At The Speed of Steve

and thus ends the great japan adventure…i should leave you with some great advice and amazing pictures, but i got finals in a few days sooo no.

this is the last post

or is it?

Akihabara is the electronic district in Tokyo, known as “Electric Town”.  This weekend the gang went there in search of a fabled anime store named “Animate”.   We got off the train and got a little lost but thanks to a nice policeman we were able go in the right direction.  We were surprised that he knew actually, maybe big tough policemen here in japan also like to watch anime from time to time.  Police hang out in little stands all over Tokyo, these stands are called kobans.  They are like little police outposts scattered about the various districts of Tokyo.  Since there isn’t much crime here, they usually have very little to do and generally like talking to people (i assume out of boredom).

Anyway, once we found the place. oh man! it was big. 7 floors of anime.  That was only this one store, there were tons around it that were just as impressive.  no wonder I barely had any money after i left, there was just too much cool stuff to buy.  This is the point where I would ordinarily post pictures of all the cool stuff i bought, well too bad because most of them were gifts for people.  also my camera’s broken lol.

One thing I bought which I can tell you about is this illustration book called “Robot“, it was recommended to me by a gentleman in my dorm.  Its a full color illustration book done by famous Anime artists.   I really like it, it will make a great souvenir.  Its got about 50 pages or so of art work, when I finish reading it I will post some pictures of my favorite stuff.  not sure if i will be able to scan it or not but what ever.

After Animate we all headed to Yodobashi Camera, its an 8 floor department store style building.  Except the departments are all electronics.

it also happens to be right ontop of the train station.  Its position is surely not an accident.

This is an action shot of how crowded EACH floor is

most of the goods being sold were electronics, however heres some shots of other junk they had.

We also found the largest Television i have ever seen for sale

it was expensive, i remember it costing something like 52,000 american.

escalators out the wazoo.

here are some outdoor shots of Electric Town,  around the station and on the road we were walking

This last picture has a bit of a funny story with it.  Its from the last time we went to Akihabara, i just happened to find it.  Now if you were to guess what was inside of this store what would it be?

The Pop-Life Store

If you guessed lots of porno, hentai and crotchless panties then my friend, you must have seen something that the rest of us did not.  We went inside thinking it was another anime store or a costum shop or something… oh man were we wrong.  i’m just impressed that a porno store could be so well lit and be 4 floors high.  so was everyone else actually.  needless to say we made a hasty retreat back to the street level lolling the whole time.

This weekend was the Tokyo Game Show, a major game convention here in Japan.  Our group was lucky enough to get tickets in advance, so this Saturday the gang headed to Makuhari Messe for some much needed Nerd-Juice.  The Convention was huge, the crowds were huge, the names were huge and especially the Chocobos were huge.

Like I said, I saw all the big names there: Square Enix, Sony, Microsoft, Capcom, Nintendo, EA and more!

I was lucky enough to take a look at the new Resident Evil (here its called Biohazard but its the same thing). So for Resident Evil 5 it looks like they are going to release it for the Xbox 360 and PS3.  The game looks pretty sick, they didn’t let us take many pictures of the stand but here’s one Dan snuck in:

you can clearly see the no pictures man in the foreground…oops.

There is also a new sonic game coming out for the Wii, called Sonic and the Black Knight.  I didn’t get to try it but it looks like it might bring sonic back to what you want from it…Really fast running that you cant see whats going on.   That’s what every sonic fan desires. Also, he has a sword, lol.

There is a Kingdom Hearts game coming to the DS which i might buy as well…ah so many games so little time.  I didn’t get much of a peek at it because of the Huge line to see the Square Enix stuff but I’m sure it wont disappoint.  Plus it’s not coming out until Winter so there is still time to read up on it and see if its worth the investment.

Outside of the Square Enix booth though they were selling “potions” that had the faces of many Final Fantasy characters on it.  These “Potions” didn’t really explain what flavors they were or if they restored MP or HP and they were in regular Soda-Can form. In any case, Square Enix could piss in a can and slap Squall’s face on it, and people would still buy it in droves.  Without actually trying it, I really cannot comment on this matter and if the line wasn’t so long I probably would have bought at least one  They are just too cool:

…clearly a good marketing choice.

Now I can’t forget the main reason people (i use the term people very loosely) come to these conventions…The Booth Babes!

Although closely related, one cannot avoid the many Cosplayers that frequent these conventions.  Its always so much fun to see people dress up like your favorite characters.  The folks here in Tokyo did a fantastic job too, many of them really showed their dedication by the details in the costum.  Here’s a few that I liked the most:

There is one more that I must show you…

Dan was brave enough to take a picture with it.

We’re pretty sure it was a guy inside mostly because his Quads were very defined and muscular, also tall women are hard to find here.  We could certainly be wrong but i strongly doubt it.

Either Way…lol dan.

Norton Antivirus had a really cool display there as well

if a forty foot ultra man doesn’t scare viruses and spyware, then I don’t know what will.

you know how when you are getting off a train there is a gap between the train and the station? well ordinarily i easily defeat these gaps.  On my trip to kamakura, on the way home to be exact, I wasn’t paying attention and stepped right into the gap with my left leg.  this left me in a position where my right leg was still on the train and my left leg was dangling in the abyss.  to make matters worse, to brace my fall i stuck out my hand and grabbed the platform, however i had my camera in my hand…which brings me to the purpose of this post.

My Camera Broke.

or to be specific, i broke my camera.  it can still take video and review old pictures, but when it is put in still camera mode it just power cycles.  so….I’m pretty much just going to take a bunch of videos for the duration of my trip and Dan offered me to use his camera (as long as i don’t break that one).

The Good news is that i have a warranty on the camera Through Best Buy, sporting the ADH coverage (that’s Accidental Damage and Handling) so i will be getting it fixed when i get back.  Its just most inconvenient.

i’d show you a picture of the broken camera but its much too ironic so here’s a cute bunny to make me feel better

ah, that outta take away some pain

An Earthquake hit this morning and wokme up at 7:15am.  It was the strangest feeling to have your bed shake around.  originaly i thought it was dan moving in his sleep but it was much too prolonged to be him, so i checked the news this morning and sure enough it was true. it was only 4.8 on the Richter Scale.

ps i really want a poptart