is Japan-only…

Random shots of random games. The leftmost shows the nice Street Fighter IV cabinet, which I don’t think made it’s way out of Japan.

The title of this entry (‘Waste Your Youth’) is a pun – arcades here are not the sole domain of the young. Quite the contrary actually. Children have their Wii’s and their DS’s – arcades here are for adults. The above three games are those typically played by middle-aged ‘salary men’ on their way home from work. The leftmost is a magnetic card based strategy game. You buy cards from a vending machine and create a deck to play with. The surface in front of the screen reads the cards in real time so you actually control the gameplay simply by moving the cards around. This tech was cutting edge when we were here in 2006 but many machines utilize it now. The middle shot is of a Football (soccer) game. Each player takes one of the chairs you can see, and has his own screen on which he controls the actions of his team. This is another game that uses cards that are purchased separately, and in many arcades I’ve seen every chair being used by older male players that are obviously enjoying managing their teams to presumed victory. The rightmost image is an even bigger redemption game than Galileo, and is another absurdly complex take on the old ‘knock tokens into a bin by throwing other tokens at them’ genre.

The Hummer game. Sega’s latest arcade racer, which I believe only came out a few weeks ago. BS would cry if he saw how detailed the graphics were 🙂

We have yet to visit Ikebukuro, which has a couple of mega-arcades itself. I also plan on spending more than a few more hours in the arcades in Ueno, so expect a few more arcade images before the end of this trip!

Posted in Games, Otaku | 1 Comment »

Titty Boo

Sunday, May 31st, 2009

Before I start today – no comments??! Is anyone reading this?

Yesterday started with an as-soon-as-it-opened visit to the Tokyo Institute Of Nature study in Ebisu. A fancy name for an untended park (think Blackbutt), which is one of the very few of it’s type in Tokyo. Nice enough, I suppose, but no doubt much more appreciated by a Tokyoite that rarely gets to spend much time in nature.

Afterwards we headed over to Harajuku and the Meiji Shrine. We have been here before, but the shrine is so close to Harajuku (itself so close to Shibuya) that it seems silly to get off the train there and not visit. As it turns out it was a good thing we did, since we got to see two separate traditional shinto weddings in progress:

The meiji shrine is a monument dedicated to the eternal souls of a departed Japanese emperor and his wife. It’s beautiful, serene and very popular with tourists (both Japanese and foreign). One of it’s big attractions is writing a wish/prayer on a wooden postcard and placing them around a sacred tree. Eventually they are collected and burned in the hope the prayers will come true. Here are some examples of the thousands hanging there yesterday:

Of course we had to make our own, or at least I did. I caved again to disbelief in superstition, and instead embraced absurdity.

Harajuku and neighbouring Shibuya are the two most popular destinations for trendy Japanese teens to go shopping in. And when I say popular I mean really popular, as ininsanely popular 🙂

< Harajuku, Shibuya

We were getting tired by now (it was mid afternoon) and headed back to the ryokan for a couple of hours rest. As we were riding the train back the heavens opened and a truly monsoonal rain fell. By the time we’d got back to the ryokan, we were drenched (even with umbrellas!)

< !!!

After a rest, we headed back out (the rain had stopped) on a lazy walk toward downtown Ueno (about 30 minutes). In Ueno park we were quite surprised to find a flowering bonsai tree competition, or at least the end of one (it was being packed away). There were about a hundred of the bonsai originally in display, and happily quite a few grand ones had still not been picked up by their owners .

Are they azaelas? Maybe AS or JAF could identify. By the way the hydrangeas are blooming all over the city right now, and KLS always stops to have a gander!

The more I visit Ueno, the more I like it. The ameyokocho shopping street is a crazy mix of pachinko parlour, restaurant, adult establishment and game center and really comes alive at night.

The third shot above is of a Pachinko parlour. Can you see the gigantic Evangelion poster on the side? Evidence of the marketing towards younger players the parlours have (successfully, apparently) undertaken in recent years. Every licensed property you can imagine – from Harry Potter to Thunderbirds – has been used in Pachinko!

