Tougeki Super Battle Opera 2010

Earlier in the week (this was the week of 9/13), I finalized my SBO team for the last chance qual. Originally, I was going to team with Kunihiro and Akinori. However, a few days before SBO, Kunihiro found out he had to work that day so he couldnt enter. Melon wanted to team with me so I told him he could take Kunihiro's place. I hadnt actually heard from Akinori personally because his phone was broken, according to Kunihiro, but Kunihiro said he talked to him when he saw him recently at Mikado and that he was down to team with me, so I just went by his word. Kunihiro ALSO told me that there would be a big tournament at Mikado Friday night since all the out of town players were in Tokyo for SBO.

I REALLY wanted to go to the Friday night tournament, espessially since I hadnt really even played GG in about a whole month, so I was worried I would be a little rusty if I didnt get practice. Unfortunately, at one of the schools I work at, one of the English teachers who I teach with would be leaving this week to go on maternity leave, and we would be getting a new English teacher to replace her. Last minute, my school decided to throw them a welcome/farewell party on Friday night of SBO weekend. Pretty shitty timing for me. These parties are optional, but I felt like since I am the ALT and had a good relationship with the teacher who was leaving, and wanted to start things off well with the new one that I really should probably go to the enkai. So, after much debating with myself about it, in the end I decided I would go to the party. The thing was, it was from 7 to 9 pm and if I left right when it was over, I would be able to take the very last train from Numata to Tokyo and would arrive in Shinjuku around 12:30. I would miss the tournament but it would at least allow me to go to the last chance qual which was early Saturday morning. I felt that since I was going to go to the party, I might as well be extra nice and buy a little gift for the teacher who was leaving. I bought a teddy bear for her daughter who would be born in November.

So anyway, I had time to kill before the party so I chilled at Emmet's place for like an hour and a half since he lives close to where the party would be. We had a few beers and watched some funny comedy show, but I forgot what it was called.

After that, I headed to the enkai. I got there like 10 minutes before it was supposed to start but only 2 other people were there yet. Eventually everyone showed up about 15 minutes after 7. The worst part is, the teacher who is leaving on maternity leave didnt even show up! I guess they said she wanted to stay home cuz of being pregnant related reasons or something. Had I known she wasnt going to go, I would have just skipped the party and played in the GG tournament, but it was too late now. I felt dumb for buying the bear too.

Anyway, I made most of the party by drinking a ton and ate the food and at least the new teacher seemed happy that I came. Pretty much all the teachers knew what my plans were after the party cuz I told them I couldnt stay for the 2nd party. Luckily one of the other teachers was leaving after the first party to and the person who picked her up gave me a quick lift to the station so I was able to make my train with no problem. So, since I was already nice and drunk, I was able to sleep well on the train. In fact, I slept too well. I ended up sleeping until the last stop (Ueno), which made going to Shinjuku kinda out of the way, so I decided to just go to Akihabara since its 2 stops from Ueno and find a manga kissa there. Ive never stayed at a manga kissa in Akihabara cuz I never go drinking there (theres really no good bars) but luckily I found one. There were no flat rooms but I didnt have time to be picky at this point so I just slept on a reclining chair.

I only ended up getting about 5 hours of sleep at the manga kissa and woke up at like 6:30 am. I was really tired but I just manned up and got some redbull and headed to Makuhari Messe. I got there at around 7:15. Registration for the last chance qual was from 7 to 8. When I got there, lots of people were already in the area signing up. However, I didnt see Melon or Akinori anywhere. I mailed Melon and he said he was on his way, but I had no way to reach Akinori. I waited for him until about 10 minutes to 8 and he didnt show up, so I asked Kyle (Studedge) if he could join my team last minute. He was glad to join us so at least I had a full team. This year for last chance quals, in order to enter, someone on your team has to have a red ticket (meaning someone on your team had to have previously already won a preliminary at some point). I had one so I was able to allow for our team to enter.

