As promised yesterday, I got that comparison video pulled together. Had to subscribe to Creative Cloud for After Effects to make it happen, but now I have more of a compulsory reason to do video stuff since I'm stuck to it for a year. Still, $20/mo for professional video software isn't terrible.
But enough rambling, here's the video. I apologize for the ending. It's just a thing.
There was really only one thing on my "must buy" list going into Japan, and that was the Japanese Super Nintendo, or Super Famicom. I don't know if it's been said on this blog, but I love the shit out of Ninty's 16-bit era. So much goodness packed into such small computing power. None of this generic brown and grey shooter bullshit, just unadulterated awesomeness.
Three out of the four are rebuys, but the amount of money spent was small comparing to their American counterparts. The most I paid for any of these was $21 and that was Yoshi's Island. FFVI, which generally runs for $25-$80 used in the States, I got for a cool $12, box and all. Good times fo sho.
If my After Effects stops crashing, I pulled together a shitty video showing the differences between the American and Japanese release of the same-games I have, so that'll probably be up tomorrow. It's interesting stuff, really.
So - yes, I am opening up my blog post with "so" - we were bumming around Akiba (day 2) and meandering through yet another 7 story nerd shop. We happened to be on one of the manga floors when some older Japanese dude walks up to us. Now, at this point I'm kind of freaking out because I'm expecting huge language barrier and having to blow him off as rudelessly as I can. But, he starts speaking in what is more than passable English, asking us how we're enjoying things and, the odd bit, if we wouldn't mind being filmed for a promotional video for his company.
Well, fuck. This just doesn't happen every day, less so when you're in a foreign country.
We agreed to act out a little bit of being in the shop, being interested in things, and bullshitting the worst dialog ever. I assumed that our "dialog" scene was going to be B-roll (without asking, stupidly) and just said random shit. After that, he asked Chris and I a couple questions then handed us his card with instructions to email him with our contact info so he could give us some stills of the shoot. Below are the shots he provided. The funny thing I just realized that all the file names were titled with アメリカ人若者, or "American youth" (as google translates it, all I was able to read was "American").
There should be a post before this talking about how we walked to Odaiba via the Rainbow Bridge, but that'll be sometime later. As for today, here is the picture log of our trip there.
...or six. We actually went there every night of the trip, including the night we flew in. It was a little over a mile walk to, but was interesting enough that we would cap every day off with it. It helped that there was a Taito Game Station in the area as well as a restaurant that we frequented a couple times.
The actual shrine itself is more newly built, being made of modern materials; that's probably because we fire bombed the shit out of Tokyo way back when. It's mildly disappointing, but still unusual in form by Western standards. Also, this place was chock full of tourists, both other Japanese natives and foreigners. This place was always packed. Of course, there's a shopping arcade setup along the strip to catch the likes of these people, though it was surprisingly short on non-sweets food stalls, a fact that I always lamented.
But, enough of my banter, you want pictures and pictures I shall provide.
