Day 15 - Ryu ga Gotoku Of the End release day!

Saw this in front of Yodobashi Akiba and the first thing that pops in my head is isn`t the game out tomorrow? I remember checking and thinking that it was unfortunate I would have to be in Osaka that day cause I think Nagoshi came to Yodobashi Akiba for the launch. I first assumed it to be a preorder event thing.

When I went closer I realised that the line was for buying the game! And you even get to do that spinning thing with the small balls afterwards to get a prize!

Unfortunately, I got this plastic sleeve thing which I have no idea what its supposed to be used for.

The game and ganbarou nippon stickers which was mentioned at Andriasang. Probably the thing I`m most looking forward to his Majima`s karaoke.

A  freaking cd of the karaoke songs! I doubt very much they are full songs though. Saves me ripping the songs from youtube for my mp3 player.

Wait, wtf is Haruka`s Change Myself and Summer Memories?????!! Wait, they`ve got a full version of Get to the top? Actually the songs probably won`t sound as good without Kiryu`s L O V E Haruka! H A R U K A Haruka! and all the oi oi oi.

Went to the Yodobashi food court and tried looking for this ramen place I went with Rei last year but couldn`t find it. Might have been at Yodobashi Osaka. Came across this place called Pepper Lunch and 1000 yen for 300 grams of wild juicy steak with rice!!!!!!!!

Instructions on how to prepare the food.

Basically it came to me on this sizzling plate and I had to put the butter on it, turn it over and wait for it to cook. The dude next to me folded his instructions over the food to cover the smoke and I did the same..

Wait for it to be cooked, put in some sweet/chilly sauce, sprinkle lots of pepper and there you have a very very delicious lunch. Bloody hell, why did it take me so long to discover Pepper Lunch?! Guess where I went for dinner? Yup, Pepper Lunch in a lane in Akiba for the beef pepper rice. Its not as filling but its 780 yen 1000 yen for wild juicy steak. The most filling cheap meal is still Matsuya`s pork bara something for 880 yen.

Flowers and water bottles for the victims of the Akiba incident some years back.

Huge crowd at Akiba gamers for some sort of flyer hand out. Oh yeah, saw this handshake/signing event at Ishimaru with a real cute chick who I assume is some seiyuu. Unfortunately there were a few scary looking dudes looking around so I`m pretty sure I would have gotten into trouble if I had pulled out my phone.

VF and Tekken machines at Club Sega. Tried out VF5 Final Showdown for the first time and OMG, it is even more different than VF5R from VF5. Standing throws must end with f/b/neutral P+G and all low throws df/d/dbP+G. Have they actually removed Jeffrey`s signature splash mountain? Managed to get out his toe kick into splash mountain though. They`ve really changed the way crumple works and the removed auto button attacks after a long dodge is so weird. At least Sega is serious about balancing this game unlike those people at Capcom who are trying to fit a square peg into a circular hole with SFxT.

The characters of Aquapazza, this fighting game testing at Hey Akiba. It features Arawn and a few girls from Tears to Tiara as well as chicks from To Heart and various games/anime I have not heard of.

No surprise that no one actually chose Arawn cause such a stupid name.

Day 14 - Maid Cafe and Yasukuni Shrine; polar opposites of Japanese culture

Trust me when I say Yua-chan is very very kawaii. Stupid crappy Galaxy S camera. Maybe I should have gotten a Nokia camera instead. I went in without asking for the English menu and used my extremely slow katakana skill to order. So slow that I ended up ordering the top items because it would take me too long to read the list.

Went for an omurice with picture combo. I could choose between something, a lighter or a buromido. I reread the katakana bu-ro-mi-do at least three times and thought it sounded familiar. Turns out bromide is a term for picture. If you google for bromide, its a chemical but I now remember that the term was used for a picture in Lunar. Hhhmm, need to download and play Lunar in Japanese on my psp.

Unfortunately, Yua-chan`s bromide was no longer in stock and I had to settle for Hina chan`s. On the wall of the cafe there is a picture of this maid called Riri/Lily? who looks absolutely hot. Come to think of it, I should have gotten her bromide! Aaaaaaggghhhh. What the fuck was I thinking????? Tempted to go back for more Yua or to see Riri. Actually an hour at the maid cafe cost me the same as an hour at a snack which was 3200 yen. Of course it could have been cheaper forgoing the picture option and going just for a drink. Hhhmm, I think if I go the second time, I`ll see who`s around before deciding how much money to spend. Oh yeah, they actually thought I was Japanese and that Michael was my fake name lol. I would like to say my Japanese has improved but most of the time its nodding my head and catching important words to get my answer. Ordinary Japanese speech is way too fast for me.