A total of 17 teams entered but only 8 would get picked. They reserved one spot for foreigners only team but this year, you dont count as a foreigner if your address is in Japan, so both Kyle and myself didnt count. As a result, there was no foreign team this year, so 8 teams would be chosen at random. While I was waiting for stuff to start, I went over to where they were gonna do the BlazBlue last chance qual. This one Chinese guy I know who basically organizes the Chinese teams that come to SBO was there and he told me that only ONE team entered the BB last chance qual. He said this just shows how GG is still certainly not dead here in Japan. I agree. Honestly though, I am pretty shocked that at that time only one team registered. Im sure more than one person had a red ticket... Seems odd.

Anyway, eventually they picked the teams, and unfortunately, my team wasnt among the ones that were picked. I was a bit bummed but there wasnt anything I could do about it. It was just the luck of the draw.

We were told that only the teams that were selected to play in the tournament would be allowed into the stage area to play the last chance qual. I was just sorta sitting around killing time and I noticed a bunch of people going into the hall. I thought it was just people being let in to go look around, so I just showed them my ticket at the door and walked in. Then all the people who made it in gathered at the top of the stairs and one of the staff started explaining the rules for the last chance qual. I then realized that I sorta just accidentally snuck into the last chance qual lol! I pretty much just Sold Snaked that shit and just kept playing along as if I was supposed to be there. None of the staff questioned me being there, so I figured I would just take the opportunity to watch the tournament. When we went down to the stage area, Woody and a couple other people asked me why I was there cuz they didnt think my team was picked. I was just like "sshhh im just hear to watch, dont tell the staff" and they didnt care. They seemed sorta amused lol. So anyway, I took the opportunity to take notes so here is how the last chance qual went down. It was being run on 2 cabs at a time so I couldnt really see every single match in detail.

first match, Kishya / BOB / AGF vs some team I dont know. Kishya OCVed them.

Limekey's team lost to Ain's team

LOK (BA) / Woody (TE) / Hase (SL)
vs
Satoshi (PO) / MK (JO) / Ogiwara (SL)

LOK beat MK and Ogiwara
Satoshi beat LOK and was shit talking while playing (LOL Satoshi rules)
Then Woody beat Satoshi after making an epic comeback in the first round.

Ochiai (PO) / Tsujikawa (SL) / ED?
vs
Taku (SL) / MI / Kuni (BA)
Ochiai (PO) beat Taku, and default color MI
Kuni lost too I guess but I didnt see it happen, so Ochiai's team won

Ain (KY) / Ririko (BR) / green TE
vs
Kishya team
I think green TE OCVed them

Tsujikawa team
vs
Hase team
Tsujikawa beat LOK and Woody
Hase beat Tsujikawa
Ochiai beat Hase

battle for 3rd place was
AGF ocving Hase team to take 3rd

Grand Finals
Ain team
vs
Tsujikawa team
Tsujikawa OCVed them in order of Ririko, green TE, Ain. I dont like Ain so im glad he lost and Ochiai is cool so I was happy for him.

By the time the finals were going on, they actually let people in so everyone was crowded around watching and I was like the only one watching from inside the gate yet still no one on staff even questioned why I was there lol. Melon looked at me like WTF and I told him I snuck in LOL.

After it was over, there was a little time to kill. They had a few random cabs in the back behind the seating area for casuals. A bunch of GG players were crowded around the single GG cab. Eventually I got a turn in. I ended up playing a Faust mirror match. I couldnt see who it was on the other side. I lost the first round, won the 2nd round, and the 3rd round went down to literally him having no life bar and I ended up losing in a really close match. After it was over, I look around on the other side and it was RF. Would have been cool if I won but I guess I did ok for not having played in almost a month. The wait to play again was pretty long, so I pretty much just walked around a bit after that.

