Japan « Robot Claw

Archive for the ‘Japan’ Category

Kamen Rider Ganba Legends

Saturday, June 14th, 2025

This is the latest Kamen Rider arcade game. It’s a touchscreen game where your group of Kamen Riders battles against another group. Gameplay is simple at the lowest levels, and it’s impossible to lose. I imagine it’s a lot of fun for kids to touch the screen to use their attacks, like playing on a massive iPad.

It’s an IC card game, and a card is dispensed every time you play (¥100). You can also just buy additional cards for ¥100 apiece. I’ve got over a dozen cards now; you can see my best ones above.

The above is the view as you play. The screens are massive and tower over you (only the lower one is a toushscreen). Just below the bottom screen you can see I’ve placed five cards into scanners: four riders and an equipment card. You do this during setup, and it’s fun how the game scans and loads each rider as you do it.

As I said gameplay is simplistic but dynamic, and the animations are fun to watch. I haven’t yet ‘got into’ Kamen Rider so I only know a few characters, but it seems there’s loads of them in this game.

I played this a bit in January, and much more this trip. Every time the game was more or less the same, where only my riders varied as I received and used new cards. I knew there was a way for the game to progress if I could use a ‘license’, but I couldn’t find one until my last day on Sendai:

These are given out in arcades, and have unique codes that let you create your account. Every time you play and scan your license, the game loads your save. With this, the game opens up so much! (I blanked out the ID number since there’s some personal info linked to my Rider account.)

With a license you now progress through the game, fighting more difficult and complicated opponents. You’re also scored and this gets saved to per-arcade and national rankings.

You receive experience to level up your riders, and unlock lots of items the use of which I don’t know yet. You get personal experience as well to level up your account level (which unlocks new battles and other features).

There’s even an upgrade grid that you fill out with points you earn by using various attacks in the game!

Here’s my player card (which can be customized as well) showing my progress so far. I’m level 4! 🙂

With a license, this game becomes very much like a mobile game played in an arcade. There are daily items to obtain, daily quests to complete, and various other benefits awarded for regular play. Imagine going to the arcade every day to play Ganba Legends to get your daily login bonus!

It’s quite popular as well, especially here in Tokyo. I had difficulty finding a machine to use yesterday, since they were often being played by grown men with teams of impossibly flashy cards and boxes of backup cards sitting nearby. I believe you can also fight against opponents teams, so sometimes maybe these guys were playing against each other? Watching them play it’s clear strategy and team-building becomes critical if you want to defeat higher-level opponents.

Two of the machines in Hirose arcade have these boxes attached which let you record screen output to a flash drive! This is probably for the purpose of YouTube videos or something, and it’s an amazing feature I’ve never before seen attached to an arcade game.

This game is fun. The card-collecting feature is addictive, and the idea of slowly building my level and fine-tuning a team to defeat more and harder opponents is appealing. If I lived here, I would absolutely be ‘all in’ on Ganba Legends.

Posted in Games, Japan, Trip | Comments Closed

The Man Machine Machine Machine Machine Machine Machine Machine Machine

Saturday, June 14th, 2025

I mailed Zoffy.

I went to Daiso and bought all their rolls of Kraft paper and a couple of types of packing tape, and spent two hours last night wrapping him up and reinforces the edges and corners. I had read shopping had changed since I was here last but the process didn’t seem different, and since I did the customs form online in advance the entire process went very smoothly.

This was at the head post office right next to Tokyo station. This was convenient since one of my goals today was to go to the souvenir food hall in Tokyo station and get some food to bring back. I succeeded (in spades), and by 11 I was back in Akihabara.

As I walked toward my intended lunch, a man gave me two stickers! Freebies like this are common in Akihabara since there is always some new game or anime being promoted.

Around mid-afternoon the rains came in, and the umbrellas appeared out of nowhere. I’d done enough shopping for the day and ducked into Hirose to play retro shooters for a time:

I ended up playing one game more than all the others, but that’ll get a dedicated post soon enough. Most of the retro cabs at Hirose are popular, and it being Saturday the place was particular busy today. Noisy as it was though it still beat walking in the rain.