After that I go more browsing in Akiba. When you go there, make sure to check every nook and cranny because a lame looking card shop can hold many wonderful items upstairs. After that it was time to head off to Yasukani Shrine. I actually wanted to go straight after lunch but I forgot to bring the directions with me. Went back got my directions and got on the Chuo/Sobu line straight for Chiyoda. The picture above is the fishing thingie that you see in Jdoramas which can be seen from Chiyoda station.

Get out from the station and keep walking straight. It was just past 4pm and there were many many schoolgirls walking to the station. Only when I got to the shrine did I realised I should have taken lots of pictures. Oh well.

For those who don`t know, Yasukuni Shrine is like the host for all the souls of the dead who have fought and died in the service of Japan. Every time the Prime Minister of Japan goes to the shrine to honour the dead, China makes a big fuss about it. Why? Because the shrine also enshrines those WW2 criminals and people involved in things like the rape of Nanking.

Historial whiteouting aside, the Yasukuni Shrine area is absolutely beautiful.

I think that`s the temple where Japanese go to to pray to the souls of the dead. Sort of like how Chinese always have those ancestorial things in the homes.

The museum which is the most interesting part of this trip.

Why are there statues of a horse, fox and a woman with two kids?

WW2 plane from ground floor entrance of the museum. Unfortunately to access the other parts of the museum, a donation of 800 yen is required and I had 45 minutes till closing time at 5pm. How big can be exhibition be?

There were no camera signs everything in the main exhibition so I can`t show you how awesome it is. It is basically an exhibition of Japanese military history so you start of with samurai, Sakamoto Ryoma and the Meiji Restoration, Sino War, Russian war etc. At 4.45 I had only gone through 6 rooms and a cute employee told me that there were 22 rooms so I better hurry up.

The exhibits are amazing. You had real samurai swords and armour, personal artifacts from the royal family and lots of old stuff. Most of the stuff have English translations and for someone like me who only knows bits of pieces of Japanese history it was nice to see it in order. A lot of things sound very propaganda like but being raised in Malaysia, I`m used to it. Besides, after having seen how North Korea rewrites it history, nothing can shock me more.

Problem is I didn`t have time to take it in. Bloody tempted to go back tomorrow and take my slow time though everything. Even doing the 6 rooms in 30 minutes I wasn`t reading everything. The 800 yen though is a put off. Shouldn`t have gone today with less than an hour.

Some of the historical statements made in the exhibit made me go wtf and I am going to look some of it up after this post.

Despite concern over some historical stuff, I still think the museum is a must see. When I walked in and saw all those real samurai swords, it felt more than just a museum. It was looking at how Japan saw herself and her history.

I got so freaking excited when I saw the words Tokyo University. OMG, did I just stumble onto Todai? My heart sank when I saw the words `of Science` below it. Maybe I should look up where Todai actually is after this. I think the museum at Yasukuni is a must see.

Crowd at Shinjuku station. Or was it Ikebukuro?

Day 13 - Nakano Broadway and I saw Shiro!

Actually I think I took a picture of this place last year in Akiba. Still worth taking another picture though.

Actually I read about Nakano Broadway from Danny Choo`s website after my Japan trip last year. After Akiba and Den Den Town, its the third otaku place to visit. To get there, you need to get on the JR Chuo/Sobu line. You can take it from Asakusabashi, Akiba or Shinjuku. Go out the north entrance and you will see this.

Just keep going straight down....

.. and you will see the Nakano Broadway sign.

Screw the ground floor, the 1st to 3rd floor is what everything is at. Lots and lots of freaking awesome shops with lots of figures, mangas and small figures like seen in the above picture. Lots of do not take picture signs as well so can`t really show you a lot of the good stuff. Come to think of it, I haven`t risked taking pictures in Akiba shops yet, lol. Hellcar did it last year and got told off.

Mandarake had so many cheap figures. I am right now flummoxed as to what figures to buy because I can`t fit them all in my third bag. They had this Black Rock Shooter figure for a good price but the box is at least half a bag. The worst part is that the box doesn`t need to be that big. Gggrrr. Hellcar, if you`re reading this, I saw your Gwendolyn figure for 8000 yen. The good news is that I have not seen it anywhere else.

Probably the most impressive thing is the 3rd floor which Mandarake owns most of. Yes, they have half the shop lots on the 3rd floor selling really vintage stuff like really old manga from god knows when to animation sells to very rare toy including American ones. Akiba is like this hip moe otaku land while Nakano Broadway is more like series otaku business. They`ve got train stores, a yo-yo speciality shop, a shop selling vintage movie posters and only 1 JAV store and 1 selling adult magazines.