Eventually they kicked things off with the first games. Before they started the tournaments, though, Yoshinori Ono (the creator of Street Fighter IV), came out on stage to make some announcements. He showed a trailer "officially" revealing Yun and Yang for the arcade edition of SSFIV. Then, behind us, they pulled the big tarp off of the area behind where the casuals cabs were to reveal 4 full SSFIV arcade edition setups which would be on free play all day! As soon as this happened, I pretty much just got out of my seat and walked over there to get in line. There were only about 10 people ahead of me so I got to play really fast. I picked Rose. They impose a winner stays on policy but limits you to 5 wins and then they kick you off. I fought 2 Yun players, an Ibuki, and 2 Juris. I won all 5 matches. Rose seemed exactly the same except for the fact that they nerfed her Ultra 2 so now she cant block right away after it anymore. So now it basically sucks. I also found that for some reason, it seemed easier to do one frame links cuz I was nailing them very consistantly without even plinking (and normally I dont). Later after playing, at some point, Ono was just chilling over by the cabs so I got a picture with him and the creator of Tekken. Then I had a quick chat with Ono about the arcade edition. I asked him if they made any other changes to Rose and he said that the Ultra 2 nerf was the only one, and that they didnt change her frame data, so I dont know why I was doing the one frame links so easily. I told him that Ultra 2 is too weak now and asked him to please fix it. He said he would think about it. I hope he wasnt just saying that.

Around this time, I also ran into Scott Popular and few of the other SRK Tokyo crew. And also around this time, Jason Kim (J1n) showed up. He was in town for TGS again through work. His girlfriend, Heather, was entering the cosplay contest today (dressed as I-no) so she was off doing that, so Jason was just chillin alone. So we ended up hanging out most of the day. We walked around in the TGS area for a while and he showed me where the Sanwa booth was. I was looking to buy a new PS1/2 stick cuz mine recently broke. Unfortunately they werent selling any sticks at the booth and didnt even have any PS2 sticks on display, but they WERE selling tons of really nice parts. I dont really feel like building my own stick again, plus I didnt bring my soldering iron to Japan so I figured I would just hold off and look for a PS2 stick in Akihabara later.

After that, we went back to the Tougeki area. Around this time, Melty Blood and VF5 were going on. After Melty, GG was scheduled to start. Jason didnt have a seat ticket but I was able to easily sneak him into the seating area by just going in, handing him my ticket over the railing, and then he re-used the same one, LOL. The seats were assigned seats by ticket number but tons of them were empty so he just sat in an empty one and there was no problem.

As we were watching Melty, we came to the conclusion that we wanted to drink while we watch the GG tournament. Theres a Lawson just outside Makuhari Messe so I volunteered to take a quick run over there and buy us a bottle of Whiskey and some soda to mix it. I didnt know how much time we had so I rushed, but in the end, I made it back in time with time to spare. As Jason, opened his coke bottle, it exploded all over his camera. I guess it got shaken up when I was sorta walking really fast with it in my pocket. Fortunately, I had some wet wipes in my backpack and the camera still works fine. We mixed our drinks right there in our seats and no one noticed and we watched the GG tournament getting good and buzzed. I got a redbull with mine to mix with cuz I was still really tired.

The tournament for GG was only being shown on one screen and 2 matches were going on at the same time, so I dont even know what happened in some of them. Im sure someone will or already has posted the whole bracket results so I wont really go into it but basically Mitsurugi took out N-O's team which was pretty surprising, stopping his chance of being grand champion 3 times in a row. The final 4 teams were

Mitsurugi (ZA) / Ina (MI) / Nage (FA)

Roy (SO) / LOX (JA) / Isamu (VE)

Shounen (TE) / RF (FA) / Ogawa (ED)

Inoue (OR) / Machaboo (TE) / FAB (PO)

They played up to there and then took a break for a bit and would show top 4 later (as they pretty much did with every game).

BB went on before that and all the foreign teams lost. I missed it though cuz I was busy doing other stuff.

