Japan Escape Games

Escape the room games like the one featured on the top of this post have been a thing for a good while.  Most of them are made in flash and they are the kind of games that I can never be bothered to spend much time with because I'd rather be playing something....not flash.

Anyway thanks to my wife and her friends I was introduced to some REAL escape type games being hosted around Japan by a company called Scrap (http://realdgame.jp/). 

The idea is simple, there is some kind of plot laid out before all the attendees at the start of the event, then people must solve a number of puzzles and reach the end within a set time limit.  The one we went to was being hosted at a place called Monkey Park near Nagoya

The thing was laid out over the whole park and the first puzzle presented was a cryptic display of where all the other puzzles were.  There were 4 big puzzles in all which had a number of smaller puzzles inside them that you had to figure out in order to get the answer to progress to the next section.  We were also given a 70 minute time limit to get everything done so if you can't do it in that time then tough shit, game over.

The first few puzzles were laughably easy but by the time you reach stage 3 things start to get complicated and me and my group were stumped.  We weren't the only ones though as the vast majority of people attending the event had to take the walk of shame back to their seats at the start when the timer was done.  The winners were paraded out and applauded but you would be surprised at just how few people it was in comparison to the number of attendees.

The problem isn't so much the puzzles themselves, given enough time to think over them I think anyone could work them out but park navigation and time limit make things extremely difficult.  Also a lot of the puzzles require a pretty decent knowledge of Japanese, so if you're a visiting tourist looking for a fun day out then maybe this isn't quite for you.   It's also a little expensive (around 4000 yen for a ticket) but if you can get a decent group of friends together for it then it's a really enjoyable way to spend an evening.

At the end of the event I was given a pamphlet for all upcoming escape games hosted by the same company.  Right slap in the middle of the thing was an advert for a Biohazard (Resident Evil) themed escape game going down at some point in Osaka's Universal Studios theme park.  I absolutely plan to attend that and I'll try and take some non-spoilerific pictures when I do.

World Cosplay Summit 2014

The World Cosplay Summit is an event that happens every year right on my doorstep.  A short 10 minute walk from my apartment this weekend led into a huge crowd of people all dressed up as their favorite anime and video game characters for this yearly celebration of nerdyness.

Now I'm not into anime AT ALL with the last thing I watched being Akagi, a show about Mahjong, at university so most of the things that people were dressed as went right over my head but that didn't stop it from being super impressive either way.  However there were plenty of video game characters I was plenty familiar with so I guess there's a little something for everyone.

I would say that even if you aren't into games, anime or cosplay it's still an event worth going to.  Some of the things that people pull off are so outlandish that it's the kind of thing that has to be seen first hand to believe.  It also coincides with the Osu Festival (temple pictured above) so you can wander away from the cosplayers and experience something a bit more traditional and it makes a great weekend.

Unfortunately, I was busy this weekend and didn't get to spend a lot of time there but below I'll share a few snaps I got on my camera with you.  Enjoy!

A really awesome Wander from SotC

Sephiroth

 

A sexy Mario being bombarded by nerds with big cameras

These were all the gaming ones I got, I'll put the anime related ones on twitter or something.

The PS2 Adventure

Oh my fucking god, this shouldn't have been this hard to get my hands on a god damn PS2.

A long long LOOONG time ago when this blog was still nice and young, I made a post about how all my shit had been stolen by a mailing company during my move from England to Sweden.  Ever since then, and since moving to Japan, I've been trying to get my hands on a PS2 so I can start putting my collection back together.

However, finding a PS2 in Nagoya was the hardest shit in the universe.

Near my house, there is a place called Book Off.  Book Off is a used manga store but because my branch happens to be slap bang in the middle of a big city, it does basically everything.  Books, games, clothes, you name it, Book Off probably has it.  What they didn't have in stock for some reason was PS2s.  They have plenty of 3s, a few 4s and a bunch of Vita's and PSPs but no PS2s, which was a real pain in the ass because it's usually Book Off that give the best deals.

Now, on the other side of my house there is a street filled with retro stuff.  These retro stores are for collectors and the owners go out of their way to make sure everything is in as close to perfect condition as humanly possible.  The one store that I usually go to was selling PS2 Slims for about 20,000 yen which is equal to about £116!  

For that same goddamn price I can buy a Wii fucking U and THAT'S a current gen system.

But that isn't the only retro store that sells systems on that street, but the other one is run by a total ass clown who ramps up the prices of his shit so high that it's never EVER worth it to buy hardware from this guys store.

