The Final Hour Draws Near

On Friday night I headed to Mikado as always. I played some casuals and got some good practice. It wasnt that packed but there were still some good players. Kunihiro was there and I got a few games in with him too. I dont really remember anything in particular worth mentioning. Before leaving though, Osaka B and I were taking turns trying to beat some Jam player. I think we both tried like twice each. I was about to beat him but I dropped a combo and lost and then I could hear Osaka B yell "sensei!!!!" from the other side of the cab where he was watching lol! After that match it was closing time so I said bye and left.

After Mikado closed, I went to Sportsland for some last chance games since they are opened till 1 am. A Jam and Millia player were there fighting eachother. I got on the cab after one of them lost and beat them over and over without losing until the place closed. Then, I went to the manga kissa. I am still trying to avoid drinking a bit to let my ulcer heal so I got the 10 hour package and used the internet for a bit. I found some old vids of me playing in the recent G3 Johnny-o cup 5 on 5 tournament. They got the finals where we lost to Tanabata's Slayer, and also they recorded the match of me beating Kishitaka but unfortunately they didnt get the 3 other matches before that in which I also won. So yea, I killed like 2 hours just fucking around on the internet before I slept for the other 8 hours so that when I woke up it wouldnt be too early for anything to be opened.

I woke up the next day and headed to Mikado again. It was pretty dead aside from like maybe 4 guys playing GG. This one Slayer player who I think I know from somewhere but dont remember where came and played me. I think it was maybe Rod's friend who works at Game Moai. He was there with his girlfriend. I beat him maybe like 5 in a row and then he was asking me what he can do to improve his game in the Faust/Slayer matchup (which is totally in Slayers favor lol) so I gave him a few pointers. Then, I headed out to go check out today's SBO qual in Yachiyodai (which is about an hour away in Chiba).

I got to the game center about a half hour before the tournament was scheduled to start It was at Hap 1 Game Citta, I teamed up with Stunedge here last year when we lost to HH/Ririko/Masutani team. MK was there and I said hi to him. Nice PO guy was there too and was surprised to see me and said hi as well. Also, before the tournament Deno and one other guy had a 2 man team and asked me to join their team but I told them that I couldnt enter because I was already on a team that won one of the block preliminaries. Unfortunately for them, I dont think they ever found a 3rd and they didnt end up playing. Also, there was no creepy girl this time! There was only one cab setup to play. It was on freeplay so people just took turns getting on, playing one match, and then getting off to let two more people play one match. I got 2 games of casuals in before the tournament. The first one was vs Ruka (AB) and I beat him. I also fought a default color May who I have seen before (I think he teamed with Osaka B before or something) and I lost to him. A lot of of the big name teams that havnt won a block qual yet were there. A total of 11 teams entered. I couldnt get a picture of the signup sheet to post with full team list because the signup sheet had people write down their phone numbers on it for whatever reason, so the arcade staff wouldnt let me take a photo due to protection of personal information, which is fair enough I guess. I wrote down the match results though so heres how the tournament went.

Kishitaka (SO), En (SL), Limekey (AN)
vs
HEVEN (VE), Consome (PO), May player (same guy I lost to before the tournament in casuals)

HEVEN beat Kishitaka
En beat HEVEN, Consome, and May


Next, that pretty good Yellow I-no was there and his team lost to some SO and VE who I have no idea who they were.


Jam Ojisan (JA), Yuuta (TE), Ryuuma (OR) (same team we beat in our block finals except they changed out Hamashyo's Jam for Jam Ojisan's Jam)
vs
Ruka (AB), Takuya (FA), Yellow Anji who I mentioned before

Jam Ojisan beat Yellow AN and Takuya
Ruka beat Jam Ojisan
Yuuta beat Ruka


Maruken (BA), TEN (IN), Satou (JO)
vs
Karun (JA), Nice PO guy, same Slayer the had last week

Maruken OCVed them in order of Karun, PO, SL


Kusoru (SO), some JO player, MI player I beat in that casual match last weekend after Sundays tournament
vs
Sho (FA), Udei (TE), some SL player

JO beat Sho
SL beat JO
Kosoru beat SL (Kosoru played wacky and frantic as usual winning the 1st round with a dragon install comeback and he totally blew round 2 where he could have won if he just played a bit more... safe lol. He won round 3 though)
Udei beat Kusoru and MI


After this match, I went to get a snack and came back to see Limekey finishing off Shu (ED) 's team (they had a bye first round so this was their first match)