Around this time, I noticed that right next to where the SSFIV AE cabs were, they had regular SSFIV console version hooked up to 2 TVs with Madcatz sticks. They just had it there to promote the sticks, even though they werent selling them there which was odd. For whatever reason, there was basically like no line to play, so I was able to just get right on and start playing. It was cool but there was a bit of lag from the TVs they were using, but it was still playable. I ended up getting a 13 win streak vs random people that just came to play. I didnt even lose but one of the Madcatz staff dudes (they were both from Cali and didnt speak Japanese) had some Japanese guy asking them questions about where he could buy some sorta pad. They asked me to help translate so I did, and then some Japanese dude who had a shipment for them showed up so I helped them translate that too. A little bit after this, I ran into Fubarduck (Ryan), and we played a few games of SSFIV together. He used his Ibuki and I used my Rose. I won the first 2 games, and he won the next 2. The matches were pretty even and good times. While we were playing, Jason came back (he was gone for a while) and he was like wasted as hell all slurring and shit lol! It was pretty funny. I was pretty buzzed from the half bottle of whiskey but still in a state where I could still play fighting games fine. Sometime after that shortly after, I played against Jan's Cody in SSFIV. We only played one game and I won.

Sometime around there, someone gave me a free press pass out of no where cuz the person who was using it already left. It allowed me to get access into press only areas lol.

At some point I got hungry so I went to get some food in the food court area, which is right next to the tougeki main stage. As soon as I finished buying my hotdog and yakisoba, GG finals started. It caught me off guard so I didnt have time to really go back to my seat. So, I just sat there on the floor and watched it while I ate. First match was...

Mitsurugi team
vs
Inoue team

Inoue beat Ina and Nage. Then, Mitsurugi took out Inoue. Finally, Machaboo beat Mitsurugi.

the other match was....

Roy team
vs
Ogawa team

Shounen beat Lox and then Roy. Isamu beat Shounen, and finally RF took out Isamu.

There was a bunch of talking before the final match started so I had enough time to make it back to my seat to watch it. The finals were hype as hell and I am sure by now most of you have seen it on youtube, so I dont really need to go into great detail about it. But to summarize it quickly...

Ogawa team
vs
Inoue team

Ogawa went first to many people's surprise and his opponent was FAB. Ogawa defeated FAB and then lost to Machaboo (which I was a little surprised at but Machaboo was playing really well the whole day, espesially since he beat Mitsurugi.) Next, Shounen beat Machaboo in a TE mirror match which wasnt a surprise. Then, Inoue took out Shounen. Final match was RF vs Inoue and RF came out as the winner but it was a close game and the whole finals were hype as hell.

I cant really say I am too surprised that Ogawa's team won but they certainly earned it.

After the finals were over, I went and talked to various GG players and took pictures of the award ceremony right up next to the stage cuz I could enter there with my press pass I obtained. I dont know why, but when they gave the awards to the first place GG team, only RF came out to accept the prizes. Perhaps it was because he won the final match and Shounen and Ogawa felt as if they failed? I really dont know... but RF won some money and one of those really nice brand new HRAP $300 sticks that basically is exactly the same as the stick panel off of a viewlix cab.

I heard from Kyle that there was going to be an after party this year and that Ko1 and Haken were the ones who were organizing it (since Pachi was too busy this year to run it as he usually does). So, I found Haken and asked him if it was cool if I came to the party and he said of course. I also noticed the 3 European team players were standing there so I introduced myself to them. They already knew who I was but we had never met before in person. I told them about the party and they wanted to go too so I asked Haken if it was cool and he said they could go too. None of them speak any Japanese so I had to translate for them but I didnt mind.