I also did hours of packing today, and there’s just enough space left for me to squeeze a few other items in. Guess I’ll be doing some more shopping tomorrow! 🙂

Posted in Food, Japan, Trip | Comments Closed

Zoffy

Friday, June 13th, 2025

I started early with a walk through Shinjuku park. I did this to kill time because I’m waking well before any shops open, so since my first goal was Shinjuku I got off a station early and walked through the park. It was nice to see some nature, and the mosquitoes were happy to see me as well!

I was absolutely and utterly ruined. My muscles were in tatters and even the reserve tanks of my reserve tanks of energy were drained. In truth I couldn’t understand how I could even walk.!A quick early lunch helped, and I ventured into shinjuku to visit the usual shops.

Shinjuku is a bit of a maze, and I’m not even talking about the famously labyrinthine station. Coming from the park brought me into the city via it’s late-night district and while most establishments were closed it was still worth a walk through to see all the host/hostess clubs and unusual bars.

With my Shinjuku shipping complete I headed over to Shibuya (2 stops from Shinjuku), went to Mandarake and a few other shops, and made a few purchases that confirmed the need for a third suitcase. After returning to Akiba I took care of that. The selection was astonishing so it took me forever to pick and I hope I got a good one. I’ll fill it with more goodies to bring back to KLS!

My exhaustion had returned and in addition the heat and humidity had got to me again. I ate my spaghetti dinner quickly since my plan was to spend the evening playing games in Hirose Entertainment Yard (my favourite arcade of all time).

And then it happened. While searching for something at Yellow Submarine I happened to stop into the Lashinbang store in Radio Kaikan ‘just to see’ if they still had the massive Zoffy vinyl we saw back at Christmas time. They did.

I estimated the size of the box, legged it back to my room to see if it would fit in a suitcase (it didn’t seem likely), legged it back to Lashinbang so I could make a more accurate measure of the box and then return to my room again to confirm that no, it wouldn’t fit in my luggage.

Despite this, as I was heading back again to Lashinbang I texted KLS and urged her to talk me out of buying it. She did the opposite, probably because she knew I’d already made up my mind. And so I bought this:

It’s big. Very big. And I’ve wanted him since I saw him at Christmas!

The problem is he doesn’t fit into any of my luggage. He’s too big! I bought him well aware of this fact.

That will be a problem for me to tackle tomorrow since now it’s time for me to go to bed 🙂

Posted in Japan, Trip | Comments Closed

Game Boys

Thursday, June 12th, 2025

Most of the games I sold last year were for various versions of the Game Boy, and the sale was very lucrative since this is a market which has been exploding in value. On this trip I’ve been keeping an eye on Game Boy hardware in particular, which is increasing in value much faster than other retro consoles.

Look at these GBAs for example. Nintendo sold over 80 million of these and you’d think the value would be low as a result. But finding good quality ones (with battery cover, no scratches etc.) isn’t easy and finding ones with rare colour schemes is very difficult. Even so, $500+ surprised me.

But look at these limited edition versions! I’d never even heard of the one on top (sold only at the NYC Pokemon store, which no longer exists) and the one on the bottom was a special version sold in Japan only when Mother 3 was released. As you can see, each were priced at well over $1000.

But even those prices are nothing compared to ¥660000 (about $4600) for this limited Pokémon Game Boy SP! And it’s not even in pristine condition! Surely this is the holy grail of SP collecting? I’ve still got two SPs, and I was intrigued to note that even unboxed common versions go for $200+ now.

The above is a Game Boy micro faceplate – just a little plastic thing that clips onto the front. At $200+ this is eye-opening so I did some research and this was a Japan-only Club Nintendo reward for cashing in Nintendo Points! You’d have to be a maniac collector to buy this one.

It always bothered me that the Game Boy Light was never sold outside Japan (because it was released just before the GBA) and I always wanted one since it’s the only GB model I don’t own. Like a fool I let the years pass without buying one and now even unboxed standard versions are $500+. Or you can get this Osamu Tezuka limited version for $1000…

Or this Pokémon one for $3200! What’s surprising about this particular item is I took the photo in a Bookoff used shop. Bookoff is a great chain and you can sometimes find rare items in them but I think this is by far the most expensive thing I’ve ever seen. I wonder if the person with pockets deep enough for this will find it?