He had an absolute crap ton of PS2s but here is what he wanted for them

7000 for the system
1500 for the video cables
1500 for the AC cables
2100 for a controller (x2 because I need to be able to accommodate people)
and 500 for a memory card

That's 12,600 Yen, which is less than the asking price for a slim but considering that this is the price for a big fat old model PS2 it's still a total fucking ripoff.  So when it comes to buying systems these specialist stores can suck my ass.

But then I waltz into Book Off yesterday and they are selling SLIMS for 6000.  That's still a little higher than the prices that I've heard about in some other stores where a few of my friends live, but for Nagoya it's a fucking bargain.

Moral of the story, if you live in Japan and want a PS2, don't come to Nagoya.  Japan may be one of the best places to be for a retro collector (even though PS2 isn't really retro yet) but good lord is it total bullshit sometimes.

YouTube Content Extravaganza

You may have noticed that nothing new has been added to the YouTube channel in quite a long time, well that's all about to change! Here are 5 new videos! Yes! 5! Count 'em!

First of all lets start with some cultural stuff.  A couple of days ago I went to the Nagoya Festival where there was lots of stalls and food on sticks.  Most importantly though, there was a huge parade through town, which I took a couple of videos of.  Due to having a shit battery in my camera I couldn't take the whole thing, but I got a few highlights.  You can also follow me on twitter if you want pictures of it @Taurinensis.

But wait, I hear you exclaim!  What the fuck does the Nagoya Festival have to do with Silent Bomber for Playstation 1?  Well fucking nothing, obviously, but the reason that picture is there is because SURPRISE! NEW UNPLANNED PLAYTHROUGH!  Me and my good buddy take up our futuristic bombing rigs and go crazy in sci-fi action game Silent Bomber! Enjoy!

There you go, 5 new videos, if that doesn't make you happy nothing will.

Japanese Prison Bar

Well it took a long time, but finally I'm in a position where my brain works well enough to actually write something.  Since this state was caused by a large amount of drinking, before I go back to video games, I'll give a run down of one of the most interesting bars I've ever been to.

The bar is called Kangoku and is situated about 15 minutes from my apartment.  From the outside, the place is ominous as fuck because all the windows are blacked out and aside from the neon sign, the whole thing is pretty featureless. 

So the first thing you are treated to as you walk through the door is a skull right in your face

At this point you already kind of know what you're in for, so you navigate a dark corridor filled with other scary things and then you come to a recreation of a prison cell block where you are greeted by a waiter. 

With this being a prison themed bar, all the tables are inside cells that you are put into by the waiter.  Some of the cells are closed and your orders are delivered through a hole in the door, our cell was not closed and the waiter would just take and bring orders normally, probably due to the size of our group.

The food here was really good, and all for a good price too!  We got a course that involved a load of shashimi, soup, potato wedges and some of the must succulent chicken ever as well as some sushi to top it all off.  As well as that, for about 1000 yen, we got an all you can drink deal, so for about 90 minutes we had a never ending supply of booze.

Prison food has never been so good

I'm not sure what time it was exactly,  but at what I think was around 8pm, everything goes dark and a sort of show type thing starts.  This involves some spooky story being told over a loudspeaker, but the loudspeaker was a load of crap so it was basically incomprehensible.  Once the announcer is done, the whole place goes pitch black, and a couple of guys in a scary glow in the dark mask starts terrorising the customers.  It's actually really cool to see, and the way the guy in the mask moves is really impressive.

Once the show is done, they do special stuff for anyone in the establishment with a birthday, and then you're free to move on.  It's a great place with good food, good prices and good service, with an entertaining theme and an impressive little show, so check that shit out if you find yourself in Nagoya

Extra pics!

Pokemon Sna.....Higashiyama Zoo

Today I did something very unusual, I didn't play a game all goddamn day and instead I hopped on a train and went to go see some animals.  Before today, I don't think I had been to a Zoo since I was a child, and by the awful joke in the title of this post, you can guess what I was comparing the whole experience to.

But the whole thing was a good laugh, got to see a lot of interesting stuff and the park itself was huge.  For 500 yen you get to explore not only the zoo, but a massive botanical garden that's attached to it, but we didn't really have time for that today so we just focused on the zoo part of things.

They had a good amount of animals but when I got home and started to reflect on the day, I realised that there were no monkeys, which was a little surprising, but then again the first thing you see after you get into the park is a fucking rhino, so I guess that makes up for it.

There isn't really much else to say about a zoo, I mean it's a fucking zoo.  I will say one thing though, and that's taking pictures of animals can be a real pain in the goddamn hole sometimes.  I think I spent the best part of about 15 minutes waiting for a goddamn bear to come out from behind a bush so I could take a snap, uncooperative little shit.

