Another Day, Another Dollar

So today was Saturday here in Japan, and this was the first day that TGS was open to the public. And the public showed up...all of it, I think.

I knew it was going to be busy today, so I sprinted from our morning meeting to pick up my badge and hopefully get to the show floor in time to beat the lines for Lost Odyssey. Unfortunately, a little caveat in the rules for the show say that they'll open up the floor up to a half-hour early, based on how many people show up. Since most of the greater Tokyo metropolitan population was queued up to get into the show, I guess the doors opened up the full half hour early, making all my running around pretty pointless. Luckily, I managed to talk my way past the line by giving over my card and flashing my media badge. Job has its perks, sometime.

So, yeah, super crowded today. Much worse than E3 has ever been, as you may be able to tell if you carefully peruse this photograph. That's the unholy perfect storm created by the confluence of crowds from the Square Enix, Sony, Capcom, and Konami booths. Imagine thousands of fanboys simultaneously trying to queue up for the re-release of Kingdom Hearts II, miscellaneous Playstation 3 games, and Devil May Cry 4, then add to that periodic appearances by Hideo Kojima at the Konami stage, and you may have some idea of how insane this particular area gets.

Anyway, here are a couple of new videos. These were taken with my digital camera, so the quality isn't the best. First up is one of those mythical Japanese vending machines that you can find in some of the hotels in the area. You may have seen some of these in airports around the world, dispensing iPods and the like, but the vending machine in the New Otani Hotel has the real necessities taken care, like decks of Uno cards, shirts, and a huge variety of drinks.

A few of us left the New Otani around five o'clock to try and take the train back to Tokyo. Considering that the show closed at five, this was, in retrospect, a bad idea, as the train station was utterly packed. Luckily for us, the power of music stirred three youths to feats of incredible skill! Or something.

I love music, but I love it the most when it's dirty. I love the fact that these kids are in a band, but I love it more that they decided to get their tiny drum kit and crappy amps and put on a show where they know that there would be a captive audience of people waiting to queue up for the train. By all rights, a band that goes this far should be pretty bad, but nano.RIPE are actually pretty good, to the point where I bought a copy of their single for a cool 800 yen. They remind me a bit of Karmella's Game, cept without the synthesizer. Good stuff.

Since we weren't going to be getting on the train anytime soon, and even if we could it would've been packed, we took off towards an Outback Steakhouse that Jeff knew of nearby. Good food, just right, indeed. Our waitress was named Chika, and she had lots and lots of flair attached to her outfit, which she said was given to her by her manager. She was so nice that we all kind of regretted not being able to tip her when the bill came. They just don't do that in Japan!

On our way back to the station, I stumbled across this huge arcade game in one of the arcades on the way. It's bigger than my damn apartment!

It's difficult to tell if any of these guys are actually playing the game, or are just taking a break from the much more exciting Virtua Fighter 5 and Virtua Cop 3 kiosks.

Anyway, one day up, one day down. Last day is tomorrow. Time to brush up on my mahjong skills...