Day 11 in Japan - Meeting up with Iino.

Saw this fucking beautiful piece of Berserk art this morning sell for 73500 yen. It is pure prefection. Not flaws at all and looks exactly like its from the manga. I can just imagine this in my bedroom.

Went to a sushi train place for lunch. Iino had earlier suggested a maid cafe but finally admitted that he wasn`t interested in maids. (How can any guy like not maids) When we finished I asked for separate bills and Iino offered to pay saying that we had treated him last year. Well Rei, Billy and Hellcar, you missed out on my payback now that Iino is a shaikaijin.

Wanted to find an arcade with few machines so that we could 1v1 without people disturbing us. Went to one where there were four cabinets but only the opposite machines were linked. He asked which character I wanted since he played Yang, Makoto and Chun in AE. I asked for his A rank Yang and managed to win 3 out of 5 games but he was dropping combos left and right.

Iino then brought out his A rank Makoto and fuck, I can see why Shiro decided to drop Abel. Makoto is like the scarier version of Abel. Query how good she is against dp characters. Don`t think Abel can punish her instant axe kick on wake up and it hits Abel if he tries to backdash and she can combo in ex hayate. Finally managed to beat his Makoto and then he brings out his Chun and it was over. Couldn`t even touch him. Outpoked to hell. Abel`s damage nerf makes taking risks even less rewarding.

More people came and I tried to beat his Yang but failed miserably as he found his groove. Stupid cheap ass ambiguous dive kicks and 3 frame normals. I think he finished with a 30 game win streak before we ran out of challengers.

Highlight of the arcade was beating a AA Ryu who was a former master in vanilla. I know this because he had a former master tag. He then came back for revenge and proceeded to show me why he was master. You can never feel bad about losing to Ryu cause he takes skill to play well. I then settled on the cabinet next to Iino and proceeded to take on an army of scrubs. Half the people that we fought at that place were Zangief players with is sad because they had no idea that all they had to do to beat abel was walk forward push random buttons randomly throw in piledrivers and lariats. Managed to beat a B level Gief a few times surprisingly and finished with an 18 win streak. Nothing to be proud of considering the competition but gained 2000 points in that sitting. Iino told me, `you`re the only one to beat me in the arcade`.

On the way to dinner we went to his arcade in Akiba called Hey and omfg, it had 12 AE machines and a lot of AAA and master players. This is the place for me to go if I want to lose all my hard earned points. They also had the beta testing of this Aquaplus fighting game there with a huge queue and a cute chick dressed as a schoolgirl from the game. I need in a remoted controlled camera in built into my glasses!

Had teppanyaki for dinner which was awesome. A bit expensive but what the heck. It tasted good. Was going to split the bill and Inno gave the I`ll pay cause he are tourist excuse. I was adamant I was going to pay and he provided the ultimate no defence excuse: he`s living with his parents and doesn`t have to pay rent. I only regret not ordering more food.

Went with Iino to Yodobashi and he bought Disidia before leaving home. It was still early so I hopped on the train to Ikebukuro hoping to catch Kana who I had bought the CD from. It started raining so no chance of that. Went to Ikebukuro Jumbo Safari and there was Daigo, Mago, Tokido and Fu*kYun. OMFG, it was my own personal godsgarden and Tokido remembered me from the tournament yesterday. Found out from him Nekojita plays in Shinjuku West arcade so I know where I`m going next.

Surprisingly, Mago was using his master Sagat and even managed to beat Daigo`s Yun. Put my coin in and luckily got Mago. Did step kick->late tech and then blocked a tiger uppercut. A couple of blocked uppercuts later and some correct okizeme guesses and I was in the lead in the final round. Mago was desperate and I remembered my lesson from the tourney yesterday: don`t throw tech cause he wants to uppercut my tech into ultra. I think I got thrown by Mago 6 times before pulling off probably what is going to be my only win against a master in my life. My rank shot up to B+ and its only how many bajillion points to reach A rank.