View from 1st floor at Nakano Broadway.

I came across this shop selling 2nd hand posters. In the picture, you can see two posters for Keizoku SPEC! I got so excited trying to find a KDO or GTO poster to now avail. Most of the dorama posters are more of the idol variety featuring Johnnys. Of note, they had Jin2, Iryu 3 and Liar Game 2 posters. If only they had an Iryu 2 one. They also had a signed Mano Erina poster for 5000 yen!

Another view from 1st floor. It took me whole afternoon to walk 3 freaking floors of Nakano Broadway. Even then I couldn`t really make up my mind on what to buy. Too many things and too limited space to bring back. Plus I don`t want to lug a lot of stuff back to Osaka. I was just feeling dead tired. I realised that yesterday I had been walking from 11am to 11pm non stop. Extremely lethargic, I managed to stay half awake on the train back to Asakusabashi. IMO, Nakano Broadway is a must see place and it sort of feels like I was in a time warp with the combination of new and old otaku stuff.

After 1 1/2 hours nap, it was time for dinner in Akiba. I am getting very very sick of seeing Itano Tomomi`s face everywhere, as can be seen at the Softmap entrance. Haven`t the people at EMobile ever heard of less is more? I don`t care that she has CSLips. Now I can understand why Bframe5 is sick of seeing Sasaki Nozomi on tv everyday.

After dinner decided to head to DOn Quixote for some shopping, which is of course below the AKB theatre.

Lo and behold Ryu ga gotoku merchandise at Don Quixote! OMFG. In the picture you can see they`ve even got a stick on tatoo!!!! Managed to find an XL shirt with a dragon at the back. Finding XL/LL clothing in Japan is effing hard. Its ok if the size is similar to western L but a lot of times L is more medium than L. They`ve even got Of the End t-shirts which unfortunately are not available in XL. (Not pictured) I was so stupid not to have considered checking the L sized Of the End t-shirt against the XL dragon one. The only thing I was thinking was that I need to go to Don Quixote Shinjuku to find an XL one.

I have bought so many freaking shirts right now that I`ve basically got a new wadrobe. Should have came with just two shirts and bought everything else. I`m saving the merchandise t-shirts for a later post as this is getting very long.

Still feeling tired and couldn`t be stuff carrying around a bag of clothes to the usual arcade route and decided to go to Hey game centre Akiba. Saw this 50k bp Makoto player beasting and thought, wait a minute, this guy looks awfully familiar! OMG is it Shiro???!!!! I was freaking out but I wasn`t 100% sure because I wasn`t family with his kanji name. (I just checked and yes, the kanji is the same)

He was beasting on a B level Ryu and the Ryu came back and Shiro was just letting him beat him. Oh shit, is he leaving? He let the lucky bastard beat him, took his card, said goodbye to the player next to him and walked off. I had this plan of saying hi, asking for a picture and asking him why the quit Abel in the first place but it all went to smoke. It was already 10pm so he could be rushing home or something.

Then wait, what`s this, there`s a master Abel in the arcade and its AC Revenger! OMFG. And he`s fighting this 70k bp grandmaster Gouken! I didn`t even know Gouken had a c.mp, c.hp (?) link. Actually I saw a Gouken do something like that as a frame trap when he was fighting Iino. AC Revenger should have won the fight but he stuffed up his Ultra after a c.hp. Masters are human after all.

AC Revenger did the walk away, no one taking his place so put coin in routine and chose.... Yang. Without a card. WTF. He tried to beat the grandmaster Gouken about 5 times with his Yang and all I wanted to say was what`s wrong with your Abel? I put in a 100 yen and got completely and utterly destroyed by this no name grandmaster Gouken. I was outpoked and outfootsied. He did the demon flip parry against my anti air and then switch to demon flip throw when I was too scared to push any buttons. This was Gouken as his highest level and I felt like a noob.

Day 12 - Walking around Akiba, Ikebukuro and Shinjuku.

Char siu ramen for lunch. Very very delicious. My stomach is now rumbling from looking at it. Though for 1050 yen, its not very filling.

3 Project Diva Arcade machines at Club Sega. There was actually a queue for this game on the right. (not shown) I want to try it but then the buttons are laid out in a row instead of the PSP configuration so it`ll take time to acclimatise to it.

Project Diva poster. They had artwork for the various Hatsune Miku costumes scattered around the arcade. If Sega announces that Dreamy Theatre 2 is going to be in 3D, my bank account is going in the red.