So at this point, it was about time to leave. I said bye to a few people and then I headed out with the European team. All 3 of them were from Russia. Their team was Goga (Chipp), Overkill (Sol), and Robobobr (Slayer). Jason went back to his hotel room. He was leaving tomorrow morning to go back to the US cuz he came for work and couldnt control how long he was able to stay. He had an extra TGS ticket for tomorrow and told me that I could have it, so I went to his hotel room to get it from him and say goodbye. The European guys waited outside cuz I was only gonna be like 10 minutes. The elevators in Jason's hotel were full of hot chicks. I asked them why they were at TGS and they said they were all booth girls. Nice!

After that, we headed to Akihabara where everyone planned to meet up at the old Club Sega before the party, which was supposed to start around 9. They only have 4 cabs at Club Sega now and it was really packed. The Russians wanted to play against me so we went to the new Club Sega down the street where it was pretty much dead. We were able to get lots of games in. I dont know exactly how many games we played but I probably played against each of them about 4 or 5 times each. I won every single game. Goga came the closest to beating me, and IMO he is the best player on their team. It was fun games though and I was glad to have a chance to play against them all.

At around 10 minutes to 9, I suggested we head back to the old Club Sega so we werent late for the party. When we got there, I was shocked to find that everyone was gone. Appearently we waited too long to go back. We all already paid Haken the money in advance for the party and we didnt want to miss it, but we didnt know the location of the place. I mailed a bunch of players that I know and eventually MK contacted me and told us to meet him at this one intersection not far from the station. We met up with him and Haken who were standing there waiting for us. I apolagized for inconveniencing them but they werent upset and were glad we could find them. I dont think they deliberately ditched us, they just had a huge group of people to keep track of and they didnt notice we were gone at first and didnt know where we were.

The party was at a big izakaya. When we got up there, they still hadnt even started yet and were waiting on a few more people and actually were waiting on more seats. Over 80 GG players showed up for this party! Eventually, the izakaya staff managed to convince a few non GG player customers to move to another table so all of us could sit near eachother. Our group took up over half of the whole izakaya! After everyone was finally situated, they gave a toast and we all started knocking back drinks. They had lots of good food and the party was all you can eat and all you can drink. At some point, I got a call from Fubarduck who was saying that Jan wanted to come but he didnt know the way. I gave him directions. Jan didnt have a phone so he was on his own to find the place based on the directions I gave Fubar, but Fubar knew the place after i described it so it was no problem.

I drank lots of beers and talked to lots of people. Everyone was really chill and friendly. Pretty much all the players who are haters and dont seem to like me very much didnt even come. I took lots of pictures and ate tons of food. Around the time the party was about to end, Jan finally showed up. However, they announced that they would extend the party there for the 2-zikai, so we decided to stay. The 2nd party would last until 5 am and was only 2000 yen for all you can drink! Thats like 5 hours of drinking for 2000 yen! I dont know if I have ever had a better value!

The 2nd party was more relaxed and low key. Maybe about 1/2 to 1/3 of the people from the original party stayed, which was still something like over 30 people. I drank lots of beer and whiskey. I was sitting next to FAB and Jan had a lot of questions for him since they are both Potemkin players so I helped Jan translate. One question that stood out that I remember was, Jan wanted to know how FAB got so good at slashbacking everything. FAB said that its all just straight up training mode time. He just does the most common block strings with each character and records it, and then practices slashing back certain parts of it that lead to advantageous situations. So, if you wanna slashback like FAB, hit up that training mode. Also, there were a bunch of top players sitting around me. I decided to just outright ask them something that I always sort of wondered. Since we were all drunk I figured they would give me on honest answer. I asked them what most of the top Japanese players REALLY think of my skill level. They said they honestly think I am a decent player but not quite on the same level as the best of the best, but they said they dont think I suck either. What they said was, If S tier was like Ogawa, and A tier was like JT or something, I was somewhere in between B and C tier and that I sorta tend to fluctuate depending on the day or something. I would have to agree with them that I am not as consistent as I would like to be. They, did say that I have shown a lot of improvement since I came to Japan and FAB told me he thinks I have gotten a lot better. So, its good to finally know where I stand in most of their opinions. I cant say I disagree with them. It just makes me want to step up my game and get even better.

