Nothing says Japan, like national conformity

Well just in time for the Dragon Quest launch, the weather became hell here as winds reached high speeds knocking things over all night Fri and as of now on Sat are still blowing pretty strong. Rain + Hail were pouring down all last night into Sat morning, and the sun was barely present. So I wasn't sure what to expect when heading to the store at 6:40am this morning but here is how it went:


6:45am, everyone is waiting in their car since the weather is terrible.


7am, the door opens and everyone rushes in.




The first customers of the day buy their games.

As I was leaving I would see car after car pull up and someone jump at. While it wasn't hundred's of people it was still pretty impressive to see the local folks braving the storm in the early morning to get their game.

Though I'll admit we Aomori folks didn't stand up to the Tokyo lines:

The 300 person line at 7am in front of Tsutsuya. More pics of the Tokyo lines can be found here.

The power of line-ups is strong in Japan at the moment. Thursday will be the line-ups for the Nintendo DS and then a week later on Sunday will be the line-ups for the Sony PSP. Hopefully Aomori weather looks more kindly on the game industry in the following weeks.

Towel

So when I was at the Go!Go!7188 concert in Aomori city last night, I picked up a page of stickers from the buying area since they only had one shirt in XL (and despite Japan 'supposedly' being full of small people, I still where a M here just like I do in the states), and about 5 hand towels....

Hand towels are pretty popular items here in Japan as many bathroom sinks don't have paper towels so you must resort to flailing your hands in the air, your personal towel, or stealthly wiping them on the shirt of the guy next to you. So it's easy to understand why there are many hand towels for sale in Japan.

Yet I have to question the fact that every band/movie/tv show/game has their own hand towels. Now as far as I know the idea behind say a band t-shirt is that you want to express your interest in the band to others, in a way expressing yourself. So now when you go a buy a band hand towel it's kinda odd. I mean when you're in the restroom washing your hands with a bunch of other guys, are you going to be proud to be expressing yourself and your interests to the people around you? Maybe you are, but I dunno, it just seems like one of those things (logo hand towels) that people just accepted as being 'cool' without every thinking of the practicality of the items.

So besides noticing the large amount of hand towels for sale the rest of the show was okish ^^; The sound setup was pretty good and the band played well but they were playing like it was routine rather than going crazy and really getting into the music. This was pretty apparent as during the first 20 mins of the show the crowd was going crazy smashing into each other in a Japanese-toned-down-polite-mosh-pit (which in a place that only holds less than 300 people is still pretty good); Yet you could tell that the energy was from the fans who were excited to be there. At the 30 min mark the crowd really started dying down and by an hour in most people were just kinda swaying or standing still. If a band doesn't put their all into playing, the crowd won't be infused with energy. Basically all the bands I'd seen in the Arabaki show went insane on stage doing crazy solos, jumping around and stumbling into things, and screaming until their voice died. Besides the drummer, the 2 leading women in the band didn't even seem like they were breaking a sweat. As I teacher it looked to me like the lead singer, Yuu, was doing her "I'm taking a test and trying to remember all the answers from the book last night because I just want to pass this test and go home" face. They were times when the band really got into their songs and at those moments the crowd would react. But overall it was fun, but not a very amazing experience. It also doesn't help that the show was based around their new album which after hearing it live definitely is not the kind of music meant for live play. When they broke into a jazz/swing sounding song, this rock/punk audience was left standing confused as to what they were supposed to be doing. I guess I'd say the show was like a 3/4.



Last week I went to an ALT meeting in Hachinohe. As my first trip to Hachinohe I used the evening on the first night to go to the main Hachinohe train station and check out the area. Well after about 3-4 hours of walking I realized there wasn't much there and the actual city were stuff was, was near our hotel/meetings. Since the meeting was only 2 days and I had to do 4-5 hours of travel each way, I didn't really get much exploring done sadly. Maybe I'll go back again in the future, but it's not the most convinient place to visit money and travel-time wise.

