Victory at Game Chariot!

This week I was able to leave work at the usual time so I headed for Akihabara for casuals. Nemo came up to me and said hi and then played me for a few matches, I lost. His Testament is seriously getting way better, pretty soon hes gonna be rivaling Shounen. Ogawa was there too, I played him once and lost. In general though I did well against most other people, had a few smaller win streaks like 11 wins or something. After it started to die down I headed for Shinjuku.

I arrived at Current fairly late, maybe around 1 am. The place was pretty dead, only a few people from Cirque de Soleil were there. I had 2 beers and then decided that I wanted to try somewhere else so after talking with Mogi and Sushi for a bit I headed over to GODZ. Unfortunetly GODZ was even worse with a grand total of 2 people besides me in the whole bar, one of them being the owner haha. As soon as I walked in they threw on a bunch of Symphony X cuz they know its my favorite so I stayed for one beer and talked with them briefly. After that I figured I would give PSY a try. Fortunately PSY was much better off and was fairly packed (about as packed as it can get seeing as how its very small). Heidi (Masami's friend from Norway) was there. I sat next to her and we talked for a few hours about various things. I lost track of time and it was already 5:30 so I said bye and went to sleep at the usual spot. I didnt wanna stay up later because I would be going to a tournament in Chiba at Game Chariot the next day.

As soon as I woke up I headed straight for the train station. It took about an hour and a half due to the train schedule sucking once you get far into Chiba but eventually I made it to Game Chariot. I didnt write the start time for the tournament down in my planner book so I wasnt sure if I was gonna make it on time but luckely I got there 45 mins before the tournament started. It was a 3 on 3 team tournament so I just signed up alone and they later paired me with2 other people. I began to play some casuals and had about 8 wins and then I eventually lost in a close match to an ABA player that I had beaten before who rematched me. Then I got on another machine and played against another Faust player and beat him. He then came up to me and shook my hand saying my Faust was good and that we are on the same team. Turns out they allowed same characters on the same team. Our other team mate turned out to be the ABA player. The Faust was named Ojima and the ABA was named Reo. The tournament had 18 people enter so there were 6 teams. Everyone in the tournament seemed to be local Chiba players, I guess not a lot of Tokyo players felt like traveling so far since this wasnt a major or anything. They divided the tournament into 2 round robin pools and the finals would be the winner of each pool. We were in pool B. I watched all the matches in pool A and the winning team was DI, ED, and KY. Then it was our turn to start our pool. We went first against a team of KY SL and MA. I went first for my team. The Ky player won the first round. The 2nd round I was losing but I told myself to not lose cuz I knew I could totally beat this guy so I just played super patient and after a long time of full screen fireball dodging and item throwing I eventually closed my way in and came back to take the 2nd round. I then proceeded to win the 3rd round. Up next was SL. This guy had a pretty good Slayer but not good enough so I beat him too. Finally I was to play MA and since I hate fighting May I was a bit weary but I just played the matchup as best I could and actually won both rounds, resulting in an OCV. Up next we were to fight a team of AX SO and KY. This time Ojima wanted to go first, they told me to go last cuz they wanted a chance to play haha. Ojima actually ended up OCVing this team resulting in our teams 2nd OCV. Then it was the other 2 teams turn to fight eachother and the KY player from the first team we fought OCVed the 2nd team. The finals were now to be our team vs DI, ED, KY. We won RPS so they selected DI first. I told them I could handle Dizzy so they said it was ok to go first. I beat Dizzy 2-0. Up next was Eddie. I was winning the 1st round and then he came back with a pixel and I lost. I then proceeded to win the 2nd and 3rd rounds. Final match was me vs KY. I beat him 2-0 and the tournament came to and end resulting in our teams 3rd OCV. So our team OCVed our way through the tournament with a perfect showing and our poor ABA player didnt even get to play at all. After the tournament I stayed for a bit and played a lot of casuals, winning about 95% of my matches. Ojima was talking with me about Faust strats and asked to exchange email so we could talk again sometime. Eventually Ojima and Ryokun left. Shortly after I left as well since it was getting dead.