Spent the afternoon walking around Akiba and deciding what things to buy on the last day since I don`t want to lug all that stuff to Osaka.

- Saw the Sabre Lily figure that I spent my whole trip last year thinking about for 20000 yen. WTF. I so regret not buying it then when it was around 150000 yen?

- Tony Miku is definitely on my list. Its not as good as the pictures and the box is a bit big though.

- The Selveria Bles figure from cheap considering its size but it just doesn`t give me that must buy feel.

- Figured out which shirts I want to get. Why isn`t there merchandise for Welcome to NHK, one of the greatest anime ever. Why is there merchandise for Working!! which turned out to be generic as hell. I want a pururin t-shirt goddamit.

- For Ore no Imouto fans, there is a Hoshi Witch Meruru t-shirt and yes, the merumerumeru song popped into my head when I saw it.

- Speaking of Ore no Imouto, I found second hand copies of the special edition for about 8500 yen. Not sure to go for that or just the normal version.

- 2nd hand psp games are plenty cheap and they even have new games like Saigo no Yakusoku Monogatari which I will get. Problem is I want to buy it from the PSN store so that I don`t need to change umds everytime I want to play a game and it uses less batteries. The savings might be work it though.

- Hori Real Arcade Pro V3 going for 13000 yen! Fark. I need one more stick for my pc and I don`t think there`s going to be anymore amazon specials.

My main objective for the evening was Animate in Ikebukuro. Yes I know I`ve been to Ikebukuro many times but its a bit of the way from the station. Animate Ikebukuro is apparently the largest Animate. Anyway to get there, go out the east Seibu exit and keep going all the way. Turn left when you reach the train tracks. Keep going till you see the Famima in the over picture. Animate is just behind it.

I don`t really remember Akiba`s animate but bloody hell there are a lot of chicks here. If you go to the floor where there are not guys, do not go in! Its mostly geared towards girls with lots of Sengoku Basara stuff, Prince of Tennis etc. Not a place you want to go for goods but if you like hearing kawaii~~~~ while walking past every aisle, this is the place for you. There is a K-books store filled with chicks looking to buy Sengoku Basara cosplay but I was too scared to enter.

Really nice park in Ikebukuro.

Dinner at Matsuya. Fuck, it is so fucking good for only 850 yen. You can`t get this much awesome meat for that price in Melbourne. No wonder it replenishes health in Ryu ga gotoku.

Headed to Shinjuku to try to randomly find Shinjuku Sportsland and Club Sega Shinjuku West. My powers of randomly finding arcades has yet to fail me but this time I seemed to hit a snag when I found myself in Kabukicho. (See the famous street arch at the end)

Walked to the front of Kabukicho, saw the Taito game centre and what to do you, Shinkuku Sportsland is just two buildings away! It had an interesting set up with monitors on top of the machines for viewers to watch the action. Must be for use in tournaments.

Pronto opposite Kabukicho. As a Ryu ga gotoku fan, it just fills me with a sense of familiarity and wonderment.

A look at Don Quixote Kabukicho at night. Its actually pretty small and is nothing compared to Akiba`s but when I heard the theme song inside, I felt like buying a costume to give to a hostess to get more hearts.

Next month Kamorucho will be overrun with zombies and Haruka will be kidnapped again. So to get to Shibuya sportsland, go east from the JR station and its directly in front of Kabukicho.

I had actually found a Club Sega earlier in the random wanderings but it seemed like it was only 1 floor. The stairs at the back was blocked for the way up and for the way down, there was nothing indicating that there was something downstairs. I stupidly assumed that it the arcade was only 1 floor for UFO catchers. After all, you`ve got Taito arcades that hardly have any hardcore games. I thought there must be another clubs Sega and spent so long looking for it.

When I was ready to give up but then decided to give it one more go. Went back to the Club Sega again, walked to the side and WTF. They`ve got stairs going up and down at the side of the arcade! The basement floor is dedicated to fighting games which is awesome and they have 8 AE cabinets. However no sign of Nekojita and a grandmaster Yun was beasting everyone. ZZZZZZ.

Hoped on the train to Shibuya, had a look at Shibuya Kaikan and there were 3 20000 players and a few cardless challengers.By this time I had been walking non stop from around 11am and my legs were killing me.

To get to Club Sega West, go out the west exit (duh) keep going straight for a while and walk around looking for Yodobashi Shinjuku. There`s a Yodobashi shop for games just behind the main shop and Club Sega is just next to it. Right now I really need to find at least a AAA Abel to watch before I go crazy watching all the Yuns and Yangs. Problem with it being weekdays now, I would need to be pretty lucky to run into Nekojita.