Tournament Hopping

I had no team lined up for this weekend so earlier in the week, I emailed everyone who I have teamed with before. ABEGEN replied saying he already had a team... and that was the only reply I got. Friday, on my way to Tokyo on the train, I got an email from Gin (Slayer Gin). He said he would be intrested in teaming up but we needed one more person. After a series of emails back and forth and not thinking of a better solution, I told him we could just show up and try to find one more person at the tournament. He didnt reply after that but I assumed he understood.

I went to Vegas for some Friday night casuals. Shortly after I arrived I tried calling Kyle to see what he was up to but he didnt answer his phone. First match I played, I came extremely close to beating Sharon's Baiken. After that I beat some Chipp but then lost to another Chipp. This lead to an 8 win streak in which I defeated May, Chipp, Johnny, ABA, and Axl players. Around this time, Hot Zappa and powerful female Dizzy arrived. Eventually my streak was ended by May but then I ended up getting another 6 win streak, 5 of which were against the same determined Sol player and one vs a Zappa. I then lost to HH's Dizzy in a very close game. There was a really good blue Johnny that kept trying to beat HH as well. I lost to HH twice more but then I defeated his Dizzy. I then played against a Sol player who had sort of an unorthadox style. While I was playing him, Matt tried calling me like 3 times or something so I was a bit distracted. I lost to him by a small ammount. I was surprised to look on the other side and see that it was Sharon playing Sol! I was like... fuck that im not gonna lose to Sharon's Sol, so I played him again and raped him pretty hard 3 rounds in a row. Then I was defeated by HH's Ky but rematched him and won. Then he came back at me with Dizzy and I lost, but I rematched him again and this time I beat his Dizzy 3 rounds straight. I then beat a Jam, lost to Sol, beat the Sol in a rematch, beat Jam 3 times in a row, raped some Eddie, raped the Jam again, and then it was getting late and people stopped playing against me so I took a leak and headed to Current.

BUT FIRST! On my way to Current, I saw something that was absoloutly AMAZING! McDonalds had a special going and had added Fillet-o-Fish sandwiches to their 100 yen menu! (Good thing Juicy G wasnt with me, cuz he would have probably had an orgasmic seizure at the mere thought of 100 yen Filet-o-fish, or he would have had a fucking heart attack from eating too many of them.) Without hesitation I slammed 3 of those motherfuckers down and chased them with a Redbull and was off to Current.

When I got to Current, Matt was already there, as well as several other regulars. It was pretty chill and not overly packed but there was a good ammount of people for fun times. Matt was still rocking his black fingernail polish haha! Megu was there with him as well. Once again, Megu had plans the next day to go travel to some far away places in Japan on the Shinkansen to see the same band (Dust and Bones) that she always seems to go travel around Japan to see. At some point, Chip showed up too. For most of the night, nothing extremely crazy or noteworthy happened. As it was getting near closing time, Chip said he had to go. I offered to buy him a shot of whiskey before he left. Matt said to get one for him and Megu too so I was like... sure why not. So I got all 4 of us a round of shots. About 30 seconds after we did our shots, Matt suddenly bolts for the bathroom door. Much to his dismay, the door was locked, and it resulted in him throwing up all over the floor in front of the bathroom. Sushi quickly cleaned it up and it was no big deal, but Matt seemed a bit embarrassed. Had I known he was already that drunk I wouldnt have bought him one. He only asked because he assumed I was buying a round for everyone when I offered one for Chip. A simple misunderstanding. Not really a huge deal. He had been drinking earlier in the day so I guess it finally caught up with him. Not long after that it was closing time so I said goodbye to everyone and headed out to get some sleep.