New free mp3 is up at Hirasawa Susumu's webpage off his latest side project Kaku (Nuclear) P-model. Pretty entertaining, too bad you'd never be album to find this album in a store in Aomori :\ But that's what Amazon Japan is for! :P
You can get the song here: http://www.chaosunion.com/hirasawa/e/index.htm


On a sad note, I saw Studio Ghibli & Miyazaki Hayao's new animated film "Howl's Moving Castle". Why was it sad? Well in the past 20+ years I've enjoyed every film created by Studio Ghibli, yet now it seems like they finally did it. They made a bad movie ;_; Sure the animation is pretty, but the story is a complete mess. Character development is very weak and the story jumps around without ever giving much explanation. Couple that with an ending so awful that it's a slap in the face to all fans of the studio, and you have a movie that leaves you thinking "what went wrong?". Well the answer is probably not all that hard to find. For years on year Miyazaki has created great stories filled with likeable casts that have this magic Ghibli touch to them. Yet for the first time in his career, Miyazaki decided to try to adapt a novel rather than make his own story.

So I'd guess that the entire time Miyazaki was creating the script and storyboards, he was fighting between staying true to the book, and trying to make a Miyazaki movie. You see elements coming from his other films such as Nausicaa, Mononoke, Kiki's, Spirited Away; Yet the core story and characters just don't match up that well with the way he creates characters. I can see how when planning the film on paper it would've looked doable, but the fact is that the only way they could've made what they wanted is with an epic 3 hour film. Yet Howl's runs a little under 2 hours and thus feels like a whole lot is missing. It lacks the magic Ghibli touch, and is closer to a 2.5/4 than a 3/4 IMO and having to put 2.5 and Ghibli in the same sentence is a sad sad day.

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So after finishing Halo 2, Half-life 2, and Zelda: The Minish Cap over the last week or so it feels almost like the end of an era yet the beginning of a new one.

Halo 2 was a great improvement over the first game and it delivered intense combat, pretty decent level design, and a probably the best multiplayer you can experience online on a console right now. Yet I have to admit that despite playing it only a week ago I can barely remember anything about the game :\ All the cool moments were kinda of swept under the rug after experience Half-life 2.

Half-life 2 had a lot of expectations being the most hyped PC game since probably Doom 2. Yet for once a game really lived up to its hype and continued to impress throughout. The game has so much variety that it's always throwing something new at you to keep you from getting bored. The locations were gorgeous and huge, the combat in the later half of the game was pretty insane and kept you on your toes, the art direction was incredible with gorgeous textures and modeling, and even the music rocked when it was used. Plus the game was pretty long and satisfying IMO. On one hand it's kinda sad to see it end, but on the other hand this is only the beginning as this will be the game that the mod community will use as a base for pretty much all things great in the next 4-5 years. The physics system is just incredible and once a real multiplayer mod comes out, a lot of people will be showing up at work tired :)

Zelda was good as usual. I dunno, I've heard Zelda 3 A Link To the Past for SFC/SNES has aged badly and isn't that great of game anymore, but I still remember it being better than all the 2d Zelda games that have come after it. A few of the dungeons in Minish Cap were really impressive and only 1 really came off as average. Yet the overworld had way to much fetch quest stuff that just got annoying at times and hurt the pacing. It was a fun 8/10 game, but I'll look forward to the next console Zelda and hope it's more of a step forward.


So as all signs point to the Holidy season as already starting, we approach the biggest day in Japan this year. Christmas day? Nope.