Here’s some shots of some very, very, very expensive fruit (think 100 yen = 1 US dollar approximately).

Would YOU pay over $100 for a rockmelon/cantaloupe? I think not! (These are in the special fruit gift shop in the basement of a department store and are popular gifts to give when you really need to impress someone)

And the obligatory arcade shots of the day, including the ‘dating game’ House Of The Dead EX (left), the Arc-Systems fighting game BlazBlue (center) and the (awesome) fighter Tatsunoko vs Capcom (right).

To quote Doctor Who quoting someone else (yes I know), in Tokyo, there are “more games to see than can ever be seen and more games to play than can ever be played”!

I did see a cute bunny cake though!

And KLS purchased a tiger washcloth, and also some coffee that came packed with a cute girl ‘bottle topper’:

Yesterday’s food choices for breakfast (Wendy’s) and lunch (Subway) were bland, and chosen simply because they happened to be nearby when we got hungry. Dinner though, well that was another story…

< Delicious!

I’m writing these in the mornings, as you may have guessed. Which means I already know the plans of the day after the day you’ve just read about. So what will you read about tomorrow…?

Posted in Family, Games, Miscellaneous, Otaku | 3 Comments »

Homo Sausage

Saturday, May 30th, 2009

Have you worked out the method of my blog titles yet? If not, here’s a hint:

< Yes, it’s true

The rain had lessened, so yesterday we switched back to our plan for Friday, which was Asakusa followed by Odaiba. We left the inn early and walked through the Yanaka area to Ueno station, stopping at Denny’s (of all places!) on the way for breakfast.

< Oishi!

The spaghetti was outrageously good, meaty and flavoursome with a nice density to the noodles. We will probably eat breakfast here again! The Yanaka area is an interesting (possibly) upper class part of Tokyo, with modernish homes packed into an area where there always seems to be a shrine or temple or graveyard within a couple of blocks. One day soon we’ll go for more of an exploratory walk, so I’ll post a couple of picks then.

By the way, we saved 243 photos from yesterday alone. It’s quite a task choosing 20 or so for the daily blog post, and I apologize if I am favouring the eccentric over the scenic 🙂

Asakusa is famous for Senso-Ji temple and a large gate called the Thunder Gate. We’ve been here before, although not for five years. It’s perhaps the most popular part of the city for foreign tourists as well.

Running from the gate to the temple is a (famous) shopping street called Nakamise-Dori. Actually most of the entire surrounding area is packed with souvenir shops of all shapes and sizes, selling such things as traditional Japanese crafts, foods and clothing. The rightmost image above is of me standing in front of one (of many) stores specializing in a particular type of rice cracker. Many stores also make a type of pastry stuffed with flavoured cream, often in special shapes:

And yes, those are Obama cakes at the end 🙂

The main Senso-Ji temple is not very scenic right now, being covered as it is with scaffolding for what looks like some roof maintenance. Tourists are still allowed inside though, and we purchased out customary fortunes to see what life held for us:

Mine is on the left, and KLS’s is on the right! If you get a bad one (and could hers be worse?) you are supposed to twist it up and tie it onto a tree near the temple, to eventually be burned in the hope it becomes good. She kept hers though, since she’s “not superstitious” 🙂

And this is a photo of a fake bowl of rice, used a model to give potential customers an idea what the food you serve is like (99% of restaurants here use such things):

< Looks good, eh?

The city has also seemed to have undertaken an incentive to stop people from smoking while walking. Yes, you read that correctly! Signage such as these are common everywhere now:

Asakusa is the northernmost stop on the ferry that travels the Sumida river through Tokyo. We hopped on this boat and rode it all the way to Odaiba, the reclaimed land entertainment complex (think a much bigger Darling Harbour).

The main reason to come here was to ride the Great Wheel ferris wheel, which I did. But we had to eat first, and what could be better than a burger at a translocated Hawaiin chain?

The third image above? Yep, a performing monkey. A Japanese Macaque (sp?) to be precise. It’s not a trip to Japan without seeing a performing ape.

