oh god
it's true, all japanese people are good at street fighter
i'm 1-9. lost like 4 times to a pretty good akuma player (i kept eating crossup tatsu for some reason), got frustrated and left, went to another arcade and beat some average akuma player, and then i lost 5 times to who i am convinced was kiryu whatshisface. :( at least i got a cool SSF4 player card!
went to harajuku first today, it's a lot like korea's myungdong (i doubt anyone has heard of that place), but smaller and with more black dudes trying to pull you into weird places. it was cool, but since i'm not really into japanese fashion and most of the stuff they had was clothes, i didn't really spend too much time there. they have some hilarious comedy shirts, but they're like $30 a pop. ate at the mcdonalds there and finally got my ebi burger. tbh it just tastes like a slightly less fishy filet-o fish. also it was like $8 for the combo with no refills.
AKB48 is stupid huge here. there are cafes devoted entirely to them and everything. holy crap.
went to akihabara next. it wasn't as nerdy as i had expected, but still had maids all over the place (on a tuesday afternoon, i wonder what this place is like on the weekends). found a cool place with a bunch of retro games, almost bought my cousin a copy of Super Star Wars with the box and everything for 2600 yen (about $35) but decided eff that i'm poor and got him a tiny boba fett figurine for like $10. they also had FF4-6, smrpg, chrono trigger all boxed and with manuals (used) for $20-30, many of which i was tempted to buy just for the sake of owning them.
walked around, checked out a few arcades (played the table flipping game! ahahaha), lost a bunch at street fighter, went into like ALL of the model/figurine shops. those places have so much cool stuff. i'm not really into anime these days, but maaaaaan i wish i had money. took a bunch of pictures even though i wasn't supposed to, i'll probably post them up later.
my favorite store was probably the Kotobukiya store. They're the guys that make all those cool figurines of anime, VG, and comic characters. 5 floors dedicated to their own products, it was like nerd heaven. they even had some dynasty warriors stuff, which is strangely the thing i was most hyped for (anime, manga, and video games are all cool...until you realize you can't understand or read any of it); they had DW7 nendroids (big head figures), and i really wanted the zhen ji one, but they were all out of stock. :/
they had a cool display at the top floor of a bunch of super detailed star wars stuff, i took a ton of pictures of that. then we finished with dinner at some pretty delicious noodle place. not sure what i had is called, suika? or something
transportation is really expensive here, it was like $10 to get from chiba to here and another $10 to get back. but i'm finally back at my brother's dorm and i'm ready to ktfo.
pics soon i guess
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XS2 is the only good Xenosaga game - Lady Ashe