Dragon Quest VIII is about to make headlines as the highest number of copies sold in 1 day of any game in the ENTIRE WORLD (which considering the population of Japan vs. US and UK is a pretty big feat) this saturday. The Dragon Quest series has been the largest franchise in the entire country since somewhere along the mid years of the series. In fact releasing Dragon Quest games once every 2-4 year became a huge problem for the society as millions of people would skip work or school on the opening day. So they kinda made an unofficial law that DQ games must be released on holidays or weekends. DQVIII is abiding by that law and stores are opening at 7am on saturday nationwide to sell the game. 2.5-3 million copies are being sent to the stores and everywhere is predicting 99% sell-through. I'll be there at 6:30am on saturday with my camera in hand to see how many people from the local towns will be fighting the freezing cold winds and lack of sleep while lining up at the break of dawn. Though I don't expect it the pictures to be nearly as impressive as the upcoming pics from the Tokyo folks, it should still prove interesting ^_^

So that's all for now until the saturday morning update.

Welcome back, Mr. Freeman

Yeah, don't expect updates for the next week :)

taiyou no chikai umi no soko de hane wo hirogaru

or in english "I spread my wings at the bottom of the ocean most near to the sun" one of many lines from the new Go!Go!7188 album "Ryuuzetsuran".

The album is pretty interesting as they went with a very non-orthodox style. Many songs lack a chorus, most songs break into long guitar/bass/drum solos, and the lyrics range from 'blah blah nature is dying, the world is losing color' to a song about Kunoichi (female ninja) written in old-form dialogue, to a song about growing up and realizing the world ain't filled with santa claus and feeling lost, yet realizing that there's still a lot of mystery in the world and it's not a bad idea to search for it. I can't say I'm completely satisfied with the album. It's a hard sell and even after 3 weeks of listening to it I can't really get more than a song or two on it. But I'm still looking forward to seeing them in concert in 2 weeks in Aomori. I found the website for the 'concert hall' that they're playing at and it looks like a tiny broken down home. The fire prevention people limit is 300 max, so I'm guessing it will be a really up close and personal show ^__^

One thing that's been keeping me from enjoying the Go!Go!7188 album as much as I could is the new The Pillows album "Good Dreams" that came out a week later:

A really good effort like always from the group featuring great music, poetic lyrics, and some fantastic vocals. After seeing them live in Sendai I'm really glad they are coming up to Hirosaki in february for the tour of this new album :D
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So due to various personal issues and work issues I haven't had the chance to update this thing in a looong time. So now I'll play catch up :P


That's a pic of Ajigasawa near the train station. I took it when I accidently got on the wrong bus (was damn tired in the morning) and ended up far away from my work. I had to wait an hour or so for the next train back and then wait 2 hours for the next bus going to my work place :\ Problems with living where transportation runs only every 2-4 hours.

School has been same old same old. I had a chance to teach for the 2nd time at a Jr. High School by myself and it was a blast. One class was really tired from doing 5 periods of tests, so instead of having them do work I just figured I'd put on entertaining skits starring me, myself, and I while they practiced listening or slept. Worked pretty well I do think.

Next week is the mid-year seminar at Hachinohe. I've heard the food is good there so I look forward to the 2 day excursion. Though getting to the 10:30 meeting means catching the 6:30am train out of here that morning ^^;;

So here's what I've been doing the past 2 weeks:

I'm pretty confident in saying that Wong Karwai's 2046 is the best movie of the year IMO. The film was absolutely stunning. The story was WKW's most interesting well layered piece yet, the acting was top-notch with Tony Leung having quite a screen presence, and the music was so good I had to nab the soundtrack by the next day. IMO this film is built on everything he's done so far in career and really shows what an accomplished film maker he is. I can't wait for the dvd and I hope the Criterion Collection are able to put it out in the US :)


The title of the film "chi to hone" (Blood and Bones) is a saying that one's blood comes from their mother and one's bones from their father. The film is based on a novel about a korean man who comes to 1923 Japan in his young age looking for opportunity. The film then cuts to the man in his 40-50s and he's a burnt out evil bastard (played by Beat Takeshi) who is so self-centered that he destroys the only family he has. The film is directed by a Korean director who IMDB calls "The most prominent Korean director residing in Japan". Which is kinda surprising because one of the things the film completely avoids dealing with is the life of Korean immigrants in the first half of the 20th century. Just one of the issues I had with the film...in which there were many. The main problem is that the film never goes into how this guy filled with hope in 1923 became the person who is he is in ~1943. Thus we can never really see into the character (especially since Takeshi does his usually poker face acting) so the film basically just becomes an example of the Japanese 'aware' style (sad and pitiful) where we watch everyone live horrible lives and die one after another.


