The Claw player was most likely Sensei (先生). He’s not particularly active in tournaments which is why hardly anyone outside Japan has heard of him, but he’s very strong (as you probably found out), and in Japan he has the nickname “Gatekeeper”, because once you can consistently beat him you know you’re a top player. I think I had a losing record vs him at HEY casuals the last time I went to Japan in 2011, but I’m eager to play him again after learning a few more things about the matchup (vs Boxer!). His playstyle is really annoying to face though, as you probably noticed. He’s the only Claw player I’ve faced who always manages to sneak in cr.LP in between the opponent’s blockstrings. And yeah, he really epitomizes the whole image of a middle-aged Japanese salaryman with thick-rimmed glasses who’s secretly a beast at ST.
I actually saw your articles on str first rather than here left a comment there but I don’t think anyone reads those so I’ll just copy and paste it here…
Also, what’s the shortest term with TaLK? I’ve been looking into programs that have short terms so I can teach to completely pay for my travels.
That’s an epic nickname and story to go with it…
Edit: there needs to be a mango manga (stupid autocorrect) made of this :lol:
Thanks to Kuroppi, I did know that they were doing the East-West that day, which is why it was my first destination. Obviously Hey seems like a better place to warm up, moneywise. But I didn’t know where anything was and I didn’t want to spend more money than I had to by visiting two arcades OR be late for the East-West battle.
EDIT: Sorry, I forgot to address your other question. Six months is the shortest contract you can take with TaLK. I think it might be one of the only programs that does 6 months, most are 1 year.
Great write up Fudd, I look forward to day 3.
Do they still reimburse for flight/housing for the 6 month contracts?
Yeah, housing is free though you still pay utilities. They reimburse your flight to Korea and your flight back home at the end of your contract.
Sorry I’m lagging on the rest of the log. I’ve been lazy, but today and the next few days I have a lot of deskwarming to do. It’ll give me time to write.
Okay, I figured someone in here may be able to help me. I’m in Kyoto for a couple of months and the A-cho arcade is somewhere in Kyoto. Can anyone advise me which prefecture it is located in and/or what nearby site it is next to. I have similar nerd dreams that must be fulfilled
Kyoto is not too far from Osaka, where many SF2 legends live. They often gather at Autobahn and Ko-hatsu, I believe.
Anyway, check this thread: Street Fighter 2 World Map!
This is already up on STR, so sorry if I’m late in posting it here. I’m posting this from Bangkok airport in Thailand O_o
Day 3 – December 31st
I got as much sleep as I could, but started the day around 10AM to maximize my training and exploring time. I would have liked to go hardcore on the training that day for the New Year’s Eve event, but I figured I could do that on Wednesday (the next day) at Mikado since they have their ¥500 freeplay every Wednesday. Plus, I still had to make use of my Tokyo Metro pass. But first thing was first: I went to Hey in Akiba to warm up.
As soon as I got off the escalator, I saw someone I recognized by this point. Isaji Cammy in his red hoodie sweater was on the sticks. Even if there were no one else around, I’m sure he would be there playing against the CPU — waiting for the next challenger. Since I already played Dhalsim in the Gamespot Versus event, I figured I would try Dee Jay at Mikado’s NYE event. It would probably be okay to play DJ against Isaji since I don’t get to play world-class Cammys offline every day. Even though it’s a hard match-up for Cammy, he naturally knew what to do. The strategy wasn’t very different than when he fought my Dhalsim, as Cammy has to deal with fireballs. He did a lot of walking forward and getting/staying in my face. I got caught by hooligan a lot and I knew I had to train my reaction to seeing it better. The closer Cammy is, the harder it is to react to (much like a tiger shot from O. Sagat or Boxer’s ground rush). There was at least one time where he walked up to such a perfect distance that he did a normal kick throw and threw me right out of my fireball. I’m pretty sure he did it to a Ryu sometime that day, as well. Getting thrown out of a fireball isn’t something completely new to me, but it’s quite a rarity. I get the feeling it’s not all that rare in Japan.
Others would come by to play and practice as well. I could never tell who was secretly a superstar, but most players knew what they were doing. I didn’t see anyone famous or recognize a familiar playstyle to go with a character color. There were two guys who arrived at the same time and they both played O. Ryu. I practiced mostly Sim against them since my DJ got zoned hard against most Ryus in Japan. Isaji would play his O. Ken against them at times. The O. Ryu players had very different styles to me. One of them wore a winter cap and did a ton of hurricane kicks (sometimes the aerial one, too) and spammed jab shoryu as O. Ken. The other one seemed to be a bit older and bald. His game was a lot less-rushed and less-active, but felt more calculated than the other guy. My guess is maybe he was Mayamura. Most of the time, one blunder from me was enough for them to secure a win, as is ST (even moreso playing as Sim).
After several hours of getting my fill of ST, I wandered around Akiba a bit more. I would stop for lunch if something caught my eye. Amidst the electronics, hobby shops, maids, and the nerds who love them, something actually caught my ear. I heard chiptunes and bit noises with no pachinko parlors nearby (thank God). I saw a sign for some kind of video game store. For whatever reason, I decided to move on. I could always come back the next day. My wandering and rail liberty led me to Shinjuku. Night had fallen and my hunger had risen, so I was in search for dinner.
Shinjuku wandering
Now, I’m not much of one for sushi, to be totally honest. I like to eat it now and then, but if I eat it too often or too much of it, I get indigestion. I could only think of people (I guess mostly my family) accusing me: “You went to Japan and didn’t eat sushi?!” I paced outside of a restaurant that looked welcoming enough — stood around trying to decide and weighing in my shyness, silence, and sparse Japanese. Hunger got the best of me and I didn’t have to wait too long to be seated after going inside.