The next day I had 2 options. There was a tournament for the Tokyo C-3 block finals at Sega World Arcas. There was also the first preliminary to kick off the Kanagawa/Saitama B-7 block in Kanagawa at Oalo game center. I originally was planning to go to the one in Kangawa since I knew that the Tokyo one would be much harder since both Ogawa's team and FAB's team were both going to be playing in the finals. However, Gin said he wanted to go to the Tokyo tournament so I agreed to give it a shot. I got to the station and there were 2 players that recognized me and said hi. I asked them if they were heading to the tournament and they said yes, but that they didnt know exactly how to get there. I had a map that I had printed out in advance and showed them and they were pretty happy about that, so we walked there together. It wasnt very far from the station. I asked them if they had a full team for today and they said yes and that one more guy would be coming to join their team. However, one of the guys, an Axl player who goes by the handle Deno, said that he would like to team up with me sometime another weekend. I told him I would be glad to team with him sometime so we exchanged cellphone email. When I arrived at Sega World, they had 3 cabs set up for casuals, and there werent a ton of people there yet. I got there at about 12 and the tournament was to start at 1. Gin was not there yet. I emailed him to see where he was at and he replied saying that because of the fact that we only had a 2 person team, he decided to just stay home. WTF, thanks for telling me AN HOUR BEFORE THE TOURNAMENT dude... bogus. Anyway, I went to the desk to inquire about whether any 2 person teams had registered. Much to my surprise, Mugen was the guy working at the desk! I had no idea he worked at this game center. He said hi and stuff and told me that, unfortunately, there were no 2 man teams signed up yet, but he said to wait a bit and maybe someone would show up. I played like maybe only 2 games of casuals becuase lots of people started to show up and the wait to play was getting longer. Tons of big name players were there like Kaqn, Sharon, Kishitaka, Basara, Kazuki, Kifa, and others. In addition to them, Masutani was there! I said hello to him and asked him who his team was, and he acted surprisingly polite, said hello and gave me a nice clear answer without any awkward manerisms or rude attitude. He said he was teaming with some guys from Tachikawa. I wished him luck in the tournament. It was about 1 pm and I checked again with Mugen if any 2 man teams showed up, but he said that all the teams were full teams. It seemed like I would have to enter the tournament by myself if I wanted to play this one. The idea of OCVing my way through this entire prelim and then OCVing both Ogawa and FAB's teams in addition to the other 2 teams in the finals seemed rather rediculous. Luckily I had another option! The Kanagawa tournament wasnt scheduled to start until 4 pm, so I still had time to take the train over there and try to find a last minute team at that one instead. I wished Deno luck in the tournament and headed out on my way to Kanagawa.