The Russian players seemed to be having quite a good time. Goga was the most relaxed of the bunch and was just chillin. Robobobr passed out on the table sorta early. Overkill kept trying to give big toasts every few minutes lol! At some point Haken told me that they wanted to keep things low key so to sorta tell him to quiet down a bit. I know Overkill had good intentions though and thats just the way they do things in Russia. It was no big deal and everyone was having fun. Also, Overkill wanted to do some arm wrestling matches. I played him and won. He said my elbow was moving so we did it like 3 more times and I won each time. He was tough though. Then FAB fought overkill in arm wrestling and won too. His arm was probably tired from playing against me 4 times though. It might have been more even if they both played their first time. FAB is a pretty strong guy though it seems.

Around 5, the party ended and everyone headed out. Jan was staying with some Chinese players in Ikebukuro so he left, and the Russians had a place to stay too. I just found a manga kissa nearby and stayed there. This time it was much nicer than the one I stayed at the previous night.

On Sunday, I headed back to Makuhari Messe for the next day of SBO and TGS. On the way there, I was at Tokyo station and Andy told me he was on his way and was just a few minutes behind me, so I decided to wait for him. Then Emmet said he was just a few minutes behind Andy, so we then waited for Emmet. Both of them had work related stuff to do on Saturday, so they were unable to go to SBO yesterday.

We stopped at the Lawson before heading into the SBO venue and bought some whiskey and coke to make some drinks to enjoy watching the tournaments. When we arrived in the SBO venue, we were JUST in time for the start of the 3rd Strike top 4. Emmet's favorite game is 3rd Strike so he was happy about that. Im not gonna go into details about the 3S matches since everything has been reported already, but it was entertaining. I was rooting for Kokujin's team but they got 2nd unfortunately to MOV's team.

After 3s was over, we decided to walk around the TGS area. Andy wanted to buy a stick, so we went to the Sanwa booth but they were only selling parts and not full sticks. We checked out lots of cosplayers and I took lots of good pictures, so I will let the pictures describe themselves instead of typing about it. Also, Emmet and I tried out MvC3. I used Ammaterasu, Super Skrull, and Dante. The game felt kinda strange to me and Im not really sure how much I like it yet but I will keep an open mind. I cant really judge the game from playing one match when I hardly even know whats going on. I wanted to try Castlevania Lord of Shadows but by that time it was already like past 4 and they told me that they werent letting anyone else get in line since TGS closes down at 5.

After that, we headed back to the SBO area. We were just in time to watch top 4 for SFIV. Once again, all the results were posted already and im sure you already know them so I wont go into detail but in the end, Kindebu played really well and took out Daigo for the win. This resulted in RF (who was on Kindebu's team) to be the SBO champion of 2 games in the same year! Amazing!

Once it was over, everyone started to clear out. Andy, Emmet, Jan, and I decided to go to an Izakaya in Shinjuku to start off the drinking night and get some food. We stayed for a couple of hours and talked a lot about various things. It was fun.

After that, we headed to Current. It wasnt all that packed but there were people there. Nothing too noteworthy there happened that I can remember at this point but it was fun. It started to clear out later on at around maybe 2 or 3, so we then decided to just go to Roppongi. We took a cab there and ended up going to Gas Panic. Im not really a big fan of the place but it was ok I guess. Emmet realized that he left his backpack at Current and Chip was there earlier and was nice enough to bring Emmet's back pack all the way to Gas Panic since Chip lives in Roppongi. Chip is the man. Soon after, Emmet met hooked up with some random club girl and left with her. Jan, Andy, and I stayed a bit longer but eventually had enough, so we headed back to Shinjuku once the trains started running. When we got to Shinjuku, Andy decided to just head home. Jan went back to Ikebukuro. Jan still had no phone, so I just agreed to meet up with him at Mikado at around 4 pm. I stayed at my usual manga kissa.