I looked at the paper menu until a waitress came and brought me the electronic one with a touch screen. I guess that’s one way of getting around the language barrier. As far as the meal is concerned, the tea and soup were the parts I enjoyed the most (it’s winter, after all), but the things I saw were rather interesting. Almost like dinner and a show. I waited quite a while for my meal at a booth seat against the wall and across from me were a man and a woman sitting together, face-to-face. The woman was all prettified and spoke with such a crinkly, cutesified voice (even among her winter coughs). The man had a wild, maybe gangsterish, style to him in his haircut, glasses, and smoking (maybe not unlike VIPER). And his teeth… were in terrible condition. Immediately, I did the math in my head.
“What the hell does she see in this guy?”
This must be what they call “compensated dating.”
And, sure enough, he had a present for her in a nice, little cushioned box. I forget whether it was a watch or bracelet or somesuch piece of (wrist) jewelry. Her impression with the gift was transparent. Later on, he showed her how to work his lighter and she made her impression transparent. It was all very interesting to observe.
Sometime during my spying on the compensation couple, there was a group of young men who were finished with their meal and got up to pay at the front counter before leaving. I had them pegged for Yakuza. If they weren’t, they certainly dressed the part. As I was waiting for my meal, another solo eater had been seated by the staff maybe four feet away from me on the same booth seat along the long wall. He was enjoying his beer in silence and I wondered if he was also enjoying the same sights I was or if such occurrences were of no large consequence. No big deal. Maybe it was just the part of Shinjuku I was in.
It wasn’t too long before I took time with my meal and followed suit of the younger men I saw and paid at the front counter. It was good to get food in my belly and walk around, enjoying all the sights. I had left my bookbag at the hotel locker so I could travel light. I already got a feel for which subway stops were important and where to transfer, things like that. When I ran out of time for exploring, it was time to go back to Takadanobaba for the big New Year’s Eve “celebration” at Mikado. Who would I see from Hey that I saw earlier that day? Everybody?
I arrived at Mikado around 8PM so I could grind some casuals. I went upstairs to find some type of Samurai Showdown exhibition/stream going on. There were a few folks already there for ST and I saw the mighty Mattsun on the mic for the stream. I wanted to try pacing my casuals since games at Mikado cost ¥50. So by the virtue of coin value, each individual game of ST played at Versus and Mikado has more weight to it than the games at Hey. Hey is a great place to get “training mode” style practice in and try new things, certainly the best value for your coin. But when you drop ¥50 for a 2/3 set, you’re paying for world-class competition. Once you press Start, you have to be on-point. Roybisel told me once that, in the old school days, “every match was a money match.” It’s the same idea. This is what NKI meant when he wrote in the ToL program about spectating at MORE arcade.
NKI wrote, “One of the best things about More was that even if you didn’t have any money, you could get better just by watching matches and learning.”
This didn’t quite solidify for me until I was in the situation of getting played for my money.
ST streaming station, right next to the cabs
And this particular situation was especially tricky since the SamSho thing seemed to take forever! We didn’t start ST until after midnight. But more ST players started to trickle in and I was happy to see Shu otherwise I would have been totally lost. There was a tall man with glasses standing by the staircase, sometimes near the tiny CRT, who looked familiar. I was sure I had seen his picture on ST Revival or somewhere, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Shu told me, “That’s T. Akiba.” (pronounced Takiba) and my impression was apparent. I saw another face that was familiar because I had seen him in a video I’ve watched so many times.
I approached this man, who had a bit of a darker skin tone.
“Sumimasen, Niia desuka?”
Honestly, I was very surprised to see him. I wasn’t sure if he still played since I hadn’t really seen him in any recent match footage. He then said something that took me a moment to decipher, but correctly did so: “How do you know me?”
I replied, “Tougeki ni-sen-san (2003).” The first SBO, truly a legendary event that happened more than a decade ago. He smiled and nodded.
Other previous familiar faces were Isaji (of COURSE!), Shin & VIPER, Pony, and the man of the hour, Shogatsu. Mattsun would sit down to play ST once in a while, taking a break from his MC duty. I think the first time I played him I did manage to take a game, but not the set. That’s pretty much how it goes whenever I play a ST celebrity: I might be able to win one game, but then I get downloaded. Mattsun has such a strong gameface, too. Such is a composure tempered by years of hard play.
Warming up (or already after?) for the NYE/Shogatsu tourney. From left to right: HaruKING, ???, Shin, VIPER, Shuu, ???
It seemed to be scheduled to start at around 9PM, but started past midnight since there was another event going on, I think for Samurai Showdown. So, there you go: even events/tourneys in Japan don’t start on time.
The tournament started and Shin asked if I preferred 1P or 2P and I initially took this as a question asking about side, but a second thought made me think he might have asked me if I wanted to play first or second. I talked with Shu to confirm that it was indeed for 1P or 2P side and when the time came to play, we’d just decide who would play first. Although it was already past midnight, but I didn’t have to worry about missing the train. I asked Shu when the last train was and Shu said they wouldn’t stop running because of the New Year holiday. He explained that trains don’t stop because people like to watch first sunrise of the new year and/or pray at shrines for good fortune in the new year. Later, I would find out from a Korean friend that people in Korea also have a similar practice to watch the first sunrise. In any case, I was relieved that I’d be able to relax and enjoy the tournament in its entirety and maybe participate in whatever happens afterwards.