It only took about an hour to get there, so I arrived at the station a little after 2 pm. I rocked some more Filet-o-fish sandwiches on my way there since I hadnt eaten yet. I once again had printed out a map of how to get to this game center, but unfortunately the map didnt prove to be too helpful. I walked around for a while and eventually it seemed like it was taking way too long so I asked some random dude where I was on the map and showed him. He pointed to some area off of the map, meaning I walked way too far. I followed the map back to where it said the game center was. I had already been in this exact area. I was standing on the exact spot on the map it said it was at. Obviously the map was pretty fucking wrong. I then asked some other random dude if he knew where the place was. He was extremely helpfull and actually walked me to the place which was about a 2 minute walk away. However, it was totally not where the map said it was supposed to be, and I printed this map off of the Tougeki website >_<; In any case, when I arrived at the game center, the had one cab going and lots of people crowded around it. Lots of players there I didnt recognize, one team had ASA on it (the Potemkin player that was teaming with Osaka B and Shuumatsu before, but he was with different people today). There was also a team of Roopa (the May I teamed up with a few weeks ago with MIU) with ABEGEN and Ain (the chubby Ky player I teamed up with a looong time ago at Club Sega Shinjuku for some random tourny. He basically looks like the Japanese version of Ari (FLOE) from Chicago). In addition to that, Kami-chan, Yossan, and Karun had formed a team. I went to go register for the tournament and much to my surprise, there WAS a 2 man team signed up! I checked their names and one of the guys was an Axl player named Yukifist. I went over by the cab and asked around if anyone was or knew Yukifist. One of the guys said he was Yukifist so I asked if I could join his team and he was totally cool with it. He said the other player on our team, a May player named Yarisuma, would be arriving shortly. I signed up, got to play ASA in one game of casuals where I lost in a very close game, and then shortly after that, they told everyone to get off the cab and they started to set it up. However, they took FOREVER to get it ready, I guess one of the sticks needed tweaking. The tournament was running behind schedule and there was lots of time to kill. Eventually Yarisuma arrived. I asked them where they were from and how long they have been playing and other stuff like that. They are both college students who live in Kanagawa and are studying computer science. Yukifist has been playing since XX and Yarisuma started at #reload but sorta stopping playing for a while during Slash. They said this was their first time entering a Tougeki qualifier for this year. During the time we had to wait for the tournament to start, I decided to play some random games to kill time. I played a game of 3rd Strike against some Yun player and actually beat him with my scrubby Ken! LOL! Then some other Ken player got on and beat me. Yukifist tried to play against him with his Urien but also got owned. I then decided to play KOF 98 against Yarisuma. I picked Mai/Terry/Yuri and OCVed his entire team with Mai! I havnt played KOF in years, it was actually really fun! I was about to play another game against someone but then Yukifist told me the tournament was about to start. I checked the brackets and they were some of the nicest brackets ive seen. They like printed them out all neat on the computer and had the character pictures next to each players name for each team. Maybe thats why they took so long. However, I was pretty dissapointed to see that our first match was to be against Kami-chan's team... basically the best team there. I also noticed that they spelled my name wrong, and that today I would be entering the tournament under the name "ElvenShadon."

One of the first matches of the tournament was ASA team vs ABEGEN team. ASA OCVed ABEGEN's whole team! After a few more matches, it was our turn. Yarisuma went first with his May against Yossan's I-no. It was pretty ugly to say the least. Yarisuma pretty much got raped unfortunately. The plan was originally for me to anchor, but Yukifist said he cant beat I-no so I went next. The first match started out with me getting hit by a dive into a big combo. However, I blocked a bunch of shit and got away and made a big comeback. I hit him with a fdc crossover air dust into going my way and I thought he was dead. He had no life bar left but was still alive. I forgot what happened exactly but he managed to squeeze in a hit into a combo and killed me, taking round 1. For round 2, I started off by doing a nice high jump into down kick which was able to get over his head and counter hit him out of another air dive move. I hit him with a nice combo. At some point he got me in the corner and did a big damage combo on me. He didnt knock me down and instead I tried to tech, and I was expecting him to go for an airthrow reset, but when I tried to throw him, nothing happened, and he ended up hitting me with something and then reset into a whole nother huge combo! At this point I had like 5% life left just after 2 combos and, I blocked a few mixups but he eventually got a hit in and that was the end of that. Yukifist was up next. I dont remember the exact sequence of events, but Yukifist managed to squeeze in a very close victory over Yossan! Up next was Karun, the Jam player. Unfortunately he took Yukifist down 2 rounds in a row. That was the end of that.

A bit after that, ASA's team was OCVed by an Axl player named Tsubasa-chan. There was also some loan Dizzy player named Nishizawa who entered the tournament all by himself. He actually won his first match too! However, he had to face Kami-chan next and was beasted on by Slayer. Poor guy... I can sympathize with him. I decided I might as well just stick around and see the rest of the tournament, even though I was itching to play casuals and it was getting late. Eventually it was time for the finals. It was Tsubasa-chan's team vs Kami-chan's team. Tsubasa-chan goes first with his AX vs Karun's JA. AX wins round 1 but JA takes around 2 with a nice comeback. AX finishes it off by taking round 3. Up next Kami-chan loses round 1 to AX. Then he proceeds to go into Slayer-is-a-broken-asshole mode and double perfects Tsubasa-chan! Ouch! Up next, a Millia player named Ina faces Kami-chan but loses both rounds to him. Finally, the Anji player named Sin gives it one final effort. He manages to take round 1 since Kami-chan fucked up the timing on one of his combos. He tried to link a super off of a connected standing kick but his timing was late and Sin was able to block the super and punished him accordingly to take the round. However, Kami-chan wasnt going to make the same mistake again, and dominated the next 2 rounds, winning the tournament for his team. His team would now be the first team to make it to the finals of the B-7 block. After the tournament ended, I thanked my team for letting me join them and got Yukifists email so that we could perhaps team up again sometime in the future. After that I headed back to Shinjuku to play some more casuals at Vegas.