Incidentally Pokémon games continue to dominate the used GB/GBA markets. The guy I sell games to says he can’t keep them in, and when I sold him all mine last year he already had a buyer lined up! (Admittedly mine were in close to mint collection.) The used game stores here are full of old Pokémon games, and even loose cartridges these days go for many times their original retail price.

You’ll have noticed a distinct Pokémon subtheme on this post, as one of the driving forces behind GB collectibility is people still playing old Pokémon games on original hardware. Here’s a $1000+ Pokémon original DS (which I also didn’t know existed) and while I didn’t take photos the various Pokémon-branded DS models fetch predictably high prices as well.

And on the topic of DS’s, one of my game regrets is never buying a 2DS. I thought it was weird when it was released but in the back of my mind always planned on getting one for my collection. But I didn’t and they disappeared from stores very quickly. They’re rare in used shops, and as you can see even imperfect examples are expensive. One of the shops in Akiba has a sealed boxed version in a case, but it’s labeled ‘Not For Sale’!

If you’ve got a Game Boy or one of the many follow-ups be sure to keep it in good condition. It’s probably worth quite a bit more than you’d think 🙂

Posted in Collecting, Games, Japan, Trip | Comments Closed

Gran Class To Tokyo

Thursday, June 12th, 2025

I caught the train back to Tokyo today, once again in Gran Class. Here’s the entire car:

And here’s my seat:

The seats are extremely adjustable, and can nearly full recline. They also have active suspension, so you don’t feel all the usual bumps of train travel. To say they are comfortable is understatement, and I’ll admit I slept a bit during the 4.5 hour journey from Hakodate to Ueno.

The friendly attendant kept offering me food and drink (there were only me and one other person in the car for most of the trip) and I kept saying I was ok, but eventually I asked for some juice and she gave me this very tiny can of apple 🙂

The view was like this for much of the way, which I’ve many times mentioned I love. Of course there’s also an undersea tunnel connecting Honshu and Hokkaido, and now I’ve gone through it in both directions! At its deepest the tunnel is 240 m below sea level, and it takes about 20 minutes to pass through. It’s the longest underwater tunnel in the world!

Interestingly the tunnel has two stations in it (yes, underwater) that are no longer used but remain for potential evacuation purposes. Before the Shinkansen ran the route and they sent ‘normal’ trains through the tunnel they used to stop at the stations for tourist purposes!

When we got to Ueno I noticed the train had gained a ‘friend’ at some point and where I originally had been in the last car there was now an entire additional train attached to the back 🙂

My final thoughts on Gran Class: the comfort level is astounding, and I’d love to be able to fly in such a seat all the way home. But it’s also true that Gran Class is very expensive. Converted to USD, the return fare from Tokyo to Hakodate was about $150, and the Gran Class upgrade was about $450 extra, which means I paid four times a normal ticket. It also takes longer and costs much more than flying! But for the experience, I’m absolutely happy I did it, and if you ever have the option I’d suggest considering it as well.

I’m staying in Akihabara now for the remainder of this vacation, and I’ve got a typically tiny room that I’ll be comfy in. I’ll be focusing on shopping and game centers anyway and only using the room for packing and sleeping!

Speaking of game centers, I finally got myself to Takadanobaba to visit the second Mikado retro arcade (the other is in Ikebukuro and I blogged about it last year). This one is smaller, with a basement full of pinball machines – a very rare sight in Japan – and a second floor full of mostly obscure shoot-em-ups. It’s rare I see an arcade shooter I’ve not heard of and today about half these games were new to me.

I played several games, and had a flip though one of their guest books. These are always fun, and sometimes I feel people spend more time drawing in them than actually playing games 🙂

Lunch was Kura, and I sat at the counter between two tiny Japanese women who each ate multiples of what I did. Their tempura shrimp nigiri is so good, although I need to return to Sushiro to have some hamburger sushi again before I leave.

Then it was back to Akihabara for a bit of night shopping. I bought stuff, saw more stuff I may buy, and saw even more stuff I’d love to buy but for various reasons can’t, like this cocktail Qix cab:

Isn’t it amazing that’s just sitting there in a shop and can be yours for only $3500! Sights like this is one of the reasons I love Akihabara so much 🙂