Looking at the bracket, we were matched up against YURI, but I couldn’t read his teammate’s name. When I asked Shu, he couldn’t read Mattsun’s handwriting, so I didn’t fully know what we were up against. After waiting and watching for a long time, I recognized the names YURI, Shin, and Nathaniel on the mic. I volunteered to play first.
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/42273415#
2h 14m 50s
I missed most (but not all) of my combos in Japan. I don’t know if I should attribute that to rust or nervousness or excitement — likely a combination of all. It was painful to miss the ol’ xup bnb tod.
“Ganbatte” was all I could say to Shin when I stepped off 2P side. Good luck/do your best. At least the rest of the tournament was really entertaining to watch. Akihabara Blanka (Akabla) performed especially well that night and Shogatsu’s one-man team was a wonder to behold. The finals and grand finals had a perfect blend of what we might be able to call, “business-casual.” Or maybe that’s just how you always create the atmosphere of a game you’ve been mastering for the past two decades. I say business-casual because it’s obviously a tournament and Shogatsu has his birthday/New Year’s/Honda honor to defend so it’s serious on that front. On the other hand, it’s always great to see what causes laughter and noise on a streamed event since the internet audience doesn’t see everything. Shogatsu flicking the character select cursor to Dee Jay after losing his first Honda. And during the second “oh shit, double KO?” moment Shogatsu raising his hand, palm-up, as if to beckon his Honda to wake to victory and then that exact thing happening. Little moments like those are always entertaining and memorable for me.
Even after the tournament, as I stood at the sidelines to spectate, I was amazed to see everyone spending so much and continuously playing. Every machine was always occupied for HOURS. One of the change machines I went to during that night even ran out of ¥50 pieces and spit my ¥100 coin back out! And that’s how Japan’s arcade scene stays alive: sheer player dedication. I was so happy to see Super Turbo alive and well. There were also a lot of drinks from the vending machines that ran out of supply, as well as some ice cream flavors. In retrospect, the hardcore aspect of continual, nonstop play reminded me of the after-hours casuals with MAO at EVO2K12. He was asleep at first, but everyone else kept playing (since the US is so damn big and we rarely get to see other ST players except at EVO). Eventually, MAO gave in and started playing.
I played a couple post-tourney games with Mattsun (he paid for a couple games for me) that I thought might still be on the stream. I played hard and still ate the mix-ups. It’s insane: he would do something like a well-spaced cr. Short after a knee-bash and then he takes a step back and waits just the perfect amount of time, less than half a heartbeat, to respond to whatever I did. I was so impressed with how finely-tuned that pause is because it’s almost as if it doesn’t exist and then, I think damdai’s words fit here. I asked damdai some EVOs back ago why he thinks Mattsun is the best player. “Everything he does is right.”
Post-tourney casuals kept going for a long time and I saw Shu land a sick j. Jab xx fadeaway juice kick with N. Ken on a Dictator, something straight out of a combovideo. I put my Dhalsim up against Kotaka Shoten’s black Guile and got horribly worked by perfectly-spaced s. MKs. It was really impressive and I coudn’t wrap my head around it. I think maybe in the same way that Claw player from Hey knew when I liked to hit buttons, Kotaka Shoten had the same intuition to beat out my pokes.
As the hour grew late, things started to wind down when someone invited me to the post-gathering hangout/afterparty. 'Course, people would be drinking. The tension of a drinking social situation returned. I know it’s considered impolite to refuse, and it was getting late, anyway. I could just let them have their fun and be on my wandering way. I remembered the Japanese refusal gesture and held my hand vertically straight near my nose/mouth and waved it side-to-side a bit.
“Ah,” he nodded.
I explained to Shu that I can’t really drink much so it’s usually not a fun experience for me. Shu passed on the message and told me, “you don’t have to drink.”
Game on.
We took the back exit because, according to Japanese law, it’s illegal for a business to be operating past midnight (or something like that) so they wanted to keep it on the down-low. As we stood around waiting on the street to see if a nearby restaurant/bar would accommodate so many guests, I heard the word “shinzui.” It sounded very familiar, but I couldn’t place it and I told Shu. Kotaka Shoten bumped in and said something like “samurai essence.” After he said that, I immediately remembered a “shinzui” conversation on GGPO. If you want to learn more, maybe ask ultracombo about that. Kotaka Shoten was trying so hard to explain shinzui that he explained it like this:
“Guile shinzui level: 20.”
This was way too funny, so I couldn’t help but play along.
“Dhalsim?”
“Dhalsim shinzui level: 19.”
“S. Dee Jay?” (O. DJ)
“X. Dee Jay shinzui rating: 5.”
“S. DJ.”
“…S. DJ shinzui 10.”
And then Shu really explained things to me later on. He said, “nobody knows what the hell he’s saying. Not even the Japanese. Sometimes he’ll be on stream doing commentary and nobody knows what he’s talking about.” I was relieved that it wasn’t just me misunderstanding his eccentricity. Still, he plays a mean Guile that I really frustrated me and I hated fighting him. By this time, we were indoors and had about three tables worth of people in total, so maybe 12. Shu introduced me to Jenety, sitting at the adjacent table, a name I’ve seen occasionally in videos attached to O. Chun. However, I didn’t know that it’s Jenety’s trademark to never use the fireball. Everyone was surprised when he accidentally fired one off during the tournament! His O. Chun rushdown and runaway that night was admittedly impressive.
Every time there was a toast and I felt bad for toasting with water, as I’ve read it’s poor form. But it can’t be helped. I was grateful that Shu was still around so I wasn’t completely left hanging, though people were starting to get a bit of a buzz from the beer and being sober in this situation isn’t new to me, so it was okay. We moved to another, more crowded, local place to continue the drinking and snacking since the first was closing up shop for the night. I think it had to be around 3AM at this time. The new place was actually the first place the group had in mind, but maybe they didn’t have room earlier. We had to remove our shoes and store them in plastic grocery bags since there were so many shoes outside the drinking/dining area.
