Game Chariot G3 ranbats

After work on Friday I headed for Tokyo as usual. When I arrived at Takasaki to transfer trains I ran into Amy, another one of the ALTs who lives in my town. We talked for a bit on the train about various things like work and stuff. She also told me about how she was just chilling out on her couch like last week or something and she felt something tickle her leg. She looks down to find a big nasty mukade sitting on her leg. For those of you who don't know, a mukade is an ugly ass centepede about the size of a finger, and they are poisonous. They are found everywhere in Japan. She showed me a picture of it on her camera and it was pretty nasty. Luckely for her she didn't get stung. I have been fortunate enough to not have seen one... yet... but I live on the second floor of my building so the chances of seeing one in my apartment are much more rare compared to Amy who was on the first floor of her place.

So eventually I arrive at Akihabara and we parted ways since she was on her way to visit her boyfriend in Yokohama. I arrived at Club Sega and played casuals for a while. Machaboo was there and I played him twice, won a round each time but didnt beat him. I played various other people, at one point I had like 15 wins or something in a row. Eventually it got a bit dead so I headed to Shinjuku to go drinking at current.

Not a whole lot of regulars were there, but in the back by the tables area the place was packed with gaijin. I was quite surprised since usually im the only foreigner there aside from maybe one or sometimes 2 other people. There were probably about 25 gaijin. The DJ was playing a lot of crappy music, I guess because he felt it would cater to the gaijin's tastes since they didnt look very "metal", but I think he was mistaken since this one French chick told me she was into black metal. So since the music was pretty shitty I decided to just go to GODZ after I had a few beers at Current. I arrived at GODZ and I ran into the guy who drank with me and Chip and Maiyuko in Roppingi 2 weeks ago and who drank with me and Masami and the 2 Swedish people at GODZ and PSY last weekend. His name is Yago. He was there by himself but he was sitting with these 2 other chicks at the bar. I said hi to him and then sat at a table since the bar was full. They played a lot of great music there that night so I didnt mind going there for a change of pace. I got a beer and was chilling and then one of the girls he was sitting with started looking at me and smiled so I figured id just go talk to them. We chatted for a bit, just random small talk about stuff. She told me she was going to move to England to visit her brother next week and would stay for a few months. Eventually the other girl was like falling asleep at the bar and so was Yago. About 10 minutes before the bar was about to close I decided to head out since I wanted to wake up the next day with enough time to make it to Chiba. I said goodbye to them and headed to the ussual manga cafe.

I woke up, got some breakfast (more like lunch but whatever), and took about an hour train ride to Chiba. Today would be the G3 (Guilty Gear Generations cup) ranbats tournament at Game Chariot, the same Game Chariot where Kaqn works and where I went last time. When I arrived at the arcade there were a lot of players playing casuals. I once again talked to a few people before the tournament who asked where im from and as ussual they were very shocked to hear I came all the way from Gunma, espessially since its over a 4 hour train ride from Game Chariot. He asked why I came all the way to Chiba since there was a tournament at Shinjuku sportsland going on today as well. I had no idea about it since it wasnt in the back of Arcadia and didnt hear about it from anyone. Though it would have been much more convenient to go to the other tournament, I dont regret going to Game Chariot since its nice to switch it up, and Game Chariot is the shit and there were lots of good players so it was worth coming out. Isa was there and I played his Eddie a few times and was able to get a few rounds but couldnt beat him. He stayed on the machine till the tournament started and I think he had like 30 wins or something by the time it was ready to start. The brackets were made by this one sexy Millia player. She was cosplaying as Millia in her red costume. Kaqn was pimped out in a suit. He ran the tournament so he wasnt able to play. This tournament was single elim and there were a lot of players. Standard bracket with the standard Japanese tournament rules. My first match was against an Eddie player named Ore. I asked one of the guys I was talking to earlier if Ore was good, he told me he wasnt famous so he wasnt sure. Before the match Kaqn had announced that I had come all the way from Gunma and that I was an English teacher and stuff. So the match begins. I win the first round fairly well. 2nd round he gets an early lead on me, I was pinned down by usual Eddie BS and got hit with a huge combo for big damage. I had about one hit worth of life left. I stuck in there and made a huge come back and eventually got him into the corner and finished him off with a well placed forward hardslash. People were like clapping and stuff after I won. So then I chilled for a bit. My next match would be vs a Millia player named Maseki. I asked the same guy about Maseki and if he was good. He told me it would be a tough match and wished me goodluck. The match begins and the first round was super close but I pulled ahead and took round 1. Round 2 was also very close but I lost. Round 3 was going well for a but eventually I got put in the corner and just couldnt block all the Millia mixup. After the match the guy shook my hand and said it was a good match and that I played well. I went and played casuals for a long time after I lost. Eventually the tournament ended and Isa ended up winning with his Eddie, which was absoloutly no surprise to me given how he was beasting before the tournament started. I stuck around for a few more hours and played casuals some more. I got really hungry so I asked Kaqn if there was a good resturaunt in the area, he took me outside and pointed me to a good place, so I thanked him and got some food and then went back to Game Chariot for more games. I noticed the female Millia player was now dressed in her normal clothes again, I was disapointed because I wanted to get a picture of her in her costume since it was very well made, but I was waiting because I didnt want to bug her while she was helping run the tournament, guess I waited to long.. bummer. I did play her a bit though and her Millia was really good, I beat her lots of times and she beat me a few as well. She played the same red color Millia too which was cool. At one point I had a small win streak of about 10 wins but it was vs this fucking onslaught of Axl players. I have no idea where they came from but there were like 4 different Axls that just kept playing me over and over. I ussually dont do so fantastic against Axl so getting all those wins vs Axl felt kinda good. I eventually lost in a really close match. I stuck around and played some more. I was in the middle of another long win streak. Eventually it started to get dead sorta, it was taking a long time for someone to play me. There was this one female Ky player who was standing around so I asked her to play me. She played me for about 3 matches and then came around to the other side and said I was very strong and thanked me for the matches. I played a few more against this one Jam player who was quite determined to beat me. In the end it was getting late and I wanted to head back to Shinjuku before the trains stopped so I went around and told the Jam player to not put another credit into the machine because I was leaving. I left the arcade with a 30 win streak still on the machine.