So yeah, if you're in Nagoya, or you get a chance to visit Nagoya, Higashiyama Zoo is pretty good.  If you're not in Japan, why don't you go hit up your nearest zoo just for the shits and giggles, it's pretty fun.

Here are some pictures of some of the animals!

That's only a small selection of the pics, but you get the idea.  It would take way too long to upload all of them, and would take up way to much space, but before you get upset, I do have some videos too!  So here you go!

So yeah, if you want ALL of the pictures, leave a comment or send a mail or something, I'll do something about that.  But for now, enjoy the stuff

The Grand Japan Road Trip: Final Part

OK, so I know we've missed to free game Fridays in a row now, but this is the final part of this story, so I'll try and get something special for you next week.

Anyway, after finishing up our business in Kyoto, we headed to our penultimate destination, Ise Jingu, also known as Ise Grand Shrine according to Wikipedia

So what Ise Jingu is in simple terms, is a huge ass temple thing.  It's an extremely pleasant place to be and there is quite a lot to see as you walk around the temple grounds.  For those who enjoy their Japanese video games, the shrine is dedicated to Amaterasu so you should get a kick out of the shrines religious lore if you're into shit like Okami.

There isn't really a lot to say about Ise Jingu, it's something you really just have to see and experience for yourself, so if you want to know everything about this place you might want to book a plane ticket, although there are a few things I can talk about.  At the entrance to the shrine, there is this bridge over a very pristine looking lake. 

After you cross it you get to walk around the temple grounds, covered in greenery and general pleasantry.  Even if you don't give a fuck about shrines, you'd still get a kick out of this place if your into scenic walks.

So the first stop we made after getting into the grounds was this place

I'm not too sure the religious significance of this thing, I think it has something to do with purifying yourself, but I won't pretend like I'm clued up on the whole thing.  What you did was pick up a water scoop thing and pour the water from the big stone basin over your hands.  I may be ignorant to it's purpose, but what I can say is that it was the most refreshing feeling I've ever had.  It was so much purer and cleaner than just regular water and you could feel it, I wanted to dunk my face in it but that would have been disrespectful.

The stop after that was another coin box up a staircase

If you remember what I said in the last part about the 5 yen and the little prayer, it was more of the same thing.

The final stop as part of the whole shrine thing that we made was a little thing of stones not too far from the exit.

I was told that these things are power stones, and that standing near them is supposed to give you energy or something.  Nearby there were a few people holding out their hands towards the stones, so I thought I would try it myself.  I'm not usually one for this kind of thing, and maybe it was some kind of placebo effect, but I swear I felt something on the palms of my hands, weird stuff indeed.

Anyway, the last thing we did in Ise was hit up another old timey road and eat something called Akafuku

It's this sweet thing made of Mochi and Anko.  Mochi is extremely chewy and Anko is very sweet, and while I didn't think I'd enjoy eating something like that, it was actually pretty tasty.

So after walking around there for a bit, we hopped in the car again and headed to the beach.  There isn't really much to say, it was a classic trip to the beach with swimming and getting burnt to death and not being able to see anything due to salt water in the eyes, but it was really fun.

After that, we headed back to Nagoya and I got dropped off at my apartment, where I then immediately made a blog post!  So that concludes this story of my road trip round Japan!  I hope you've had fun with it, and starting from tomorrow its back to the gaming.

The Grand Japan Road Trip: Part 1

Well like I said in last nights post, I got back from an awesome weekend going around various bits of Japan and doing a bit of sight seeing.  Now I'm going to recant the tale of this journey and you're going to either enjoy it, or get miffed that I'm not talking video games, but the games will return soon.

Anyway, on Saturday morning I climbed into a car with my girlfriend and her family and we set off.  What was strange about the start of this trip, is that despite knowing that it was going to happen for a good amount of time in advance, I didn't actually know where we were going, but it didn't matter, it was going to be awesome!

The first day itself was actually fair uneventful, as we spent the whole time driving.  On top of that, I had to wake up at 6am and was running on about an hour of sleep, so most of the first day for me was spent resting up.  At one point I did wake up and I saw this crazy monstrosity out of the car window.

This horribly scary looking thing is called Steel Dragon 2000 located inside a theme park known as Nagashima Spa Land.  Now I don't mind roller coasters, but I'm quite scared of heights.  If you are British and you're aware of the Pepsi Max Big One ride in Blackpool, it's basically like that but 100 feet higher.  Anyway, following this we got stuck in a traffic jam for an immensely long time.

It kind of worked in our favour though as you can see in the above picture, the rain was coming down hard, and the delay from the jam caused us to miss the rain entirely when we arrived at our destinations, so it all worked out in the end really.