The conversations at this place cut a bit deeper (not that they weren’t deep in the first place), as alcohol tends to loosen lips. These might not go in the order they occurred, but I’ve tried to arrange them based on subject. Shu asked me which Japanese player I wanted to see/meet the most. I tried to give as few names as possible.
Best overall player I wanted to meet? Kurahashi
Dhalsim player? Hakase
Dee Jay player? Yuuzuru
I know he is outclassed by the likes of Seki, Ito, and Fujimon in terms of overall solid play and win rate. But I admire Yuuzuru’s consistency with combo execution. Just as Dhalsim has a poke for every situation, I believe Dee Jay has a combo for every situation. And Yuuzuru pulls off a lot of them successfully, maximizing his damage output in most instances.
Honorable mentions go out to hazi and that other Japanese guy who plays DJ on GGPO, also known for killer combos but whose name escapes me.
“He was at Versus on Sunday.”
“HONTOU?!” (really?)
I couldn’t believe it, I totally missed my chance to meet him. Would have been cool to at least watch his hands.
I was also curious if I could see Foosuke, SBO MC and first national champion (who also plays Sim/DJ). But Pony responded, “He is dust. Good player, but dust.” (I guess he’s getting on in his years or he can’t/doesn’t quite play like he used to?).
I asked if any of the Japanese ST celebrities play undercover on GGPO, but none of them do. I guess any Japanese superstar you see on GGPO is just an online warrior. It’s quite different than how some American players like afro legends and DGV are able to get a lot out of their online training. As the logic goes, you don’t really need to play online if you live near a popular arcade with lots of competition. I asked the players at my table which of the American players they wanted to see, but I think it was a pretty simple answer. Shu confirmed it. “afro legends. His boxer is very strong. He would be most welcome here.” Tonegawa actually said he wants to see Valle the most, but everyone else agreed with afro legends.
Shu asked me a question on AFO’s behalf, “In America, what do you call Chun-Li’s super?”
“Uhh… Chun super.”
Translation and laughter
Shu and the rest also seemed to be amused when I said our nickname for Fei Long’s “Dragon Arc Kick” is “chicken wing.”
AFO asked me what kind of music I like and I told him my favorite band is Machinae Supremacy. Shu shared his love of Metallica and Bon Jovi with me and I gave hearty approval. I complained about how hard it was to cross-up Boxer and AFO said that Boxer’s sprite appears to get up quicker than the actual hitbox does, so it’s visually deceiving. Tojo said something from the other table and Shu glossed things for me: Tojo thinks that all Chun-Li players are… perverts. He was playing with a handheld camcorder (very common in Japan) and Shu said he likes to record when he has sex. Tojo winked. I laughed and speculated about Ohnuki and NKI. Shu joked along.
I asked if Gunze still plays and, naturally, Pony was suddenly in the conversation. I remember hearing “Gunze” and “hentai.”
Fudd: “Gunze is a pervert?”
Shu: “Ah, you know what it means. I guess pervert is the best word to describe.”
I think that all checks out since Super NH2 says Gunze is the name of a pantyhose manufacturer or something like that on his profile. I think they said he still plays once in a while.
Shu commented that Shogatsu was wearing a jacket with the WWE logo and then pro wrestling became a hot topic for a bit. Shu said he learned some English from watching wrestling and used to watch from around the same era that I used to watch it. Pony asked me who my favorite wrestler was. For me, it’s a toss-up between Diamond Dallas Page and Billy Kidman. I went with the more familiar name and more familiar it was since Shu just said “DDP” in translation. I turned the question back on Pony and he answered with only a short pause, but almost no hesitation.
“Ric Flair,” he said and then let out a healthy WOOOO for good measure. Ah, the Nature Boy.
“Why do you play this game instead of other fighting games like SFIV?” Shu asked for HaruKING. I explained that Super Turbo is the greatest fighting game of all time. SFIV is too slow, so it’s not interesting for me. ST is fast and brutal — simple, yet elegant. I supplemented with something that I felt earlier that night. It was rare for me to stay on the machine, but when I did I looked to the side of me. As I saw the other players, I saw a reflection of myself in a way. The view from sitting at the cabinet after winning at a row of six other cabinets is breathtaking. Much later, after I returned from Japan, my school’s principal asked me why I want to travel to Japan when there’s many mountains to see and climb in Korea. I’ve hiked a couple of these mountains and, of course, the view is gorgeous. But to me, the sight of those other players and being at the same seat-level (thus sort of eye-level) gave me a sense that I belonged there. I deserved to win. I can’t really say with absolute authority that one is better than the other. They’re both incredible experiences and I’m thankful to be able to appreciate them. But if I had to pick one over the other, I would have to lean toward ST just as a matter of personal preference. Some people like to climb mountains. I like to hit buttons.
Shu relayed my reason and I heard him say “ichiban” – number one. HaruKING replied and Shu told me, “This game is Japanese culture.” I think he might have meant SF2 as a whole, but nonetheless, it’s certainly left its mark. I feel honored that I am able to be a part of something that runs so deep and has touched so many peoples’ lives, how ever trivial or important. Sometimes I feel bad that I don’t get drunk or high with other people at social get-togethers. But, to me, it just seems like a petty way to relate to people. However, when you play a game with someone, you can challenge them in a more engaging ways. To be fair, most people at that restaurant were hammered so it’s probably just me. I know what I like.