When I got to Vegas, it was already passed 8 pm. It was pretty packed with people and a lot of them were the people who were at the Sega World Arcas tournament earlier in the day. Deno was there tearing it up with his Axl. I said hi to him and asked how the tournament went. Much to my surprise, he told me that FAB/Nakamura/Shoot had won the tournament and defeated Ogawa's team! They would now be playing in SBO! Nakamura was the one to take down Ogawa with his beastly Millia. I wish I could have been there to see it but oh well. After that, Deno busted out a certificate showing that his team had won the preliminary before the finals! I congratulated him on his good showing. Matt showed up shortly after to play casuals as well. He seemed rather under the weather and I could tell the vomitting incident the night before was bugging him. He didnt play much and watched most of the time. After that I saw Nakamura show up and congratulated him as well. FAB was there and had racked up a huge win streak that lasted the entire night until he eventually left. I didnt play him at all. I had a small 8 win streak myself. I kept beasting on this one Chipp player who was really determined to beat me but then I eventually lost to Roopa's May (did I ever mention I hate May!?). Throughout the course of the evening there, I asked a few random people if they would be willing to team up with me for tomorrow, but they all had teams already. I even asked the Chipp player I was beasting on but he already had a team too! I recieved an email from my friend Liz. She was also in Tokyo and asked if we would be going to Current soon since she wanted to meet up for a drink, but it was only like 10 and I didnt want to go so early so she decided to just go to her hotel (she couldnt stay out all night since she had a date again the next day). Eventually FAB got up and left without losing the whole time we were there and shortly after, tons of other people cleared out. I got on the cab and played his Potemkin against some Sol player and actually won a round somehow but lost (which is no surprise since I dont play Potemkin at all). We played a few more games and then we decided to head to Current. Got some top tier Sukiya Taco Rice on the way there.

I didnt know before hand, but Current had a metal event going on tonight, so the place was pretty packed with many of the ussual metal event night crowd. As always, they were all headbanging furiously while playing inflatable toy guitars LOL! Antii was there and was happy to see me but he was also with some of his other Finish friends. One of the dudes was already completely wasted so I guess he decided to help him get home and then he was gonna go to GODZ, so he didnt stay long. Some of the metal event night regulars were getting on my case for not wearing my Symphony X shirt that night since I always ussually wear it for metal event nights. I dont even ussually plan it that way but it sometimes just happens. I was like... Do I have to wear it every time? And they were like YES! haha. A few other regular girls I know were there as well. There was also this old bald wasted white dude and this other drunk random younger white guy who were being all creepy and just like hitting on every girl that was at the place and constantly just getting rejected. It was rather amusing to watch. The old dude eventually was like passed out on the bar and Sushi woke up him up and told him to leave. On his way out, he just suddenly sat down on some random chick's lap without even asking her or anything! She didnt seem like really pissed but wasnt exactly very happy about it as far as I could tell. He wasnt on her lap for long until he left the bar. The guest DJ's were playing long blocks of the same band. They had one for X-Japan, one for Def Lepard, and one for some other random generic band whos name I cant even remember, towards the end of the night. Eventually, Chip showed up with Sawa. We chatted with them for a bit about how long Japanese girls date guys until they ussually expect them to get married and some other various stuff. I dont remember anything else extremely noteworthy happening, but it was a fun night. After saying bye to everyone and heading out, as me and Matt were walking outside he told me how he was pretty bummed about "losing face" in front of Megu for throwing up. I told him to just not worry about it and stuff and that its all good. He seemed to feel a bit better, at least better than he was earlier. After that I went to sleep at the manga kissa as always.