Found out from Iino that as a B, I get 50-100 points from beating cardless people and don`t lose points if they are cardless. So all I have to do is find an arcade where cardless people go and camp there until the end of my trip to reach A class. On the other hand, this game is now so much about fucking Yun and Yang that I hate it. Visually it is so boring to watch.

There was this awesome AAA+ Ryu at Jumbo Safari called Togawa (I think) who managed to beat the big three. It is so awesome watching Ryu because he really has to work for it. I need to go to an alternate reality where Ono actually realised that Yun and Yang will break SF4. I love this game but I hate what it has become.

Day 10 - Saitama Final Round Ranbat 4/6/11

There`s this Malaysian Abel player on the shoryuken forums who has always posted good information and videos called hfz69/abelity and before I came to Japan, I contacted him and asked him if he wanted to meet up. He said to meet up at this Ranbat/tourney in Saitama and guess who showed up there?

Tokido!!!!!!!!!!

The ranbat was held as this underground bar and of course smoking is allowed! Woot, I love Japan. The Master is some old rock ponytailed dude right out of the jdoramas who cooks spaghetti and karaage.

Lost in the second round to a Viper and I learned that while Ken/Sakura can mash lp/lk and recover in time to block her ex seismo, Abel doesn`t have that luxury. Shoot have made a mental footnote not to throw escape when in corner.

The ranbat was streamed on ustream under in association with godsgarden. Had a lot of fun playing SF. And I learned that:

- Rose absolutely outpokes Abel and has so much frame advantage that he has to play lame.

- Claw can avoid Abel punishing his wall dive with a roll into ultra by crossing up during the roll in order to reverse the ultra motion. Not sure if Abel can prevent this by not buffering the ultra during the roll. The other way he can avoid that is to land behind Abel so that the ultra will not reach.

- Tokido has a jump at Abel and fireball in his face move on wakeup.

- I am still a scrub SF player.

On my way back, went to Ikebukuro Jumbo Safari since I had to stop at the station and saw this master Sakura player (pic above). He could fadc from normal dp into shp 99%. It was crazy watching him two 3 lk tatsu links into cmk fadc and so easily link it into shp and continue the combo. He even defeated grandmaster Yun player f*ckYun (yes that`s his name). Saw him handily beat a AAA Ken and saw some tricks for Sakura:

- air tatsu over Ken`s head to make the shoryuken whiff.

- after combo into ultra 2 in the corner, dash twice (I think) into a crossover tatsu. Not sure if its safe against dp.

- He like to do vertical jHK against Ken on wakeup. Probably cause it has such high priority that it will trade and Ken can`t juggle with another shoryu.

Big thank you to hfz69/abelity for inviting me to the event and Scott Popular for organising it. I think hfz69 took a video of me getting pawned by Tokido during casuals.

Day 9 - Ikebukuro Safari Arcade

Forgot to write a big thank you to bframe5 for going out of his way to make my stay in Yokkaichi an awesome experience. Back to Tokyo and bloody tired but it`ll be a waste of time to sleep my day away in Japan. So what to do but have a late lunch in Akiba and seek out Ikebukuro Safari Arcade.

To get to Safari game centre, do the following:

1) Take the Yamanote line or whatever line to Ikebukuro station.

2) Take the East exit. Ignore all other East exits, just look for the normal one.

3) Turn left at East exit.

4) Cross the road. There will be a McDonalds in front of you.

5) Turn right at the next intersection and the road will fork into two. Follow the right path and Safari is on your right just next to a pachinko parlour.

Recognise the guy in the middle? Yup its Daigo. Sacrificed 50 yen just to say I fought Daigo and it was complete ownage.

Mago 2D god was there as well.

Temjin from Virtual On.

Rabubu purasu. Hhhmmm.

Bough the album from Kana singing in front of Ikebukuro Station. I like chicks with guitars. :)

If she becomes famous this will be worth a lot. Fark, she can sing better than anyone in AKB48.

