So a friend a I have been wanting to somehow help promote the local FG scene down here on Kyushu (mainly Nagasaki) because we felt that there isn’t much out there about Japanese scenes that aren’t Tokyo, Osaka or Nagoya but the fact of the matter is strong players exist all over Japan, even in the smaller places like Nagasaki. So we’ve decided to do our best to get out the arcades at least once a week to record matches for various games. Our eventual goal is to gather up the local players so that we can meet regularly outside of the arcade and maybe do things like record matches or stream.
Since Tekken Tag is currently the big arcade dog in Japan right now that’s probably where a lot of the footage will come from even though my friend and I aren’t really Tekken players. I will try to get AE footage as well but there is only ONE local arcade with AE and they only have 2 cabinets (AE is expensive to have). We’ll probably also get lesser known games and we’ll obviously get Blazblue as well. I have a friend in Fukuoka which is one of Japan’s major cities here on Kyushu that I suspect will help us get footage from up in that area as well.
I’m trying to get more local players down here to play Marvel.
There aren’t that many videos yet but this is a work in progress.
Well in my town (which is the only one close to me with AE) AE is popular it’s just a matter of going on the days where the guys are playing. The typical games that are popular in the bigger cities are popular here too. Blazblue, AE, Tekken, Virtua Fighter, and of course older games like Melty Blood. KOF XIII is more popular in Fukuoka and my friend up there loves that game so I’m hoping to get him in on this to get videos from up there. They also have a Taito Station up there which has EVERYTHING, including a ridiculous amount of AE cabinets (and everything else).
Sup folks! I’m the friend he was talking about, pleasure to be here.
I’m mostly a Blazblue player, so I’ll be catching footage of BBCSE and whatever else I can get video of. There are a lot of great players here, and we really wanna shine some light on the more unknown areas of Japan.
So last night there were two guys playing a Yun mirror match which just made me sad but we recorded two of their matches with some melty blood and tekken tag. Possibly some Fukuoka footage coming soon.
We have enough matches recorded by various sources on youtube already.
I think a more interesting idea would be to record the players themselves in the arcade during special events like tournaments. Try to capture the atmosphere if you know what I mean…
Japanese people aren’t the most open when it comes to having videos of them on the internet, recording their matches is one thing but recording them is another story. When we feel like they’ve reached a point where they are comfortable enough with us to open up more then we’ll have no problems recording them while they play. We fully plan to eventually feature more of the scene in the sense of atmosphere, interviews with local players, etc.
Now I generally don’t see any problems with recording the surrounding audience whose faces aren’t really featured directly during tournaments so when tournament time comes we’ll definitely capture it.
Ryouga actually recorded a video last night of a walkthrough of sega world. We’ll see if the Fukuoka players are a bit more open and I’m sure they will be because Fukuoka is a major city but we’d rather not make people in our local scene uncomfortable (for now) by having two large foreign guys record them while they play. I mean it’s a town of 150,000 people spread out over lots of countryside, they aren’t exactly used to that.
And while yes there are plenty of match videos on the internet they mostly come from Tokyo. Where all the big dogs are at, or Nagoya (Nagoya Street Battle) or Osaka. Tokyo isn’t the only place in Japan and there is next to nothing in regards to footage or anything else for that matter on the smaller places. We want to highlight the talent of Japan’s smaller areas.
We have lots of ideas and goals for this project that go beyond just arcade footage but we’re just getting our feet off the ground and we’re doing this in between work and our various other unrelated obligations and interests.
Digital hit the nail on the head. We have a lot of things plannd for this, including obviously making the YouTube page more professional looking, eventually streaming, interviews and short documentary clips etc. For now though, we want to just shoot the footage of various players here.
We all know the big dogs up in the big cities, but Japan is filled with fighting game talent. The average level of play here is extremely high, and it’d be a shame to ignore that. So yes, there is plenty of Japan footage, but we have none for the ‘average’ Joe. We want to put the spotlight on what communities are like outside of the big gaming epicenters.
And yeah, we want to avoid making them feel uncomfortable. Me and Digital kind of fit their stereotype of being large, impressive looking non-white guys. They’re visibly nervous enough when we talk to them, never mind having their faces recorded and put on the Internet. We’d rather they get used to us first, and then we can go from there. Gotta build up the relationships.
Made my way up to Fukuoka today. Which is a completely different world in terms of arcade offerings. Spent time at Taito Station which is probably the biggest arcade in the city. All the fighting games are in the basement…lol. But my friend has some arcade buddies who are all really strong KOF players so I pretty much took KOF footage the entire time and a couple of Blazblue matches. In addition to a walkthrough of the basement level to show the difference in the amount of machines and the amount of players that exist there. Will be uploading the footage over the next couple of days.
There were guys like VF but sadly since I was the only one recording I didn’t have the space left to get their matches.
It isn’t the most awe inspiring (these guys in particular are very conservative with meter usage) but these guys are all friends who play with each other and I only managed to get 4 matches but they played a lot and were still going at it when I left. What sucks is that you never know which matches are going to be amazing so I recorded as much as my camera would allow. I apologize for the talking in the back that was me and a friend of mine but it’s loud as hell in there you can’t really hear one another if you don’t speak loudly.
Yo what’s up digital masta, I just hit you up on YouTube too but I live in Sawara-ku (20 minutes from Taito station,) and I will be living here for good. I am a 3s and ssf4ae layer from NYC and was in various tournaments and we. Chinatown fair old timer a well. I go at least twice a week and you might have seen me as I’m the only foreigner who normally goes there.
Anyway, would love to hook up with y’all for some gaming. I have Japanese friends and some foreigner friends who play as well but mostly capon fighters. Here’s my Facebook www.facebook.com/acalijr and you can hit me up with a keitai mail if you like Helgen (at)I.softbank (dot)jp peace.
Oh, bu the way, I want to let beyond else know that Mizoteru and Aoru to name a few are from this city as well and we play and chat whenever we are there.