On Monday (SBO weekend was a 3 day weekend), I woke up and headed towards Shinjuku station cuz I was gonna go to Akihabara. On my way to the station, I was walking and listening to my headphones and I felt someone tap me on the shoulder. I turned around and a cop stopped me. He asked me to show him my ID for no reason at all and said lots of "gaijin" (he didnt use the polite term "gaikokujin") have been walking around a lot lately without ID. I figured he was just trying to harass me and be a dick so I figured I might as well just show him my ID so he would leave me alone cuz provoking him would just make things worse. After I showed my ID, he just gave it back and I walked away. This is the first time ive had this happen as far as I can remember. From there, I went to Akihabara. I had a few hours to kill and still wanted to buy a new PS1/Ps2 stick since mine broke a while ago. I searched 10 different stores and finally found an old PS1 Hori stick at Sofmap for 2000 yen! What a deal!

After that, I headed to Mikado and got there like just around 4 exactly. I was dissapointed to see that the place was packed with GG players and that a tournament (I think it was a 4 on 4) was just ending. I had no idea about it. The final match was Ogawa vs Chonari and Ogawa won. I would have liked to enter but oh well, there will be other random Mikado tournaments so Ill live. Jan was there. We stayed and played a few games of casuals and then we headed out.

Today was the official Tougeki Foreign player farewell party, They run this every year but I couldnt go last year cuz I was sick. This time, it was held at the Enterbrain (the company that makes Arcadia and runs SBO) main building located in Iidabashi. It took us a bit of time to walk there but we eventually found it. The party was set up in their employee party room area. They had 2 whole tables full of Dominoes pizza and sushi and stuff, and they also had 2 giant coolers full of beer. The party was only 2ooo yen so it was totally worth it. They also had 3 setups (2 were running SSFIV and one was running KOF2k2UM). Most of the foreign SBO teams were there (except for the Russian GG players). I played various games of SSFIV. I was able to do well against some people and actually beat 2 players on the official SBO Kuwait team, much to my surprise. I money matched Marn for 500 yen just for shits and lost to his Dudley. I knew I would lose anyway since Marn mains that game and plays it all the time and stuff but I didnt care. Im not very good vs Dudley either yet but its all good. I would have loved to play some GG there but they didnt even have it there for whatever reason. I probably knocked back about 7 beers while we were there and ate tons of pizza. At around 8:15, Jan and I had to head out to go back to Gunma. Jan was gonna stay with me for a few days because he needed to save money on his trip and we were going to go to Nagoya together for NSB on Wednesday night. Right before we were about to leave, they were about to run a SSFIV tournament. I would have liked to enter for fun, but there was just no time, so we said bye to everyone and headed out.

The walk to the station was a bit far and we didnt want to miss the train so we were walking pretty fast, and it was hot out, so I sweated quite a bit. When we got on the train I was sitting next to some creepy guy who just kept muttering under his breath "kusai... kusai naa!" over and over, which basically means "it smells" or "it stinks." I did smell a little bad from sweating but it wasnt like the worst thing in the world. It was starting to piss me off cuz the guy was just saying it to himself over and over. Its like... either dont say anything at all, or say it to my face instead of just muttering it a zillion times. I eventually got sick of listening to him so I just turned to him and said in Japanese "I know, sorry" to sorta give him a neautural response to let him know I can understand him but without trying to seem like im starting something. After that, he shut the fuck up and eventually moved seats, which if I smelled so bad, I dont get why he didnt just move in the first place instead of fucking complaining about it forever.

We made it back to my place fine. The following day (Tuesday, Sept 21st) was my birthday. Im gonna go ahead and just cut this blog post off right here, because theres still tons to type about and I think this is more than enough text for anyone to want to read in one sitting. I will continue everything up throughout NSB and my trip to Nagoya in the next post. In any case, SBO weekend was pretty awsome and I had a lot of fun.