Random street fighter notes:

- Managed to get 10,000 points and B rank thanks to a AAA+ Sagat I managed to beat twice in a row before he figured out my Abel and killed me in 3rd game. I ended up with slightly less than 10 points at the end so I might be back to CCC+

- I have no idea how to fight Yun and Yang. Bloody stupid godlike divekicks and 3 frame normals make Rufus look like the most balanced character ever.

- There are 8 machines but its very hard to choose who you want to fight. Even after Daigo`s opponent loses and you put in your coin straight away, no guarantee you`re gonna get Daigo.

- Fought a very guerilla warefare AAA Akuma and I have no idea what to do except just stand around. Slowly pushing him to the wall doesn`t work cause he has so many ways to get out. So used to Akuma`s going crazy trying to get in.

- I seriously need to fight B level Yun/Yang/Cammy/Fei to figure out what to do. Or go stalk Nekojita/AC Revenger/Shiro (if he still plays Abel) and watch how they fight various characters.

- Yang`s bloody hitbox is so small that Abel option select tech throw + C.HP doesn`t work.The fact that he has so much control on his dive kick is insane.

- The way Japanese play at arcades is that after they lose they`ll take one or two steps away, see if anyone pops in a coin and if not, they put in theirs. Nearly no one was putting in coins when Daigo lost. That middle machine is like Daigo`s special machine.

- I wish Daigo still played Ryu. Yun is too bullshit. Crazy ambigious crossups on wake up. Even if you guess right, you still have to guess where he lands. Ability to combo into EX qcfP from any normal and then into ultra. Sounds as cheap as a certain Japanese schoolgirl.

- Sagat`s vertical jump mk (I think) beats Abel`s sHP after a step kick-low tech. Gah.


- A level Ibukis never miss the link after an overhead. They love doing the rdp kick into super because its pretty safe on block. If the opponent jumps after blocking the kick, they just super.

- Most used character is actually Yang. There was a Zangief winning a few games with ultra 2. Eg, EX burning hand, ultra 2 jumps/backdash. Gief`s lariat doesn`t work on Yun`s dive kick on wake up, I think. Or it could be just the Daigo effect.

- I curse Ono for screwing up the most balanced SF game ever and trying to turn it into SF3, yawn strike. I should boycott AE on my xbox until Capcom releases a patch that changes the game from SF4 safe dive kick fest.

- Mago was going, clk, clp, slp, chk combo into safe jump.

- Akuma has a stupid set up for a jump lk on wake up in the corner that bloody looks like a crossover but actually isn`t. And I`m pretty sure he can substitute that with a crossover j.mk.

Day 8 - Scandal Live Tour 2011 Dreamer in Osaka 2/6/11

I have been listening to Jpop for over 13 years now starting with Kiroro, Speed, Zone and Morning Musume. I remember reading in the jpopmusic forums posts by this Korean American (I think) guy who went to Japan every year for Momusu concerts and he would always show pictures of his loot. What a life, I thought. Didn`t really do anything jpop related last year but this year is going to be different.

The fan club book that bframe5 got for joining Scandal Mania.

Ever since Zone broke up in 2005, there hasn`t been a female band good enough to replace them. I don`t consider Day After Tomorrow, DAI, Brilliant Green etc to be in this category. Maria did a nice cover of Hana Hana`s Sayonara Daisuki na Hito which I actually got to sing yesterday but that`s it. What happened to Nakanomori band? Euphoria did a nice cover of Single Bed and I can`t remember what else... until came along Scandal. If you`ve never heard of Scandal,


SCANDAL - SAKURA Good bye BS hi 投稿者 ayane52

There are three songs that I wanted to hear:

1) Sakura Goodbye, Scandal`s best song IMO.

2) Doll - best muffler spinning song

3) Taiyo to kimi to egaku story - cause I find the single to be overproduced but should sound awesome live.

