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.

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As I plan on being drunk tonight ushering a coworker off to other pastures, I will pen something not about Japan because I don't have access to my photo stores. So, instead, I'll review a movie I watched on the flight back, namely Oz the Great and Powerful.

Set as a prequel to the original Oz story line, this movie sets about trying to fill in how the titular "Wizard" came to his position. And, for that, it's mostly satisfying. They do an alright job of brings all the ends together into a mostly believable state to go into the original 1939 movie.

It's a pity that pretty much everything else about the movies sucks.

First of all is the gratuitous use of shitty ass CGI. I was watching this movie embedded into the back of an airplane seat on a shitty LCD and it still looked shitty. The biggest offense was during wide shots that involved characters running over some sort of terrain, weaving in and out of being actual humans and digital doubles. The movement of the latter was so unbelievably bad that I had to make sure that I was still in the year 2013 and not ten years prior. Basically anytime there was a human interacting with something digital, it was bad; actors obviously interacting with nothing, sketchy physics, and bad matte paintings. For a movie made on the budget that this had and as late in the CGI game as we are, this is all very disheartening.

Next up on the bitch list was the stupid tie ins to the original movie. The opening of the film is all black and white and then converts to color (and WIDESCREEN) once Oz comes into the picture. Perhaps Kansas is really black and white. I'll have to go there again sometime. The cowardly lion (kind of) makes an appearance? The poppy field is used as a major plot device at approximately the same point in the movie and, finally, the wizard doles out the goods, as it were, to all the wayward adventurers, imparting upon them his words of wisdom... words which he should not be imparting because he's a self-absorbed, playboy asshole.

Finally, and most importantly, are the characters and the actors' portrayal of them. As previously stated, Oz (James Franco) is a conman and an asshole and never really does anything to redeem himself of these labels. If anything, by the end, these are reinforced and encouraged. Franco's portrayal is fine for the character, and I had no issues with it.

No, the really fucked up character was the one portrayed by Mila Kunis, the would be Wicked Witch of the West. Or, as she's portrayed in this film, the Naughty Stripper Witch of the West. The character is all over the place in terms of personality. At first she seems pretty reasonable and then suddenly goes angsty teenager on super 'roids. There was no real, solid reason for this change. It just happened. Suddenly, Kunis is screaming everything in the most annoying way imaginable making her an absolutely despicable character, but not in a good way. She deserves at least one Razzie for this performance, also the guys who wrote the dialog.

Even still, despite it's glaring flaws, it managed to entertain me for a couple hours on my long flight back, and for that I'll give it...

2/5 stars