Jam Ojisan team
vs
random unknown SO, VE, KY

Ryuuma OCVed them


Maruken team
vs
Udei team

TEN beat Udei
Sho barely beat TEN
Satou beat Sho with 3 seconds left on the clock in a clutch win
SL beat Satou
Maruken beat SL


We now were in the finals which was a 3 team round robin

Jam Ojisan team
vs
Maruken team

Yuuta beat Maruken (and received a bit round of applauds. He kept trying to bait bursts so much that he even did it when Maruken had no burst out of habit lol!)
Yuuta also beat TEN (and received another round of applaud)
Satou beat Yuuta (and once again everyone clapped for Yuuta, which had now become a running gag)
Satou also beat Ryuuma and the finally Jam Ojisan


Kishitaka team
vs
Jam Ojisan team

Ryuuma beat Kishitaka
Limekey beat then beat Ryuuma, Jam Ojisan, and finally Yuuta (and they clapped for Yuuta losing again lol)


Final game was...
Maruken team
vs
Kishitaka team

Satou beat Limekey
En beat Satou and TEN (perfected TEN in round 3)
Maruken beat En (perfecting En in round 3) and Kishitaka for the win

Maruken / TEN / Satou won today's tournament. Another strong team I may have to face next weekend.


As soon as the tournament ended, I said bye to MK and left to go back to Mikado. The train got delayed and took forever to get back but I finally got back at around like 8 pm or something.

It wasnt crazy packed but there were more people there now. Inoue was playing a long set vs Nage. I played Mitsurugi and almost won but fell short. Let up for the tiniest bit and that guy will fuck you up! At some point after losing a match, I was watching them play for a bit and then they stopped. I dont know if it had something to do with Inoue not wanting me to watch the FA matchup vs him for ideas or something but it seems weird that they just happened to stop once I started watching a lot lol.

I went to get some food at Lawson and when I went there, I was surprised to see that this one ABA player that I know (he was on Johnny-o's team last weekend) is working there now lol! He said he got off work at 12 which sucks for him cuz thats when Mikado closes.

I went back into Mikado and was eating my food and then HH came up to me. He was asking about my team winning the qualifier cuz he saw the results on tougeki.com. I think this is like the first time HH actually smiled when he talked to me and seemed unusually cheerful or amused or something lol! He congratulated me (though im not sure if it was sincere or not but I will give him the benefit of the doubt). I asked him if he quit GG cuz he hasnt entered any quals yet and he said his main game is BB and he is focusing on that, but he says he still likes GG and will eventually enter a qual for that if he finds a team and it doesnt conflict with his BB qual schedule or if he already qualifies for BB.

At some point I was fighting Consome a few matches but I couldnt beat him. Nage lost to him a few times too but finally beat him in the end. Then I played Nage in a mirror match and won. I also beat Udei. Then, this one Jam player fought me and I beat him twice. He didnt seem that good. Then he rematched me and beat me and suddenly was playing really well. We played a few more and I won a couple but then he beat me a few in a row. Strange how he went from seeming not so good to like really solid over the course of just a few matches. Its all good cuz i need the Jam practice.

Once again, I stayed till closing and then I left and headed to the manga kissa in Shinjuku. I got a call from SPG Chris who wanted me to come drinking with him and this one girl named Yuka who is friends with Sam who I met 2 weeks ago. They both talked with me on the phone a bit but I told them how I couldnt go due to my ulcer but mostly for another reason. Tomorrow, some of my students were having a band concert (like school brass band) and they personally asked me to come watch. I didnt really want to give up my Sunday and a full day of casuals but I also didnt wanna be a dick so I told them I would go.

So, I went to the manga kissa and slept and woke up at like 8:30 am and took the train back home in the morning and went to their concert. It wasnt all that exciting but all the students were really happy to see me there so I guess it was worth going. I spent the rest of the day just sitting at home playing Final Fantasy XIII cuz I felt like taking a break from SSFIV. So... I dont know who won Sunday's tournament yet but I guess the results will be on tougeki.com later this week.

As of writing this, it is now Tuesday morning ( I was too lazy to write my blog yesterday), and last night, Matt has returned to Japan for 3 weeks and is now staying at my apartment.

Well... next weekend on Sunday is the big day... the B2 block finals. I dunno whether or not were gonna win it but im just gonna show up and play, and whatever happens, happens.

Wish me luck!