Found out Scandal was doing a tour after booking my flight to Japan. At the beginning I was planning to go to the Sapporo concert. Then changed to Sendai and finally Nagoya. Somewhere along the line I had to pay $200 extra for changing twice and the full price of my flights. It was a very very costly decision but I had to do it because I would regret it if I didn`t. Thankfully bframe5 was kind enough to offer to secure me the tickets and later decided to go as well.


Walking down train station toward Zepp Nagoya.

So after lunch, took the Kintetsu train to Nagoya, wandered around and then took train to Zepp Nagoya. I bought 2 Scandal t-shirts for 3000 yen a piece and a muffler for 1500. The live was free standing but you had to line up according to the numbers. Long story short, what we should have done was just wait at the head of the queue and walk up when they called our number range instead of standing in line under the evening drizzle. Oh well, live and learn.

Merchandise stand 3 hours before concert.
If you`ve ever seen jpop concerts, audience participation is key and here are the ways to get in the action.

1) The hop and thrust your pointed index finger upwards.

2) Point at the ceiling and bring it down 20 degrees in a chopping motion. Repeat and mix up the speed of the chopping.

3) Muffler waving.

4) Clapping including the double clap, single clap. Sometime accompanied by wooooos.

5) Wave/swaying back and forth.

Where Scandal sort of suffers a bit is that most of it is action 1 and 2. Not a complaint but rather a comparison with the lots of jpop concerts I have seen. The best participation song of the night was Doll, cause it was the only song of the night with a muffler waving chorus. All of this wouldn`t matter as long as I got to hear Mami`s nice riff at the beginning of Sakura Goodbye. Guess what, they didn`t sing the song! WTF! How could you not sing your best song at a live!!!??

Unfortunately the shirt doesn`t say 2011 tour or anything like that. At least the quality is not cheap.

Gah. Someone needs to pay for leaving this song out! I had a feeling it would be like that as the song wasn`t sung during Scandal`s last concert series before this. Some random observations and notes:

- Had this electric feeling shoot up my whole body when the lights went off at the start of the concert.

- Haruna was talking about how Rina wrote the song Emotion about her life at 18/19. Rina got really chocked up during the song and was throwing her hair down to cover her face and even ended up having to stop to recompose herself. All I can say is kawaii~~~~

- When you enter the venue you have to give them 500 yen for a drinks coin.

- There were no photo signs and I was asked when entering whether I was carrying a camera. Didn`t catch anyone taking pictures but I should have tried to take one during the last song.

- Lots of people screaming Mami`s name including myself

- They wasted at least 30 minutes of the 2 hour concert on bantering. Its nice to have a bit of a break and crowd interaction but we were there to listen to Scandal sing, not talk. Scandal have more than enough good songs to fill 2 hours.

- Tomomi looks better in real life.

- I want to marry Mami when I grow up.

- Being around 30 metres from the stage is weird in that you can see them well but not too close. Its sort of like watching the concert in 3D. I think I caught Mami looking at me many times.

- If they had played Don`t be Lazy, I would have died of happiness.

- Mami`s my favourite member but the others have raised my level of admiration much.

- bframe5 signed up for the fan club Scandal Mania for 5000 yen. His member number is around 3000 and I believe they have a fan club only event in July.

- I believe Zone have two reunion concerts in August. Gaaaaaaaaaaah. I need a teleporter to Japan.

- The fact that they didn`t sing Sakura Goodbye is depressing. I feel like my life isn`t complete until I hear Mami play that song live.

- Scandal songs sound better live, even the songs I don`t particularly like.

Page from inside the book.

K-on movie flyer from cinema.

Edit. Some things that I forgot because I was bloody tired and half asleep doing this post:

- Girls get their own section at the front right hand side of the floor in front of Mami. WTF. How do I make a complaint to the sexual discrimination  department of Japan?

- There were some moms that went along with their middle school kids.

- Two guys went out to tune the instruments as the fans would have gone crazy if the members did it themselves. They also helped the members change guitars afterwards.

- Looking at the fans in front to follow their hand signals detracts from Mami staring. On the other hand, there`s no point going to a live and standing still.