Sunday, I awoke to an email from Gin. He asked me if I wanted to team up with him at the Shin-Okubo Alpha Station tournament today (which is the first prelim to start off the final Tokyo qualifier block... the C-4 block). I said I would be willing to join him since I still had no team (I asked Matt but he had too much homework to do, and Kyle never called me back). However, we still had no 3rd. I told him we should just go there and try to find one. He agreed. Shin-Okubo is very close to Shinjuku (only one station away on the Yamanote line) so I got there extremely fast. I stopped at McDonalds for more Filet-O-Fish action! and then headed to Alpha Station. They had 5 cabs going as ussual and there were lots of people there. The ladies team of hot Zappa, Pink Female Slayer, and powerful Female Dizzy were there. HH was there too, and he told me he was teaming with the Sol player named Yume and Die-chan today. Having lost to FAB's team yesterday, Ogawa/Mike/Imo were there to give it another try as well. Roopa/ABEGEN/Ain teamed up again too. There were also a ton of other big name teams there. I asked around to just about every single person there to see if I could team with them but they all already had full teams. Osaka B was there as well. I asked him who his team was and he said he was just there to play casuals and watch today. He said that yesterday, he went to Niigata with a different team than his ussual team and ended up winning the prelim there! I jokingly asked him if he could team with me today, saying I could play Testament haha. I figured id play some casuals and wait a bit longer to see who shows up. I beat Kazuki in a game of casuals on my first try. After a little time passed, I emailed Gin who hadnt arrived yet and told him that it seemed as if we would not be able to find a 3rd. He asked what we should do. The next tournament in the B-7 series would be going on later today in Saitama starting from 4:00. I suggested we might go there and try our luck. He said he wouldnt probably be able to go since he had work the next day. As it was looking rather hopeless, I figured I would head out and just make my way over to Saitama while I still had enough time. As I was halfway to the station, I realized that I wrote the name of the station I needed to go to down in Kanji. I wasnt expecting to go to this one so I didnt really plan for it. I didnt know the reading of the kanji for this particular station as I had never been there and kanji can have tons of different readings so I didnt know how to search for the route on the hyperdia site using my phone. I figured I could head back to Alpha station really quick as its like only 30 seconds away, and ask someone real fast what the station name was. When I got back inside, Osaka B came up to me and told me that he had found me a team! Its nice know that Osaka B has my back, hes a cool guy. Turns out that my team would be none other than Masutani and an Axl player he was going to team with! Osaka B said that they were already registering the team. Shortly after, they came back over to the floor with the Guilty Gear cabs. They told me they already signed me up on their team and were very glad to have me join them. Masutani was being extremely friendly and polite! I was shocked. We still had some time to kill before the tournament started so I sat down and played some casuals. About 5 minutes later, none other than Gin shows up! I wasnt actually expecting him to come... I told him sorry but that I found a different team to team with. Normally I would feel kinda bad about this, but Gin has a long history of being pretty flakey. He basically ditched me yesterday without even letting me know so I didnt really feel all that bad. Its not like I could have teamed with him anyway cuz I joined an already existing 2 man team and im sure they didnt want to seperate to join me and Gin so there was no other real choice. Plus he showed up all late and shit. Unfortunately for Gin, he never found another team, so he just hung out and played casuals the whole time.