Game-wise I'd been spending the last 2 weeks with the fantastic Stelladeus for PS2. The game, written by one of the most famous Japanese fantasy authors (who wrote the Record of Lodoss novels), the game is filled with philosophical arguments, deep characters, and just really awe-inspiring writting. Even the premise for the story is interesting:

--A long time ago in the past a sea of white fog started approaching the main continent of the world. Everything the fog passed over would disappear. So people of the world became panicked as they feared the end. They started rioting and stealing and killing. Then one day a religion proclaimed that the sea of fog was God's will and that those who accept the "peaceful end" will go to paradise. Thus the chaos stopped and people were able to live normal lives; yet at the same time accepting that the end was approaching they lost all hope and dreams, they lost the will to live and became languid. One day a general gathered an army and began taking over the continent and killing all those who would do nothing with their lives. One day he comes into the main character's village...

The story then becomes a series of arguments about religion's place in the modern world, about how it can do good; yet if mishandeled can be terrible. It was a really entertaining piece and did a good job raising questions about society as a whole. Not too mention the gameplay portion was top-notch and the soundtrack was incredible.

Part2

This post was actually so big I had to split it into 2 posts :P


(yes that's an official artwork by Nintendo :P)
Picked up the new Zelda game for GBA. It's the first original Zelda title on the system and visually it's on the level of the SNES/SFC Zelda III Link to the Past. The dungeons are very well designed and the music is good stuff. A little on the easy side but Zelda's difficulty has always been in it's puzzles.


Joined the Japanese clique of the few hundred people who actually own an xbox in Japan the other day. Mainly got it for Halo 2, but picked up Dead or Alive online since it's pretty and it's an online fighter :) The Halo 2 LE package came with a year Xbox live subscription so now I'm getting to see how good Japanese players play DoA and it's pretty fun. One thing is the Japanese players, unlike English speaking players, don't talk much or at all; whereas english speakers just shout random curses every 5 secs.


As much as I'm having a pretty good time at the moment with Halo 2 offline and online, the countdown is almost up for what will possibly be the greatest game ever created:

NOVEMBER 16th US Pacific Time it will unlock and many people in the world will be quite joyous.



Pre-ordered the DS (Dec 2nd) and PSP (Dec 12th) at my local WonderGOO. Though despite that they had a sign stating "Even though you pre-order we might not give you one. We probably won't get enough, so line up early on the day of release". Luckily PSP which will be the rare one for sure (especially since Sony is going to eat $300 loses on every unit sold...thus 'shortages' will happen for the first year or so) is being released on a sunday so camping out in the snow could be possible depending on the line and the weather. Now whether either system ends up being good is another question, but I'm more interested in the fact that both are pushing the handheld market forward rather than allowing it to remain 10 years behind current technology.

you get DS for innovative bizarre stuff like this:


and then PSP for amazing visual stuff like this:


Between both systems launching, the highest selling game for the next 5 years in Japan being released (DQVIII), Gran Turismo 4 (700 cars, 50 tracks, 96 songs), and MGS3 coming out this next month is going to be pretty crazy and that's just before Xmas trip excitement. Hmm, looking forward to it all.

Lastly:

Xenosaga the TV animation starts airing on Jan 1st. o_O? Yea I have no clue either, but it could be interesting.

PS. Roberto and anyone else I know who has Xbox live, e-mail me your tags so we can get some games in.