Category: Trip

Lunatics Only: Handhelds (Again)

June 13, 2024

When I did the post about handhelds in game shops the other day I didn’t think I’d see enough to make a followup, but here we are!

We own this game, and it’s Kristin’s since childhood. Unfortunately we don’t have the box. I wonder how much of the ~$1500 price tag on the above is due to the box?

The Zelda Game & Watch used to be my holy grail, and the times I used to see it during Japan trips I’d often seriously debate buying it. In those days it was $200+ but the one I saw yesterday was almost ten times more expensive. Also note the Mickey Mouse in back for over $2000.

A couple of lovely boxed games.

And two more. There’s a difference of about ¥4000 ($25) between the two Puck Mans, but neither is in perfect condition so I’d say they’re more or less equivalent.

This is a curiosity: a colour VFD Mr Do machine! It’s ‘damaged’ and ‘dirty’ but works and I think as a child I would have found this irresistible! As an adult I think $1000 is eye-opening.

Remember the broken pachinko game from the other days post? Remember how I said I would have paid ‘several times’ ¥500 if it had been working? I found another one, and it’s ‘only’ ¥3400. So why didn’t I buy it? It’s also not working 🙂

I’ll end this this little thing, which is only about two inches wide and has only a tiny LCD screen. This is a device to train your button press speed in order to make you a better video-gamer. The bee on this is the logo for a game company called Hudson, and this tells me this particular device was linked to the saga of a man called Takahasi Meijin, the fastest button presser of all time. In fact it’s remotely possible this is the very same device he used when he set his immortal 16-times-in-one-second record. Wouldn’t that be special?

Also, I have a dim memory I own one of these. If I do, I’ll follow up when I get home.

Enchanted

June 13, 2024

I walked from Ultraman Shopping Street north for about a half hour toward the nearby ward (or suburb) of Setagawa. My goal was a gallery to see a very special art exhibit, and I knew I was on the right track when signs began to appear on community notice boards:

By sheer providence I had seen a sign advertising this in a bookstore the other day. Junji Ito is one of my favourite manga creators, and I love his stories and his art, and to be honest he would have been at the top of my list had you asked who I’d like to see an exhibit of, so I was absolutely overjoyed to have a chance. But would it be good?

It was astonishingly good! This was a full blown exhibit of original art spanning his nearly 40-year horror manga career. There were dozens and dozens of pieces on display, photos were allowed, and we could get right up close to the works to admire their detail.

It was arranged chronologically, starting with Tomie and moving into Uzumaki and Gyo and his many short stories since. Almost all the original art – oils or watercolours – for the covers of his works were on display, as well as massive amounts of iconic manga pages.

Yes this is all his original work, not facsimiles or reprints; Hand drawn by him using inks and screen tone. Many are larger than the size they were printed, and it was fascinating to see how he created his work in detail.

Take the above for instance: the white lines on the top panel are actually painted on to a black background. And you can see white paint was used for the sound effects, which suggests they were added afterwards, over the art. Every black line is hand-inked, and the lightning appears to have been scratched (?) out of the tone used for the sky. In his comments that accompanied several of his example pieces, he mentions he doubts he could produce such detailed work today (he’s 60 now).

Much of the art was presented framed, but the gallery space itself was also wonderful designed and decorated to fit his work.

That’s the Uzumaki room, which contains many panels from the manga, as well as colour art for the covers and even early designs for characters or covers

As technology changed, so too did manga production, and most of it is digital now. Apparently Ito still works with traditional media (they had photos of his studio which didn’t look like it has changed much since the 1980s) and assistants touch up his line art digitally. Here’s a comparison from Hellstar Remina showing his original at bottom and after the tone is added digitally on top:

Those pages were very large, about newspaper sized each.

The exhibition included a lot of original oil or watercolour art pieces not created for particular manga stories, and the above one (look closely in the background) had a comment from Ito that when this was listed in a gallery years ago it didn’t sell but he thinks if he listed it again it would 🙂

For many years he was well known in Japan but a cult creator overseas. In the last five or so years his fame has exploded and he is now extremely successful worldwide. One room of the exhibit contained a dizzying selection of his publications in many different languages, and it was mentioned he’s been selling about half a million copies a year in the USA for several years now.

One room contained work he created as a child or while in high school! This was also the room that featured his famous cat manga (which he wrote about his experiences of adopting cats with his wife). The art in those books – which portrays cats in his distinctive style – is wonderful:

There was also this prototype figure made especially for the exhibit:

And this copy of the first manga monthly he ever had a story in:

I hate to reduce this man’s prodigious talent down to something base, but I just kept thinking about the fact that this exhibit of dozens upon dozens of iconic and extremely talented original manga art and paintings must now be worth a fortune. A quick search online shows that small sketches of his have sold for $3000+ in recent years so I can’t imagine what something like this painting could go for:

I can’t overstate how much I enjoyed this exhibit. I have two shelves of his work at home, and have been reading him since long before he became well known in the USA. It was a privilege to be able to see so much of his original work, and to read about their inspirations in his own words.

This was probably the highlight of this entire trip 🙂

I Am A Child Of Showa

June 13, 2024

Today I set out early for an approximate hour-long train ride to a part of Tokyo I’d never been before. The goal was Soshigaya-Okura station, at which I was hoping to find something special. Once again I was in the morning rush hour commute, and today the trains felt even more packed. It took me three to get to my destination and I wasn’t 100% sure what I’d find when I arrived.

So imagine my joy when almost the very first thing I saw at the station was this:

And these:

Seven giant panels showing off Ultramen (and one Ultrawoman) of the Showa and Heisei eras! I had arrived at what has become known as ‘Ultraman Shopping Street’ 🙂

Right outside the station is a (human sized) statue of Ultraman, and even though it was early (around 9 am) I still had to wait my turn to take a good photo! I found it interesting that the others were younger than me. It seems a 60-year-old hero can still appeal to the younger generation.

The local maps outside the station are decorated with Ultraman imagery:

The station is at the nexus of two shopping streets that about two decades ago became ‘official’ Ultraman shopping streets. In addition to the statue and signs, this also meant installing street lights modeled after Ultraman and Ultraseven:

And installing spectacular gates at the end of the street showing Ultraman and Zoffy flying in to save the Earth!

Many businesses have signs at the entrance showing they are affiliated:

And a few – which were not open since I was there so early – looked like they sold merchandise or had additional decorations inside. I also saw lots of posters in windows for the new upcoming series as well (Ultraman Arc):

Oh and this guy was sitting by himself at the town community center:

It’s Kanegon, an alien that debuted in the show that preceded Ultraman (Ultra Q) and is a friendly monster. He looked lonely so I sat with him for a while:

To be honest, I loved it all. It was hot and humid and there was no English anywhere (or toilets, so I had to duck into a deafening pachinko parlor) but I had a fun time noticing all the Ultraman stuff especially the flying Ultras at each end of the street. It was absolutely worth the trip.

My next destination was about a half-hours walk away, which was faster than if I took the trains since there was no direct line! I steeled myself for a tiring walk in the humidity, and hoped it would be worth it. As for where I was heading… that deserves a post of its own!

Robot Claw