And so the tournament eventually began. Our first match was against a team of MA JO ED. our Axl player went first against May and lost in a close match. Having teamed up with Masutani several times before, I know he always does well against May, and I hate the bitch, so I suggested that he goes next. He not only defeated May in a close match, but he proceeded to beat Johnny in a close game as well, following a dominating victory over Eddie, resulting in us winning our first match! A bit of time passed, I played some more casuals while I waited for our next game and racked up a nice streak, I was playing very well. Up next was a team of AB SL ZA. This time it was decided that I would go first. My opponent was ABA. I played well for the most part, zoning really well, agressive poking, and carefully avoiding and baiting the autoguard forcebreak move. I won the first round, lost the 2nd round, but won the 3rd round for a victory. Up next was Slayer. I won the first round pretty well. The 2nd round Slayer came back at me hard and I lost. Round 3 was extremely close. We both were low on life. I had him in the corner aftera knock down and I tried to bait his super with an empty FDC jump, but somehow I got hit by it. I think either he timed it strangely or I let go of a button or something but I was shocked as hell that I got hit. I apolagized to my team mates and Masutani went next with his game face on. He tore through Slayer in round 1 perfecting him. He also won round 2. Up next was Zappa. Zappa made a comeback in round 1 with Raoh for the win. Masutani wasnt gonna let that shit fly so he answered in round 2 by perfecting Zappa. He then took it home in round 3, resulting in us winning our 2nd match! We would now advance to the semi finals. It wasnt long until our next match was called. Our next opponents would be..... HH/Yume/Die-chan. Ouch... Once again it was decided that I would go first. They put Yume first with his Sol. I honestly dont know if I have played Yume much, and I wasnt at all familiar with his play style or what to expect. He was EXTREMELY aggressive and rushed me down pretty hard. Round 1 was extremely close but I lost. Round 2 he just wouldnt get off me the whole time and I ate a big damage combo after getting hit by a random grand viper.... I was sorta pissed that I lost to him since I ussually can beat Sol. I once again apolagized and our Axl player was next. This time, both players were playing extremely careful. There were lots of crouch blocking stare fests and it looked like a match of high level CvS2. Unfortunately Yume was too much to handle and Axl lost as well. It was now up to Masutani to OCV their team. Masutani put up a good fight but he also lost to Yume's Sol, resulting in us getting OCVed. After that, Masutani's mood did a complete 180 and he was just like his old self again. He didnt want to say a word to me and didnt want to stand near me either. I told the Axl player I was sorry for losing but he said it was ok and apologized as well. This was now the 6th time I have made it to the semi-finals and lost in a tougeki qualifier... blaaaa.....

With that, it was time for the finals of the prelim to begin, which would be a 3 team round robin. The 3 teams in the final would be Ogawa's team (as if you didnt see that coming), HH's team, and a 3rd team of Jam/Potemkin/Axl whom I never got a chance to see their names. The first match was JA/PO/AX team vs HH team. Yume goes first and beats JA and PO but then loses to AX. Die-chan cleans it up and finishes AX off for the win. Up next was AX/PO/JA vs Ogawa's team. First match was Mike vs PO. PO wins round 1 but Mike takes round 2. The 3rd round, Mike was about to die, but he managed to nail a last second flame pillar super on PO and made a comeback for the win. Up next was Mike vs JA in a mirror match. Mike wins both rounds. During this match, Gin was leaning against the wall and accidently turned off the lightswitch and the whole room went dark. Fortunately the cabs didnt turn off haha. Up next it was AX vs Mike. This match was funny since during the entire time, Mike and the AX player were yelling stuff at eachother from accross the cabs, like thanking eachother when one of them fucked up or apolagizing to the other when they nailed a long combo. It was pretty funny, im sure they were friends or at least knew eachother well. AX won the first round, Mike won the 2nd round, AX wins round 3. Up next was Imo with his mighty Zappa. Before he got on the cab, the AX yelled "Imo-san?" and you can just hear Imo on the other said yell "hai!". Their tone of voice was pretty comical. It was funny. I dont think the AX was expecting to win but at least he was having a good time. He ended up losing both rounds. Round 1 the dog bite loop got the best of him and for round 2 he got stuck in the dog bite loop again but managed to escape but only to have Roah show up and finish him off. The final match which would decide the victor of today's tournament would be Ogawa's team vs HH's team. Imo went first against Yume. He wins round 1 and then also wins round 2 in a very close match, thanks to Roah. Up next, Imo also takes out HH, once again thanks to Raoh. Up next was Die-chan with his famous ABA. ABA takes round 1. Round 2, ABA was pinned in the corner by ghosts for a long time, but he managed to excape and make a nice comeback for the win. Up next was Mike vs Die-chan. Die-chan starts off strong with a win in round 1 but Mike comes back hard and takes the next 2 rounds, sealing the win for Ogawa's team. I didnt even see Ogawa play the whole tournament (though I didnt watch every one of his matches as I was playing lots of casuals). After they won, he just sat there and clapped casually and slow with a sly grin on his face, sorta like how Slayer claps all casual like. It reminded me of one of those cliche villians you always see sitting on their throne while their minions do his dirty work, and he just sits there clapping all casuals all like "yesss.... goooood.... goooood... mwahaha..."

