Today we went to Unreal Fest! It was super cool even though I couldn’t really experience most of the activities since it was mostly lectures in Japanese. There was a room with game demos set up that was really cool. I played a bunch of puzzle games, this really interesting mecha movement-based action game, and a super fun soulslike that I really liked. There were a lot of games there that I didn’t end up playing because they didn’t look particularly interesting to me, but still cool nonetheless. There was also a lot of tech demo stuff for random systems or software that I didn’t understand because it was in japanese.
After Unreal Fest we had a break for lunch before heading to CyberConnect 2! I ate at this hole-in-the-wall soba place that was pretty good, but I started getting a stomache ache so I didn’t finish most of my food :(. After we regrouped we took a train over to CyberConnect 2’s Tokyo studio. We had a bit of a lecture about what CyberConnect 2 is, the games they’ve made, and how they run things. Then we got a tour of their studio which was really cool to see. They have a really casual workplace that has a staff room full of free games and manga to rent for research, which actually makes sense since they primarily make anime fighting games (such as the Demon Slayer, Naruto, and Jojo’s games). Their studio was really cool.
After CyberConnect2 we could do whatever we really wanted for the rest of the day. So a few of us went back to Akihabara to find someplace to eat. We tried going to this steak place that was supposed to be really good, but it ended up being too crowded. After that place was a bust we walked around for a little bit trying to find a new place to eat. Eventually we decided on this place that was supposed to be like Japanese Olive Garden. It had steaks, burgers, pizza, garlic break, and the like. I got a little pizza and some garlic bread which was pretty good. Then we trudged back to the hotel in the pouring rain and said goodbye to everyone we got dinner with. Then Vincent and I had to do laundry, which was quite troublesome during the typhoon. After the laundry dilemna we went to bed for the night. Last day in Japan :((.
Today was another great day, but also a bittersweet one, as it was our last full day together in Japan. We had two more events left to do, and then we would be officially done with our trip! I think the sky was also sad it was coming to a close, because it was a torrential downpour almost all day. There had been a Typhoon warning issued yesterday, and so the rains today were carry over from that.
Our first event was Unreal Fest, and once we arrived we realized what we were in for. It was a medium sized venue room, full of tables and chairs where game demos sat waiting to be playtested. It gave off sort of club fair vibes, but in a cool way, since it was full of games all developed in Unreal Engine. There were mech games, rythym games, and a section of almost 12 games all made during a local game jam! I played one where you take control of various marine creatures and swim around, taking in the ocean atmosphere, as well as another that was very similar to cut the rope, but with a bit more physics.
The talk had a lot of attendees!
There were also talks being held, and so me and a few friends attended one for Hi-Fi Rush! Unfortunately for us, it was entirely in Japanese with no translations or anything, so we mostly just watched the slides go by and tried our best to pick things up with Google Translate’s camera. It seemed interesting though, covering the technical obstacles and pipeline the team worked with to get the stylized art style working in real time.
Chai wished us a fond farewell after the talk.
After the talk, the fest broke for lunch, and so did we. A few of us went to this beef place nearby that let you cook the meat yourself, and it was delicious! I luckily got a whole staton and platter for myself, and man the food was good!
Niku!
Afterwards, we still had an hour before we needed to head to our second and last event of the day, so I did some last minute shopping at Bic Camera to use up some of the last of my yen. I bought Fire Emblem Engage and Pokémon Legends Arceus for about $80 total, whch for me was a steal!
After that, we all met up at the hotel to head out, but first, we had to say goodbye to Toshi-sensee, which was really sad. He had been with us pretty much the entire trip, serving as a translator, guide, and just a cool guy to talk with. We were all sad saying goodbye, and he gave a really touching farewell speech. Once we all said our farewells for now, we all headed on the subway to our last event; a studio tour of CyberConnect 2!
They’re the company that makes the 3D Naruto fighting games, as well as a plethora of other anime fighting games. They actually said that this was their specialty, which was cool. The office was smaller, but it wasn’t their main office; they have 3, and we were in the Tokyo one. They have two more in Montreal and Fukuoka, the latter of which is their main base and the biggest of the 3. I’m not sure how much I’m allowed to say about the visit, as we did have to sign an NDA, but I’ll try my best to describe what I can.
It was a pretty communal studio and space, and they had so much cool artwork and libraries of manga and anime for reference and study! They also have an animation team in house, which is really neat, and the library they keep serves as good reference for them. They were extremely nice, and honestly it was a really cool tour! There were employees in the office today as well, so we got to see them too. One member had a huge umbrella attachment at their desk that shielded their entire workspace, which was something I’d never seen before.
We got to take pictures in front of the logo in front of their studio!