When it was time to go, in both bar instances, I didn’t have to pay anything thanks to my gracious hosts. Just as things were wrapping up, Pony unbuttoned his own shirt to show off his (surprisingly) hairy chest. I think it was HaruKING who said, at that point, “real Zangief!” Sometime during that night I asked Shu who he thought was the weirdest ST player and I thought he might say Kotaka Shoten, but he replied pretty quickly with HaruKING. I couldn’t really disagree with that since I told Shu HaruKING reminded me of Takamura from “Hajime no Ippo,” who is always making dick jokes and such.
Outside, as we said goodbye, Hanayama (fierce Ryu) said that I got “the Japanese treatment.” And Mattsun told me, “Nice guts!” in reference to constantly walking up with Dee Jay to stay in his face. I guess Isaji’s tenacious Cammy rubbed off on me there. I think it had to have been about 5, 6… (7?) Around the time when we finally called it quits. I took the train back to Kiba, exhausted. But ready to get up around 10 or 12 to cap off my last full (intentional) day in Japan and see what Mikado is like on Freeplay Wednesdays.
The last day was not as eventful, to be honest, but I have a lot of other insights to get off my chest. So tune in next time for the final installment of my first trip to Japan.
Damn, I think it’s time for Afro to make that Japan pilgrimage! I remember Nohoho mentioning once (when he and Damdai were in Japan for SBO) that Sasori came up to them and asked where Afro was, as apparently he really wanted to play him. There’s some dream matches I want to see happen!
Anyway, that was an epic log Fudd – the best I’ve ever read. I’m sitting here just imagining how much fun it all would’ve been (especially the NYE drinks with everyone part). I’d love to have done something like that when I was there, but too bad the NYE Mikado events I went to either didn’t have an afterparty or I simply missed them.
By the way, if you’re still considering heading to Japan again sometime this April let me know too.
Thanks to Kuroppi for hosting my write-up and pictures. Here’s the last part. Please excuse the lack of editing and any sloppiness you may encounter 
Day 4 – January 1, 2014
Last full day in Japan and first day of the new year. When it comes to getting the most fun out of limited time situations, I feel like EVO (and an overall hedonistic lifestyle) has given me a lot of practice. I naturally went back to Akiba to get some ST warm up games in for the day, but not focusing on it too much since there’d be a grand freeplay buffet later on. I tried a some Indian fast food for lunch, which might sound terrible on paper, but was actually executed quite well and I was happy with the meal. It was the last day to explore, so I took my time with looking around at all the shops and their vast, impressive selections.
Book Off is a store where they had something like video games on the first floor, movies on the second floor, trading cards on the third floor, books on the fourth floor, manga on the fifth floor and so on. My curiousity led me back to that alley where I heard the chiptune music playing.
The sign outside looked friendly enough.
A narrow stairwell took me upstairs and I started to see more and more video game-related posters and paraphernalia. I wondered if this could be the place…
You’ve probably seen a video on YouTube or pictures somewhere of a store filled with many floors-worth of old video games.
This was the place and I unwittingly stumbled upon it. Just as Book Off has certain floors dedicated to specific media and the arcades have floors dedicated to specific genres, Super Potato has floors dedicated to video games. Shelves and floors filled entirely with video games. A part of me, the old console gamer, wept. In another life, I would have had even more appreciation for all those games than I actually did while being there. Japan had these places I had only seen in my dreams or on YouTube and the forgotten lore of my brother’s game 'zines. I didn’t have much money for splurging, but I was definitely buying something before walking out. On the floor with Playstation games, I believe the second, I searched for a game I never got to play. I loved the original, but I never had a chance to play the sequel, which is now worth a lot in English. It took me a long time to read and sort out the games since my knowledge of Hiragana is so rusty. But I did find it and bought the cheapest used copy — among maybe three or four copies total, each varying in collectibility condition — just as a memento. Suikoden 2 only cost me about $6.
On the top floor they actually had a small arcade with a lot of classic games. There was a lot of smoke, so I didn’t stay long. They actually had ST on there and some guy was clearing the game with Gouki. One or two cabs away from it sat Final Fight. I wanted to try and solo 1cc it with Haggar, but by the time I decided to do it and fished out a coin, someone else had hopped on. Oh, there was also a giant statue of Solid Snake near the door and by the snack counter. It was a beautiful place to stop by and I enjoyed my time looking around, thinking of all the memories I have playing games and seeing the old ones I recognized displaying their demo/attract modes. And they always had some video game music going on — I loved it. As I left that little arcade, I saw some gachapon machines and one of them was for Mother 2 (Earthbound). Several friends recommended Earthbound to me before I actually played it and the first time I played it I didn’t like the initial difficulty (maybe a biproduct of today’s plentiful market). But when I gave it another chance later on and played it all the way through, boy, that game made me cry. It’s definitely one of my favorites so I couldn’t resist dropping a ¥500 coin in. Five bucks is pretty steep for these keychains they were giving away, but this is Earthbound (and Japan) we’re talking about here. I gave the knob a twist and received my small, plastic egg. I didn’t open it and I still haven’t, but it’s Jeff. Jeff is the character I am probably most-similar to, though Poo is the one I like best (he’s like Ryu). I was satisfied with having spent (only) $11 and went on my merry way.