After the tournament ended there were still several hours until I had to go back. I got tons of good games of casuals in and was playing pretty well for the most part. I managed to beat HH a few times, Die-chan a couple times, and I even beat Yume on my next try! Blaa... if only I played better in the tournament I could have OCVed them. I also beat Seta in a mirror match (the Faust player on Hase's team) which felt nice. However, he picked Slayer on me after that and his Slayer is a fucking beast! Way better than his Faust IMO. Though since he teams with Hase I guess he cant play Slayer in a tournaemnt. At some point the Axl I teamed with left, but said bye to me before leaving and thanked me for teaming with him and said we should team up again sometime. I didnt notice Masutani leave but he didnt bother to say goodbye. At one point, Shouji showed up as well to just play some casuals. Throughout the entire time there, Mike had a huge win streak with his Jam, and tons of top players just couldnt beat him. I wanted to play him but everyone else kept getting on the cab before I had a chance. Eventually I got a shot at it and on my very first try against him, I beat him 3 rounds in a row and ended his win streak at 46 wins. Im pretty sure he was trying too as I didnt see any reason for him to just let me win. Eventually it was getting late. I beat some Testament player and then told him I had to go. I sorta waved bye to people as I left and then headed out. On my way out I got some more 100 yen Filet-O-Fish sandwiches (I like tartar sauce). I studied some Kanji on the way back and then got on the same train as Liz from Takasaki station and we chatted for about an hour about how her date went (turns out the guy has a girlfriend... which neither of us could figure out what his true intentions are). Eventually I made it home and took a nice shower and got some good sleep.

Next weekend I have 2 choices. Just as Osaka B had done, I was considering the idea of going out to Niigata to try my luck there. This really does seem like a good idea aside from one key problem: if I was to go, I would be going alone and trying to find a team while Im out there. Now... the Niigata tournament next weekend is on Sunday and is the finals for the Niigata block. There is no tournament on that Saturday in Niigata. This means if I was to go, I would spend the majority of Saturday playing lots of casuals and looking for a team in advance. I know where some of the good arcades are from the last time I went there so its possable. However its still risky.... My OTHER option is to just go to Tokyo and enter 2 more tournaments in the C-4 series. I could also enter the B-7 series but in all honesty, I would rather avoid going to those because the finals for the B-7 series is actually on the Saturday of the final weekend of qualfiers. Unfortunately thats the same day as the Children of Bodom concert and I already spend 7,500 yen on a ticket to go to it (and I really want to as well). So if I go to Tokyo, I would be entering the C-4 block, meaning id have to beat Ogawa's team in the finals if I win a prelim. I am going to ask Deno if he is still willing to team up with me for next weekend. If he agrees to, it might be a good idea to go to Tokyo since id be guarenteed a solid team. If he says no, however... maybe I should try my luck in Niigata. I would have to beat Osaka B's team and I am not sure about what other teams have qualified so far. Please answer the poll and help me decide wtf to do!