This was occuring just outside of Muscle Park, which is a ‘theme park’ devoted to the Fuji TV shows such as Monster Box and Sasuke (aka Ninja Warrior in the USA). For about $14 one could attempt a (smaller) recreation of the Ninja Warrior course in an effort to impress one’s girlfriend. We watched a guy try, and fail miserably. Not surprising since the second obstacle was the Wall Hang and the third was a Salmon Climb!

The complex named Pallette Town on Odaiba also has the biggest arcade I have ever seen. Again, I’m saving a lot of arcade photos for a dedicated post, but suffice to say this place is basically a warehouse stuffed with games. Hundreds of them, in all shapes and sizes. It’s awesome in the literal sense of the word.

The rightmost photo above is making Adam’s eyes boggle. It shows over a hundred gashapon machines in a row, and was less than half of the total in this arcade. For anywhere from Y100 to Y500 you get a little ball out with a toy inside, and the offerings range from little garbage things for kids to highly detailed models for collectors. If anything, they seem even more common in Japan now than ever, and we’re constantly stopping to see what wonders are on offer!

Here’s a video of me playing an interesting Whack-A-Mole game!

Oh, and here’s a naked guinea pig:

Handsome little devil isn’t he? And a bargain at only $355!

Dinner was chicken yakitori on cold rice, with cake for desert. The bakery near here (Kobe Kotobukiya again) has such wonderful offerings, presented with such perfection it brings a tear to my eye. As always, I sucked down a slice of strawberry shortcake. Maybe one day I’ll buy an entire cake!

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Daisy

Sunday, April 5th, 2009

Went out early this morning and purchased a new Nintendo DSi, which was released today.

The box is heavy, mostly because the booklet inside is over 330 pages long (and in full colour). The system is a slight upgrade to the old DS (the DS lite), but given I didn’t know that much about it I’m pleasantly surprised by the differences.

For starters, the screen is slightly bigger as you can see in the following image.

The system is also a little wider (about 4mm) but at the same time it’s thinner (about 3mm). It is heavier, but it feels more compact which I like. Furthermore the finish is matte rather than the shiny coat of the DS Lite, which means less fingerprints! The power slider is now a button (which can be pressed once for reset) and the annoying volume slider of the DS Lite is now replaced by much better ‘+’ and ‘-‘ buttons for volume control.

The biggest difference (at least for now) is that it has two cameras. Here’s a shot of me using one of them:

< Smile!

They are both 3 megapixel, which means about cellphone quality. One faces toward the user when the system is open, and one faces away. Games will be able to use these for various purposes, and you can currently save the photos and toy with them in an application included on the DS.

The DSi also supports SD cards (finally), and in addition to downloading photos to them you can also save games to them and possibly .mp3’s as well (although this is a guess, I haven’t fooled with this yet since I don’t have an extra card). The games (and eventually other applications) are downloaded via the internet (like the old DS, the DSi has built-in wireless wi-fi) from the ‘DSiWare Shop’ Nintendo has set up. Currently there are 4 games ranging in price from $2 to $8 and a free internet browser.

I downloaded the browser, and it’s a spiffier version of the DS browser released commercially a few years back. While it doesn’t hold a candle to Safari on my iPod touch, it’s quite acceptable for what it is.

For me though, this is 99% a games machine, and the immediate advantages are the better sound and the (slightly) bigger, brighter screens. The lower screen uses a new technology, so the slight polarization of the image that the older DS’s suffered from is gone. The end result is a cleaner, sharper image that looks superb.

So my old, white DS Lite now goes into long-term storage under the bed. I’ve had this guy since May 2006 (our last Japan trip) and in the last couple of months it had begun to suffer from the dreaded cracked hinges that seemed to affect all first-run JP DS Lites:

< Farewell Brave DS Lite!

It was time to give the old girl a rest, so for me the DSi couldn’t have come at a better time…

Is it worth the $180 to upgrade if you have a Lite? The answer, right now, is an unabashed “No!”. In the future though we will see DSi only games, and I also expect some nifty apps will eventually be added to the store. So in time, yes you will own one of these. But save your dollars until there’s a bigger reason to buy.

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