Nothing notable really happened until it was 7PM and time to hit up Mikado’s ¥500 freeplay. I got there and, as Shu had prophesied the day before, there weren’t too many people. I guess a lot of people must have been all ST’ed out. Maybe there usually just isn’t a big crowd there unless a big tournament is coming up to encourage people to train. To be completely honest, I was getting a little ST’ed out, myself. But a chance to play Mattsun always something to be excited about. I arrived as they were changing the setting to freeplay and saw a sign-in sheet with the coin collection box next to it. I waited and watched a bit before rushing into things. I made it a point for Mattsun to see me as I stood watching the little CRT so I could sign in and drop my ¥500 coin.
just as I saw him earlier in the day at Hey and throughout the previous days, Isaji Cammy was there. He was everywhere, always practicing. With the same red hoodie. I respect that hustle. A couple more players rolled in as time went on. Shin was one of them. But I saw a “new” face that I was certain I had seen on the ST Revival Bio page. I asked Mattsun who the man with the glasses was for confirmation. It was the grand combovideo wizard himself, TZW. I was really surprised and happy to see him there, playing on the ST freeplay on the first day of the year. His Guile wasn’t as annoying to fight as Kotaka Shoten’s, but his combos were definitely on-point. It was a pleasure to play against him.
I was determined to get good value out of that ¥500, so I played as much as I could against the few players that were there. TZW didn’t stay that long, but there was this guy playing Zangief (hold, black color). Goddammit if DJ v. Gief isn’t my favorite matchup in the game, but I could not fucking beat this guy. He gave me a lot of trouble with the okizeme option-select of cr. Jab tick into down+strong for either the abdominal claw grab or cr. Strong to beat dread kick. Roybisel taught me to just counter-throw that, but I was having a hard time with it. I had similar trouble in the same situation against Snake Eyez in the past. But even with Sim, this guy would always find a way in. His spacing and execution were too strong for me to handle. He must have had like a 50 game win streak on me by the time I got up and moved on. When I did finally stand up, I was trying not to make eye contact, but he looked over. Smiling, he simply said “sumimasen.” I could only laugh.
I took a long break before leaving and ate a lot of ice cream from the vending machine. I watched a lot of games and even Isaji had some trouble against that Zangief guy, though Cammy v. Gief is at least 8-2 in Cammy’s favor. The hours ticked down to a time when I had to leave to catch one of the last trains and make it back to Kiba in good time for some much-needed rest. But before I left, I looked at the glass case at the second floor’s counter and motioned to the clerk, pointing at the X-MANIA 7 DVD case proudly on display. It cost me about $30, but it’s certainly a souvenir worth having. It’s like six hours worth of footage. “The Big Time” the cover says. I had to have it. I said “Sayonara” to Shin and went down the stairs.
And that’s pretty much the trip. Regarding ST being a part of Japanese culture, one of the people standing around at Hey on my last day was some older lady with a small wheeled cart. She was watching the games and I was surprised when she sat down to play. She picked O. Chun and I wondered it she was Inro or something, but I think she was too old to fit the profile. She really was just some random old lady playing ST. The game itself is a cheap thrill and Street Fighter II has been an important part of my life.
It was my pleasure and honor to jam with the best. Now, I’ll indulge in some afterthoughts about Japan that don’t really fit anywhere else, but you’ll find some of my fighting game philosophy here, too.
One of my favorite little memories that keeps phasing in and out of my consciousness happened when I was sitting on a subway train. The doors opened for a stop and everything was calm, quiet. There was a guy sitting not too far from me who was packing up his stuff at a normal pace and then he stopped moving and making noise for a moment. Then, he abruptly bolted out of the train, suddenly realizing the train was at his stop. It was just one of those things that happens so quickly it almost doesn’t register, which is why I forget about it sometimes. I guess the absence of mindfulness from that guy’s action transferred over in a weird way. It’s also fun because I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this happen at least once before in my life and I’m sure I probably even did it myself (though on a bus). It was one of those things about civilized life that translates beyond language.
If I had only two words to describe Japan, they would be expensive and overstimulating. When I got back to Korea, I shared my amazement of Japan’s currency with a friend, who also recently went to Japan for the first time. He put it rather eloquently: “The dollar equivalent is a coin because a dollar doesn’t mean anything in that country.”
I saw some Japanese button mashing methodology that I first saw with Kusumondo at ToL. What they do is sort of scratch horizontally (left-right) the fingertips instead of the fingerprint area. I saw several players do this, including Mu, who did it for Dee Jay’s MGU.
One of my university professors liked to say, “Knowledge is provisional.” I feel like many Japanese players approach the game in this kind of way. I’m not sure why this is the case. Part of it could be due to the overall older population of the playerbase who already know just about everything there is to know about ST. But at the same time, they have played each other so many times that they focus more on playing the player than the matchup. Playing in this manner develops more personal style than playing in a set way based on matchup.
In the end, it’s about how well you can play, but that conclusion can be reached in many different ways. Some people are like computers and try to mimic the game itself as such. Others read the opponent and others just play on instinct. It’s more than just playing in a trance and more than taking the time to evaluate every situation instead of just acting. It’s more than just playing with your head and more than just playing with your heart. A good player is capable of all of it along with some reflex and execution.
I know that I need to stop looking up to other players. It’s one thing to admire, but if I’m always looking up I’ll never rise above my plateau.
If anyone has questions, leave a comment and I’ll do my best to answer. But the best advice I can give is to go to Japan for yourself. Make the trip because your experience will be different than mine. I’ll be booking my next trip to Japan shortly. Look for me in the last Versus team battle of February 2014! In the words of DNGR S PAPERCUT from the Tournament of Legends I program,
“Thank you for reading this.”
i was in Japan for 1 month in October 1999 - November 1999. I was lost and felt stupid when I went into town and everything was written in kanji
Again, it was great to read your write up, Fudd. Anyone that enjoys this game really owes it to themselves to visit Japan at some point before you quit playing. I’m going back again in March and thankfully will have some time to hang out instead of work. If I can fit it in I’ll try to join the team battle @ Versus but overall I’m trying to visit/sightsee some spots outside of Tokyo this time. I’ll post up about anything really interesting I manage to run into.