So around 11pm we pulled into a service station, grabbed some food and got comfortable as we wouldn't be leaving until morning.  What was cool about this trip is that we didn't actually have a place to stay, the car was our makeshift home for a few days.  It sounds bad but the car was quite comfortable so it wasn't much of a problem. 

It's at this point I want to talk about toilets in Japan.  For me, Japan does both the best and worst toilets ever.  The best toilets are these cool looking things covered in buttons that have heated seats and little water jets so you don't have to use as much toilet paper when the deed is done.  The absolute WORST toilets are these things.

Now don't get me wrong, these things are functional at least, you can get the job done, but when I use the bathroom I like to relax, have a sit down and a think, reflect upon the day, but that just isn't possible with these things.  It's probably because I'm not used to using them but I'm always incredibly paranoid about missing or falling over into my own waste, as you have to kind of squat while using them.  My heart sinks a little bit every time I enter a bathroom that only has this style of toilet.

So after all that we grabbed some food and slept.  The traffic jam had set us back quite a bit and at this point we had been travelling for about 12 or 13 hours.  So we had some car snacks and hit the hay.

mmmm car beans

Well with that being the end of the first day, this will also be the end of part 1.  It gets a little more interesting from here but this post is already getting pretty long and people don't come here to read novels.  So tomorrow I'll be talking about some actual sightseeing.

The World Cosplay Summit

Well before I went and got sick, I went down to the World Cosplay Summit in Nagoya to go check out what all the hubub was about.

The truth of the matter is, I don't really like anime all that much, I find a great deal of the shows annoying and generally speaking, the vast majority of programs are more about fanservice than delivering any sort of decent plot.

That's not to say I hate all anime, if anyone is interested I do enjoy shows such as Akagi (because I love mahjong, not for the grimdark edgy character) and Kaiji, but a genuinely good show is hard to come across.

That said, this was one of the most impressive displays of fandom I've ever seen.  People roll up from all over the place dressed as their favourite characters, and they spend their day being photographed by people who cant be arsed.

It was actually a lot of fun to be at though, the costumes were impressive and they had a stage where they were hosting fun little shows and stuff, the atmosphere was pretty nice.  The cosplayers themselves are by no means shy either, you can easily flag down your favourite character and get a snap with them, they love the recognition for that costume they sunk so many hours into.

If anyone is thinking to themselves at this point "oh well its just a bunch of sad nerds dressing up, it couldn't have been that good..." well you're fucking WRONG! check this shit out!

Look at that turnout! holy shit!  Doesn't matter what age, colour or gender you are, if you love dressing up as anime characters, anyone is more than welcome to drop on.

Well there isn't really much else to say, this kind of thing is really something you have to experience for yourself, but allow me to give you the short version in the form of a single picture

I fucking love this place

Japan Stuff: Osu Festival

So about 20 minutes from my place there is this cool little area of Nagoya known as Osu.  Osu on a normal day is a place full of shops and resturants and it tends to attract quite a few tourists, but yesterday, was the Osu summer festival!

What basically happens is there is a couple of events around Osu and metric shit tons of people gather to come see them and eat food out of stalls.  It's a really good day out and it has an extremely fun atmosphere that I've never really felt at a big public event before.  It's hard to describe but if anyone takes a holiday out here and has the chance, go to a festival, it's fuckin' good!

Anyway, the first thing I came across was a bunch of Taiko players.

It's almost impossible to miss these guys, the sound of these huge drums echoes through the whole of Osu and if you've ever seen people play Taiko before, it's fucking cool!  I'll attach a video of these guys at the bottom of the post.

So after walking through the rest of Osu, which was largly business as usual, I reached this

Out here was a bunch of stalls selling various types of food and all for a super cheap price.  So after picking up a hot dog we then moved on to to this...

This group of steel drum players were extremely fun to watch, but I felt rather sorry for them because just standing there to watch them in the extreme Japan heat was absolutely killer on me, I hate to think what they were feeling up there bashing away on those drums.  But still it was a lot of fun and they were doing a good job of pleasing the crowd to the point where people were just casually dancing around.  Also there was a dude running around with a flag of Trinidad and Tobago, so it was nice to see some cultural fusion.  There will be another video of these guys at the bottom of the page.

The other big thing that I came across was a Samba Parade.  It started just near where the steel drummers were and went through the entire shopping district.

There was plenty of people singing and dancing and there were even people in those cool looking Brazilian parade outfits, but it was almost impossible to get a good view of them at the start because there was just too many people.  Instead of boring you with words, I'll  post 2 videos of the parade.  The first one will give you an idea of the turnout, and the second will be a better view of the parade itself.

Video Gallery