JAPAN THREAD 2009: 3rd Strike!

Hi tribal add me on your ps3 :wgrin:
I play sf4 :sweat:
psnID: Chato_ao_Ponto

Holy crap! Thanks for all this information! I didnā€™t think there would be a lot of arcades nearby, so I was getting worried. Yeah, Iā€™m going to be staying at the dorms (Seminar House 3). They have a ā€œNo Video Gamesā€ policy, so my hopes of bringing a console with me seem to be dashed. I just started playing BlazBlue and I donā€™t like the idea of going for so long without any practice. The arcade you mentioned near Hirakata-shi station sounds perfect though, so Iā€™m already well at ease.

I can handle some long walks, especially if I have some friends with me. I intend to get a group together so we can do some regular arcade hopping around 3 times a week or so.

How easy is it to plan your schedule though? Do you get a lot of options? I know about the lot drawing system and it seems like the odds would be stacked against youā€¦

damn. i wish dnb was somewhat conducive to these sort of activities. i gave up on electro because i knew i had no way into the scene here.

with the way dnb is going, i should probably get back to electro/booty music.

thanks. iā€™ll give it a shot at the plaza capcom.

I heard that Sports Land has 300 Yen 3s Free Play tonight, but Iā€™m not sure if it is Shibuya or Shinjuku. Anybody know what is up?

Hey SRK-Japan, I will be visiting Tokyo soon and would like to get myself an HRAP 2/3, the amazon white vers. especially.

Do you guys know if I will be able to find those in store or will i need to buy them online and possibly ship it somewhere local?

Prolly Shibuya? Shit though I forget the day.

Sucks that you got sem house 3. Apt style is cool, but the okaasan is pretty much satan. Sheā€™s on the lookout, too, and friends of mine got caught, and i ALMOST got caught once. She randomly busts into your rooms for no reason, and tells you that you canā€™t lock your doors when youā€™re in the room (so she can come in whenever she wants). Its utter BS. I sneaked a 13ā€™ TV in sem house 1 and just played games there. The okaasan at sem 1 was way nicer, too.

Cool, i remember when i first got there, all i wanted to do was go to the arcade everyday, haha. You have a buncha dumb paperwork and crap that you have to take care of, but after that, you should be free and have enough time to roam around.

I guess it depends on if you get a good number. I got a good enough number both times and was able to get both afternoon classes i wanted for BOTH semesters. I would suggest any classes by:
Garr Reynolds, Steven Fedorwicz (dunno the spelling, something like this)
Mass Media in Japan by Hollstein was a decent class too, a little boring, but I liked it.
Beware of classes by Hester. He only goes over the readings (while most of the other teachers barely use them), and you HAVE to do them or youre in trouble in the class. Not worth the stress imo. I never had a class with him, but other people I know have, and it didnā€™t sound fun. Other teachers say ā€œdo the readingsā€ but you can pretty much get away with not doing them.
I hear prof Scott is a BRILLIANT guy.
Mark Tracy is really good, too, but his finals are REALLY hard. Thatā€™s a class you take if you want a challenge, but with a great teacher.

I donā€™t really know any of the other teachers, but I guess you should just apply based off your interest, too.

Itā€™s Thursday night in Shibuya.

Iā€™ll be there again this week and next week.

yo i thought thursday night is sf4 freeplay night only? 3s too?

Looking forward to (hopefully) kick your ass this week, and next week. LOL

Dont use boxer plz :rofl:

I wish Iā€™d known that earlier. I looked up all the information I could from student blogs and stuff. The only thing I heard bad about Seminar House 3 was that itā€™s very easy to accidentally isolate yourself from other students. Also, I applied for a single room. I just need a decent level of privacy that I donā€™t think the other dorms have. But if the okaasan wonā€™t even let you lock your doors, that kind of negates the whole privacy aspect of itā€¦

They give you a chance to change your accommodations at the beginning of the semester though, right? I remember hearing that one girl decided at the last minute to move to another Seminar House from Sem 3 because she wanted to be with friends she met at the orientation banquet.

And how easy was it to sneak a TV into Sem 1? Did the okaasan know but just let it slide?

I donā€™t remember much about being able to change accommodations, but I was able to.

As far as sneaking the TV in, I had a laundry bag full of laundry, and I had the TV covered in a bicycle tarp, and i just put the laundry all around the TV. I just dumped it in some random alley when I was done.

As far as whether okaasan knew or not, I canā€™t say for sure, but if she did know, she didnā€™t seem to care. i had friends coming over all the time and staying for hours on end multiple times a week, and okaasan was like ā€œwhat are you guys doing in there?ā€ jokingly. So itā€™s not like sem house 3 where sheā€™ll just bust in and be like RARGH.

Iā€™ll definitely look into rearranging accommodations if thatā€™s the case.

I thought of a loophole in the Seminar House rules, but I donā€™t know if Iā€™d actually get away with it. Iā€™ve heard that students can and have brought their desktops with them and were allowed to set them up in their rooms (I think thereā€™s even a computer desk in the rooms?). If this is true, I could just bring a monitor and my PS3 or 360 and set them up with some small speakers and play games on that.

The rules in the Seminar House manual donā€™t mention anything about video games in individual rooms, just TVs. And if they allow computers, I donā€™t see why they would be suspicious of a monitor. Of course, they could always just say ā€œYou know very well what we meant!ā€ or something like that.

holy shit, hamamatsu? now thatā€™s CLOSE!

psnid: ryuujinusa

Well, i had a friend who was able to play on his laptop. Sem house 3 okaasan didnt like it, but they had to accept it. For the same reason you can play on a DS or PSP, you can play on your computer.

The reason for the TV thing is:
A) Some douchebag a long time ago apparantly played a game on the common TV and wouldnt get up. So they banned games on public TVs.
B) People prolly were too loud with their TVs and Stereoā€™s and their roommates complained (or neighbors complained), so TVs in indiv rooms were banned, too.

Thereā€™s no way that they can ban computers, so if you bring a monitor and use that, it should be ok. But itā€™s pretty rough still, thereā€™s not really a good way to do it because the rules are so redic. At least thereā€™s arcades tho. =P

Well, combining my desperation with some ingenuity, Iā€™m going to take my chances. I guess Iā€™ll start by finding a good TV tuner with a high response time. If that doesnā€™t work, Iā€™ll bring a monitor along with me. I intended to go through my stay in Japan without stepping on any toes, but I guess thatā€™s already falling apart.

Whats up IparryU, me and my bro gonna be in japan this saturday for like 24 days, plan on playin a lot of SF4, and 3s at shibuya at kaikan and sportsland

We havenā€™t gotten a room yet, so if anyone can tell us where there are cheap places to stay, thatā€™d help out

IParrryU - we gotta catch up manā€¦ You playin sf4?

Canā€™t wait to see you guys here!!

Iā€™ve always been pretty shocked at how much colleges here crack down on ryuugakusei. Itā€™s seriously nuts. Had a friend who went to Kyoto U and in his dorm there were security cameras in the hall, you could not use the kitchen after 8 and the common space was LOCKED at 9. Honestly, I can understand that there might be a few wild types that fuck shit up now and then, but to punish anyone and everyone for the mistakes of a few is just wrong. Problem is that ryuugakusei usually donā€™t have the Japanese to protest any of this. Given that dorms for the J kids themselves are usually completely chaotic (especially Yoshida-ryo and Kumano-ryo at Kyoto U), itā€™s an outrage that only the ryuugakusei get treated like this.

Yep, but thatā€™s Japan! Love it or hate it, thatā€™s the country that we all currently reside in!