I waited for the train for a while but it eventually showed up. Then I arrived at Chiba station and when I was transfering trains I randomly ran into my team again. I took the opportunity to take a victory photo of us together that I will upload later. I said goodbye and then proceeded to head back to Tokyo. I arrived in Akhabara and stayed for more casuals. Ogawa was there again with a few other various good players and the place was packed. I later recieved an email from my friend Liz. She went to another concert in Tokyo again so she wanted to know if I wanted to go drinking with her for a bit. This time she had a hotel room though so she needed to take the last train back. I told her id meet her at 10:30 at Shinjuku station. I left Akihabara around 10 and was on time to meet Liz. This time she didnt get lost which was great.

We walked to Current and drank for about an hour and a half and then she had to go. This time the bar was pretty full. Eventually this older woman came up to me and was totally hitting on me. She asked how old I was and I told her and then she said she was 40. Then she like asked me the same question again like 10 mins later, it became pretty appearant that this chick was already drunk and probly had a lot of drinks before coming here. This was later confirmed when she proceeded to ask my age a 3rd time... Then she like went back to talk with one of the people she came with and then I noticed out of the corner of my eye that she was dancing by herself behind me and sorta seemed like she was trying to get my attention. I just ignored her cuz I wasnt realy interseted in dancing with some wasted 40 year old chick. Eventually she left with her group, I cant say I was saddened by it. Eventually after a while Chip showed up with Sawa. We hung out and talked for the rest of the night. They were asking why Liz wasnt here and I told them she already had to leave. They were dissapointed. At one point a huge group of like 13 people come rolling in and sit in the tables at the back. Eventually I guess one of the guys was wasted or getting roudy because they turned the music off and turned the lights on and pretty much kicked the guy out of the bar and made all his friends leave with him. I realy honestly have no idea what happened but I guess he was harassing someone else in a different group of people. The other group of people left too cuz I guess it sorta ruined their night. In any case I didnt really noticed what happened cuz I was at the bar but after they left they turned the music back on. This was the first time ive seen this happen. I onced asked Sushi and he told me that out of the 7 or so years that Current has been around, there has never been a fight inside the bar which is nice to know. Eventually it was closing time so I said goodbye to everyone and stumbled back to the Manga cafe. I was pretty wasted since I was drinking since like 10:30 and had more beer than I usually do.

The next morning I woke up with a slight hangover, the head was hurting kinda bad. After taking a few headache pills I felt better. I decided to head over to Club Sega Shinjuku to visit MIU and see how he was doing. He was surprised to see me there since there was no events going on. I talked with him about various things. I asked him who his SBO team was and he said some testament and baiken players but I forgot their names. I asked him if he knew where to find the tournament schedule for the qualifiers and he told me it was in this months Arcadia. He showed me what page it was on, I didnt notice it when I briefly skimmed the magazine when I first got it. I also asked him what his opinions on BlazBlue and SFIV were. He thinks BlazBlue is gonna be a good game and he says right now SFIV just seems sorta average. I also asked him if he heard the news about GGAC not being a main event at evo. He says he still plans to go and he said that some other Japanese players will still go like MINT and Yosaan. This may be a good reason to still throw a good side tournament. After a while I said bye and headed for Akihabara to spend the rest of the day playing casuals.

Various top players were there. I beat Zero and Osaka B. I played Ogawa a few times and I played 012 but I lost. Basara was there too. He said that now due to the fact that hes not sure about his schedule after 4/20 he is not sure what is going to happen with SBO quals so he decided to break up the team. I honestly have no idea if this is the real reason or not but the bottom line is were not teaming up anymore it seems. Since HH hasnt responded to my email yet I am currently without a team. After a while it was getting late and I was tired as hell and didnt feel like playing anymore so I had no problem going home. I dont know what I am gonna do for my SBO team now, I guess ill just have to see what happens. Next weekend theres a tournament at Alpha Station near Shin Okubo. Ill be sure to go to that one as well.