I don’t even play ST (am one of the SF4 scrubs) and was touched by your write up. Nothing short from amazing that a game can connect so many people.
i already miss hey from those pics
This piece is also available on strevival.com in case it’s easier for you to read it there.
Here is a direct link: http://www.strevival.com/2014/07/22/gian-recital-2014-final-fight-by-fudd/
**Gian Recital 2014: Final Fight **
(as told by Fudd)
“Mucus? Eugh.”
-Jcole, Casino Cup 2011 (while reading moocus’ name on the bracket)
source: damdai
“So much of this game is just timing.”
-moocus, circa 2013
I wasn’t feeling too well and my condition didn’t fully blossom until I got on the plane. While I was on the plane, my ears went out of balance and didn’t rebalance until maybe a few weeks later. As unfortunate as the timing for was for my health, the circumstances were good enough to go to Japan for the last Gian Recital. I only had enough time for about two full days in Japan. The plane ticket was more expensive due to the popularity of Buddha’s birthday, or Golden Week as some refer to it. I departed from Seoul instead of Busan and arrived at night instead of the afternoon. I had a difficult time finding my capsule hotel since it seemed to be directly in between two subway stations, so I wasn’t sure which one to go to. But, I had soldiered on and eventually found my bed (which included a walk-in closet, a new experience for me as far as capsule hotels are concerned).
I arrived fairly early in the day just to scope out the situation first, maybe even warm up a little. I was welcomed by the sight of something I had only seen in a picture and was so awestruck by its beauty that I had to take my own picture, finally having seen the real thing for myself.
I climbed up the stairs to find some players on the four isolated H2H stations in the back and most of the other ST cabs unoccupied. According to XSPR, X-MANIA even has one or two more stations than the Gian Recital!
Shu-san walked in not long after I did and after exchanging pleasantries, I told him I would step out for lunch since there weren’t too many people around just yet. Lunch also gave me a time slot to contact Mr. Bob, who was almost too busy for the event but also lucked out with fortunate timing that weekend. There were certainly more people at Mikado by the time I returned and as the hours passed, I would get to re-experience the crowdedness of an ST event, but to an even greater extreme than the New Year’s event.
Before the Recital even started, I told Mr. Bob: “If I could choose any day to be ‘Groundhog Day,’ it would be today.” Even though I was producing an overabundance of phlegm and felt less-than 100%, it would be any ST player’s dream to relive such a day, such an opportunity, into infinity. It was like how Faka described the honor of teaming up with DGV at EVO2013 for the ST Games, “It was like the make-a-wish of ST.” Except this time I’m in the deathbed of the terminally ill child. Tell me, when was the last time you were standing around, watching Komoda work his magic and watched other big names clash with just-as-big names with KKY casually coming upstairs behind you? Or looked to the left of you to see Muteki two cabs down and Ohnuki two cabs to the right of you, waiting for a new challenger, Nakamura?
I shared with Shu-san how I was feeling starstruck and “doki doki” because of all the celebrities. I was seeing so many stars I must have been dizzy. It would actually be easier for me to list the players who were absent rather than those who were present. Kusumondo and Seki (perhaps he’s already retired?) were nowhere to be found and Hakase (who XSPR might address as the muthafuckin’ D.O.C.) made his appearance right after the tournament ended. Just about everyone else I can think of was there in the flesh.
I saw the twins — Aniken and Otochun — for the first time and I thought I remembered Muffinman saying something about Aniken speaking English. I asked Shu-san about that and he wasn’t sure, but said it was worth a shot. So, I walked up to Aniken and gave my canned Japanese introduction. When I mentioned that I was from America, he lost his shit. Aniken straight up hugged me: a complete stranger. Looking back, it was kind of a spiritual experience. The man spoke no English, but was exceedingly friendly and made an observable effort to remember my name for Facebook purposes. He even offered me the chance to play when a spot opened up on the game we were spectating, but I didn’t have the right coin on me so I let him sit down. That man has some serious love for ST. I could hear it in the heavy, meaty, sumo-like claps he was doing to cheer his team on later when the tourney was finishing up.
Watching Muteki and Kurahashi go head-to-head is never boring and is an even greater spectacle in real life. One of those notes I took says that Muteki punished a tatsu with cl. st. fierce xx flash kick. Most people have a hard time punishing tatsu with cr. fierce, if at all. I played a game or two against Kurahashi and ALMOST made a corner comeback to win a round, but he clutched it out.
I saw Sasori and Pony wearing earplugs (even during warm-up games). MAO was wearing the same exact shirt he wore at the Tournament of Legends (which kind of makes me feel a little less weird for having a “tournament shirt”). I played a few DJ mirrors with Ito and got fuckingdoubleperfectedWRECKED on the first game, not doing much better afterwards.
As strange as this may sound, a big and satisfying smile forms on my face when I can’t outwit yaya. There’s never a moment when he’s not doing something smart and/or tricky. But even just getting the tiniest win on a crafty play makes the smile so big my face muscles start to hurt.
I tried my DJ on yuuvega and he ate me up with throw tricks (instead of xup ToDs this time). What he would do after I softened a throw was mix up cr. short whiffing and ticking along with varied spacing. It’s surprisingly a lot to process if you’re not used to it and it goes by very quickly to catch you off-guard. Maybe I didn’t do all that badly though since he looked over the cab to see his opponent after I stood up to walk away after losing.