After a little over an hour train ride back I eventually arrived in Shinjuku. I went back to Current again and this time it was full of regulars. I felt like getting wasted so I was pounding beers pretty fast. I think I had like 4 beers in the first hour after I arrived. I talked with various people for a bit and had a great time, this time they played plenty of great music. Eventually after closing I went with Chip and Maiyuko to Roppongi again and we had another beer at Geronimo shot bar. Then I headed back to Shinjuku for some sleep at the usual place.

Next day I woke up pretty late at around 1:30 pm. There was not tournament today so I decided to just go to Akihabara, for casuals of course, but mostly because I needed to do some Xmas shopping. On the way to Akihabara I stopped at Ochanomizu Disk Union and picked up an AC/DC patch that im gonna put on a cheap plain black hoodie I got for 1000 yen at the store in my town. I got to Akihabara and went into tons of different shops. Ussually I just go right to Club Sega since its right accross from the station, so there are many places in Akihabara I still hadnt even seen yet. I went into a few random electronics stores. I also went into this awsome store called Aso Bit City. It was full of anime and game merchandise. It was like 5 floors and each floor had different stuff on it, the top floor was all cosplay costumes haha. One of the floors was playing the FFIV soundtrack which was pretty sweet. I picked up a few souvineers for my friends back home. I also found this awsome store called Super Potato. This place was just straight up top tier. Probably the coolest game store ive ever been in. They had everything from the oldest of the oldschool to new stuff. They had tons of rare shit like virtual boy and sega nomad. They also had tons of game merchandise and stuff ive never even seen before. There were TVs all over with classic consoles hooked up that you could just go ahead and play. The place was 3 floors, the first 2 had tons of game and merchandise. The 3rd floor was an old school retro arcade. It had all old classic games and there was a chair made completely out of famicom cartridges glued together as well as a lifesize statue of Solid Snake (I took pictures of both). I picked up a few more things for people at this place too and then headed out. The KFC in the area has a large statue of Colonel Sanders but they put a Santa suit on him, it looked pretty sweet so I took a pic of it as well. I went to a few more stores but after about 4 hours of shopping the urge to play casuals grew too strong and I gave into my GG addiction and headed back to Club Sega. Place was packed as ussual and I got a lot of games in. I ended up with another 20 something win streak at one point as well and once again left the arcade with the streak still on the machine. I would have played longer but I had to head back to catch the last train. Thats about it. Next weekend will be my last weekend in Japan until next year. The following weekend I will be taking a flight back to Chicago to visit my family and friends for about 2 weeks. There will be 2 tournaments next weekend, one at Las Vegas and one in at Club Sega Akihabara. I also have more Xmas shopping to do so it should be a busy weekend.