- The live house was divided into main floor, raise middle floor (where I was) and reserved elevated seats at the back. Bframe5 prebooked the tickets but you had to go in and confirm the tickets when they were up for sale and I think that determines your number and thus how close you can get to the band.

- There were some ojisans but generally it was a pretty young crowd with a healthy number of female fans.

- I`ve got another concert to go to in Osaka next weekend. Hint - she is a HelloProject soloist. Expect lots of ojisan fans and fat bespectacled fans carrying backpacks. Hhhmm, sounds like a description of me.

I want to be reborn as Mami`s guitar so she can stroke me everyday!

Can`t bloody wait. Trailers look like the dark and gritty X-Men I have been waiting for, despite the fact that its being done at Fox. Matthew Vaughn, don`t let me down!

Dinner. For some reason I didn`t see this nice set that had chicken katsu, two ebifries and a kani croquette for only 860 yen! I think the chain shop was called Miyamoto Musashi.

Day 7 - Back in Yokkaichi

Nozomi looks really bad in this picture. Please see picture two posts down for reference. I blame it on bframe5`s HTC phone camera.

Singing watarasebashi with mama-san. She`s got an awesome voice.

Singing Sharan Q`s Single Bed.

No way I`m touching those green stuff.

Mama and Kaori.

The mama of the second snack that we went to is on my right and trust me when I say she is idoru hot. Lesson for the night 5mp cameras make beautiful women look bad.

Tsukemen for lunch. Not very good but it had a lot of noodles and for only 800 yen!

Sushin for dinner.

Here`s something interesting for all you Trick fans, the actual Ueda Jiro book from the movie! If you`re not a fan of Trick, that means you haven`t seen it.

Picture from one of the pages.

And I finally to sing Poison from GTO. A bit too fast at times for my slow hiragana skills but oh well. Tonight is going to be a monumental day in my life. :)

Day 6 Osaka/Fukushima - pictures speak louder than words.

Rei get your arse to Osaka. This is what you are missing!

With birthday girl Megumi. She just turned 20. Dunno why picture quality was like this but I`m guessing its the horrible zoom on the Galaxy S.

Group shot at snack Gift.

Walking from Fukushima to Osaka.

Some temple I ran across while trying to find my way to Higashi-dori in Osaka.

This meal was call volume lunch. Whooo. I can read katakana!

Picture from Namba.

Took me a while that this is the place Osaka was based on in Ryu ga gotoku 2.

Sort of had a quick look at the map of Club Sega Avion. I only knew that it was close to Namba station but didn`t realise it wasn`t the JR Namba station. That`s how smart I am. Did the whole random walking around trying to find a needle in a haystack. I was thinking how stupid I was for wasting my time walking around Namba with the possibility of not finding the arcade. The only thing I could think of was to go where there were plenty of lights. Finally saw the sign of a Taito arcade and what do you know, there was Sega Avion next to it! And to think that I thought finding a Sega sign wouldn`t be so hard.

Anyway, saw my first grandmaster, he was a GM Gouki player with the name starting with Gouki. Didn`t challenge him cause I had trouble with AA Dudleys and a Juri player. There was a Ryu player who used ultra 2 and was outfootsying me like crazy. The thing is, I am 99% sure he was sandbagging cause he hardly used fadc and I felt like he could easily destroy me. Basically I won him a few times because it seemed to me that I was either testing stuff or he wanted to see if he could win with one hand tied behind his back. Wanted to ask him why he was playing around but decided it would be too difficult. Besides he would be fighting someone else.

Sega Avion had 8 viewflix cabinets and it was awesome. 6 were designated for A level players and above and two for beginners but it didn`t matter. I feel like such a noob playing against A levels. Gah. Managed to gain around 1k points but mostly against cardless players. Really enjoyed the variety of characters used. There were A level T.Hawks, 2 Dudleys, Yang, 2 Hondas, Rose and cardless but good Juri and Ryu.

Oh yeah, found out the boss of the old bar my friends and I went to last year is opening in Juso in July.