I had the honor of meeting my favorite Dee Jay player, Yuuzuru. First, I asked Shu-san if Yuuzuru was at the event and Shu said he saw him earlier, but couldn’t locate him amidst the sea of people. Then, I asked XSPR about Yuuzuru and XSPR said he would introduce me if the chance presented itself. I think it took a couple hours for him to be out in the open, but XSPR finally helped me in telling Yuuzuru that he had killer combos. XSPR and Yuuzuru actually have a bit of history and they used to play against each other a lot when XSPR lived in a different part of Japan.
A bit more trivia: Yuuzuru uses the wine glass grip.
I played some DJ mirrors with him on the loudest cab near the end of the tournament and it was even louder to one of my sensitive ears. But it’s not every day you get to play with your idol. I was pleasantly surprised and impressed when XSPR translated my compliment of Yuuzuru’s combo proficiency into a response explaining that most of his combos are made-up on the fly.
I made the most out of this opportunity by secretly recording his hands during casuals for a little bit. I also have some footage of a certain “invincible” player’s hands. XSPR kindly reminded me that photographic privacy is kind of a big deal in Japan and it’s frowned upon/poor tact/…illegal(?) to take publish/take pictures of a person without their consent. This is why you’ll often see black bars over eyes on pictures of people sometimes. It’s for privacy.
http://youtu.be/2ay2Qz1TErQ
http://youtu.be/Mf6v7YEZ8Z0
Lastly, I saw the black Zangief player I just couldn’t beat during my first visit and asked XSPR to identify him. XSPR stumbled with remembering the name, but I discovered that the unbeatable black Zangief was actually ToMo F (TMF). This was before TMF was announced for EVO and I was happy to see his name appear one day for XMANIA USA/ToL2. I knew about him before I even played him and now that I have played him (albeit unknowingly) I have a ton of respect for how polished his game is. I feel so much satisfied frustration at losing to TMF and yaya that I consider them to be rivals/players to gun for.
A brief aside, I also told Mr. Bob that I wanted him to take a picture of me hugging a ST cabinet at Mikado later. Due to having too much awesome packed into one day, the photo opportunity totally slipped my mind and I had to have the picture taken the following day at Mr. Bob’s house with his own cabinet. In a moment of hilarity and embarrassment, right before Bob snapped the first picture, his wife saw me from down the hall and said, “Nan de…?”
Mr. Bob: laughs “He’s even more hentai than I am.”
During one of my trips downstairs to get some fresh air / coughing room / hawk a fat loogey, I saw a shmup I practically never see anymore and didn’t see upon my previous trip to Mikado.
I’m pretty obsessed with Area 88, so this was icing on the cake of a Capcomriffic day for me.
Now that I’ve discussed the players who were there, you might see why I have such little to say about the actual tournament. XSPR teamed up with some people he knew/arranged a team with and I ended up on a team with Mr. Bob and other free agents. Mr. Bob said he recognized at least one of them to be a pretty good Guile player, although I didn’t really know any of our teammates. Aside from the Guile, there was a somewhat low-level DJ player and a N. Ryu player that tended to anchor for us. XSPR’s team wasn’t doing so well on their first encounter, but XSPR managed to at least put a dent into some of the team, threatening a reverse OCV before going to the loser’s bracket. I think all three of us were surprised there even was a loser’s bracket, but it gave everyone more opportunities to play, so no complaints there.
When we had to play our first opponents, Mr. Bob pointed out that it was Muteki’s team. We never even had a chance to play against him though since there was another Guile player on the team who pulled a lot of weight for them not once, but later on again when we met via double jeopardy. It was a long wait in-between playtimes due to the 5v5 format and the high number of teams. When we had our second opponents, Mr. Bob guessed that they weren’t very good since he didn’t recognize them. His instinct was right since I volunteered to go first and no one else on my team had to play.
You can find some footage of Mr. Bob and I playing at the 2014 Gian Recital on his YouTube channel
The Guile player on our team said something about “Akihabara” while I was playing, so maybe they were a gang of scrubs from Akiba. Yeah, I OCV’ed a team of Japanese players, but it wasn’t rewarding since they weren’t very skilled. The big (joke) claim to something that’s actually small reminded of the 2010 USA SBO Qualifier. zerodotjander was able to accurately say he placed Top 8 in an SBO Qual (I think there were only 7 or 9 players, something like that).
After the event ended, I left Mikado with Mr. Bob and XSPR to chat over dinner at a pricey (but open) pizza joint about the future of ST and living overseas — comparing Korea to Japan. Infrastructure, for one, is a huge difference between the two countries.
My physical body was feeling slightly sick, but I was feeling the Holy ST Spirit that day!
Great read and I’m Mad jelly. I still haven’t played a game of ST at the holy land yet.
whose hands are those? the invincible player is muteki? But he’s playing DJ.
Nice log. I’m surprised Fudd that you consider Yuuzuru to be your DJ idol - my impression was that the ‘hierarchy’ of DJ players in Japan was something like:
Ito >= Seki >>> (all other DJ players)
Ito is highly regarded since he’s one of only a few players in Japan who can go toe-to-toe with MAO, along with guys like Futachan and Shiki. Although Yuuzuru is no slouch, I’d put him a tier below Ito.
Ito beat me to a bloody pulp and showed me why he’s considered the top DJ in Japan, but I just like Yuuzuru’s combos the best. As you said, he’s my DJ idol. Everyone else can worship at the Ito shrine, but I want dem killer comboz.
If you ask moocus who his favorite Ken player is, he won’t say Aniken or Mattsun, he will tell you Choshu. Let the underdog fanboys have their say.
Pap: I think the invincible one was playing against Yuuzuru while I was recording 
Hey Fudd, why do you like Area 88/UN Squadron so much?