Once the tour was over, we got a great group picture, and then we were let free. Unfortunately, there weren’t any dinner places that could fit a group of our size, so we had no more group events planned, and were on our own for dinner and whatnot. So we all headed back as the rain got even worse, and then split off for dinner. A few of us went to have rotating sushi, which worked out for me as I had been wanting to try it to see if the sushi was as good as people say, and also didn’t break the bank since I had only about 3000 yen left on me! I have to admit though, the sushi wasn’t all that great. Compared to the sushi we had when we arrived in Kyoto, this just couldn’t compare. The fish was a little too slimy and not as fresh, and many of the rolls just didn’t mesh well. It was still a good time though, and honestly it was nice to just share one last dinner with my friends in Japan!
One the last rolls I ordered, a well-packed seafood roll.
After that, we hit up an arcade for a bit, and then me and Pavel headed back to our room to finally start packing our stuff up in prep for our early morning flight tomorrow. Our group got together one last time though, and we finished watching the Dungeons & Dragons movie! It was a little sad, but also a lot of fun, and we all said our farewells there, since Pavel and I wouldn’t see the rest of them before we left.
After that, I finished up packing, and then went to bed in prep for our flight back!
today we awoke with two essential missions in mind: see the future museum and the teamlabs exhibition. but first, a side quest: see the big gundam.
the big gundam was the least interesting thing i have seen in my life but it was nice to see fabian excited. what came next though, was the mall behind the statue. me and megan split off due to a disinterest in getting real food and ended up trying mister donut due to liam’s glowing endorsement (mid btw). afterwards we encountered a donguri republic and as always i was legally obligated to make a purchase.
[he eats my coins.]
throughout this mall journey we mainly noticed how similar it was to malls from america. save for a few shops, the lineup was identical and the interior design was ripped straight from my mall at home. with the exception. of this one store called “wego.”
wego is, to put it conservatively, a clothing store that presents a surreal parody of american culture and the english language that is marketed unironically to japanese customers. it has 2 sectors, one “resells” “used” american college merch, (i do not believe for one second they are doing the digging to acquire that stuff, it’s most likely unsold stock, but it was labeled as “used” nonetheless) and the other makes original designs. and oh boy. as weird as it was to see a real demand for college t shirts that the buying demographic has never attended, those originals were something from a wormhole. reading these things was legitimately disorienting, each and every one of them spoke to an interest in projecting an experience that was neither authentic to its culture of origin or the experiences of the people it was supposed to be marketing to.
i want to clarify that i do not care in the slightest about “the sanctity of the english language” or “appropriating ‘american culture,'” it’s just that seeing it portrayed as aspirational in conjunction with a reverence for the worst parts of american consumerism was… weird. tshirts for t shirt’s sake i suppose. also reading so much of my first language written in a way that almost completely disregarded actual meaning was legitimately off-putting after some time, while i knew what the words meant the way they were being assembled was basically a foreign language. it was a land where any effort to make sense of my surroundings only further disoriented me. we came in for laughs, and they were had, but leaving that store was a bit of a relief.
[a microcosm of the greater horror. imagine a whole store with nothing but this. whatever you are thinking of right now, it was worse.]
after that we went to the Future Museum which sure had a lot to show. in an effort to avoid being a public hater as much as possible i will instead show my favorite part which was this note wall that was filled with book titles and quotes from children in a bunch of different languages.
[i love little note walls like this. you can tell when kids were told to write an answer to some bullshit “big question” and they just write anything to get it over with. or maybe i’m projecting. idk. i feel like when i was a kid i could tell when no one really cared about the questions being asked but if we didn’t take it 100% seriously we were doing something wrong.]
last part of the day was the teamlab planets exhibit. i mostly thought this was pretty cool. in the words of david (kcg guy of the day (long story)) it was whelmed. not over or under, pretty much just exactly what you would expect. i think for a place that is trying to provoke a feeling of immersion the lines could have been handled better, the whole “corral as many people as possible in a dark room” strategy doesn’t exactly inspire connection with art. it was mostly a few pretty rooms that looked cool in pictures that didn’t contain much to do or think about.
[oh my god i felt so bad for these flowers. many of them did not look well and they were getting run into and torn by attendants. i know plants can’t feel like we can but i wish people just had a bit more respect.]
the day ended with a group trip to a conveyor sushi restaurant. i was sitting with liam and skyler and we just had a ball. hot takes were had. liam would not stop going off about how the conveyor isn’t the same since the sushi licking incident of 85. we all had melon sorbet that was decidedly mid and i stole the container it came in. i loved going to restaurants with liam specifically during this trip because watching him navigate conversations with staff and reading menus was genuinely awe inspiring. watching the countless hours that had gone into learning the language get put to use never stopped being fascinating to watch. also i think i probably would have starved to death without him giving me the confidence to order food in multiple scenarios. owe that man my life fr.
[see the sushi came to us directly via the upper deck, and not the conveyor belt below where in theory anyone could take it. this was apparently a blight on the pure reputation of conveyor belt sushi.)
this was coming up on my last day with everyone and feeling bad about that was inevitable i think. but i don’t think now is the time to talk about that. i had a good day. i used as much time as i had to hang out with as many people as i could and while i feel like i would have liked more time i know i used all of the time i had to the fullest. alright. last one’s next and it’s gonna be the Big Sad. prepare yourselves >:2
