Johnny-o Cup 2011

Alright, well I don't have much time to type this so I'm gonna keep it brief.

Friday, I ended up having to work late and didn't end up making it out to Tokyo until about 10 pm. I headed right to Mikado and played casuals for 2 hours until they closed. I had plans to go see the doctor at Takadanobaba hospital in the morning so I decided not to go out drinking in Shinjuku cuz otherwise I would be committed to staying out really late due to manga kissas being full. So, instead I got some food and then just sorta walked around Takadanobaba drinking some wine and listening to music for a bit. I eventually found a small bar and went in there and talked with a few random Japanese people while I was there. I went to bed at around 3.

I woke up the next morning and from the Takadanobaba manga kissa and went to the hospital. I got a blood test done to check on the condition of my gout and stuff. I wouldnt know the results until Tuesday.

After the hospital, I grabbed some food and headed to Mikado. It was about 1 pm and the place was packed with people playing casuals and they had tones of cabs set up. Today's events were the 2 on 2 and singles tournaments which you could only enter if you qualified in advance. I didn't, so I just played casuals all day to practice for the 23 on 23 tomorrow in which I was playing in. I got lots of good games in and there were a lot of great players I hadnt seen in a while that came out for this event. I didnt watch the tournaments but the results were

singles - 1st place Mitsurugi (ZA)
2on2 teams - 1st place FAB (PO) Karesedo (ZA)

I stayed until about 10:30 pm and then got some food and headed to Current to drink. I met up with Emmet there who was also with Bloodbath and another guy named Nick who I never met before. Current was pretty good actually and there were some good regulars there. However, Pachi wanted to go drinking in Roppongi and so did Emmet and his crew. I sorta wanted to stay at Current but they all sorta coerced me into going with them. I flipped a coin to decide and it was off to Roppongi.

We started off at Heartland. It was pretty boring but the guys convinced some sorta old chick to leave with us. Then we ended up back at Gas Panic which I wasnt happy about but oh well. I split a whole bottle of wine with Pachi at the conbini before going in so that I could save money since Gas Panic is too expensive. It was a typical lame night there for me. Within 5 minutes of getting inside I lost sight of everyone I came with and wondered why I even went. I drank til closing and tried to make the most of it.

When it closed, I went back to Shinjuku to sleep.

Sunday, I woke up and was feeling a bit hung over. I only got like 6 hours of sleep cuz I head to be at Mikado for the 23 on 23. I was told it would start around 1:30. I got there before that. It didnt end up starting till around 3 pm. I was a bit nervous because I didnt think it would take very long to finish, so I had other plans later at night. Today was Ayano's birthday and she invited a bunch of Current regulars to go to an izakaya for her birthday. She made reservations in advance so I had to be there. I just figured id see how things went and hope I could show up on time.

So anyway theres really no reason for me to go into a whole lot of detail about the 23 on 23 because im sure they recorded the entire thing and the vids will be online eventually. Ill go ahead and just post the way it went down though.

In case you dont know how a 23 on 23 works, heres the gist of it. There are 4 regions (Tokyo, Saitama, Chiba, Kanagawa) and each has a team. There are 23 characters in GGAC and each of the 23 players plays one of the 23 characters. For whatever reason, it also seems that there is some sorta representative of the arcade the team had their quals at who is like a bonus member and they can use whatever character.

To start off the Tokyo team (my team) fought the Kanagawa team and the Chiba team fought the Saitama team. Both matches were going on at the same time on different setups. For a full list of players on each team, you can go here http://game2d.web.fc2.com/ggxx/
click on ランキング and scroll down to the table that shows the team members. The spots that are blank were filled out the day of the event by people who could represent those characters. I dont remember who they all are but maybe the Mikado site will update it later. As for our Jam player (since its blank on there as of now) we had Mike. Our Robo-Ky was Johnny-o cuz I guess イル　couldnt make it. Also, Kanagawa team had 2 Fausts (Osaka B and Kishya since Osaka B was their rep) and we had 2 Slayers (Taku and another guy whose name I dont know who was the rep).

Heres how our fight against Kanagawa went.
Tokyo Kanagawa
RO < AN
SL(?) < AN
BR > AN
BR > BR
BR > ZA
BR > AX
BR > CH
BR > RO
BR > KY
BR > MA
BR < FA (Osaka B)
BA < FA (Osaka B)
TE > FA (Osaka B)
TE < IN
FA(me)< IN
AN > IN
AN < SO
CH < SO
OR < SO
KY > SO
KY > JA
KY > VE
KY > SL
KY > BA
KY < ED
SL(Taku)< ED
MA < ED
MI < ED
DI < ED
JO > ED
JO < JO
PO > JO
PO < MI
AX < MI
SO < MI
ZA > MI
ZA > TE
ZA > DI
ZA > OR
ZA < FA(Kishya)
IN < FA(Kishya)
ED > FA(Kishya)

It went down to our very last player vs their very last player and Tsu (or ED) pulled out a great win and took it for our whole team! We advanced to the finals. As for my match, I usually do better vs I-no. The first match was REALLY close and I was playing pretty nervous and not 100% and didnt do so well in round 2 and lost. Oh well.

After that, there was an intermission. Time was running out and I knew by this point I wouldnt be able to stay till the end of the tournament if I wanted to make it on time for Ayano's birthday. I figured I would just try to play early on and would have to leave early after I lost.

In the finals we played against Chiba and at that time, Kanagawa fought Saitama for 3rd place. Heres out it went down.

Tokyo Chiba
RO < KY
SL < KY
FA(me)> KY
FA(me)< AN
AX > AN
AX > MI
AX < SL
AB < SL
TE > SL
TE < RO
BR > RO
BR > TE
BR < CH
JA > CH
JA > OR
JA < BA
KY > BA

After the Ky vs BA match, I had to go. I just explained to my team that I hadnt thought the tournament would take this long and had an appointment that I couldnt cancel and they completely understood and thanked me for playing. Endo actually left right after Mike beat him as well so I figured it wasnt so bad. It was pretty hilarious when Mike beat him too, cuz before the match, FAB was questioning Mike if he could take Endo and Mike was just like... fuck this shit, and went up there and just raped him and jokingly rubbed it in Endos face. Each round he went up to him and put his arm around his shoulder pointing to Endos dead Chipp. It was espessially funny when he IKed him lol. As for my match, I did well against Ky winning both rounds. Vs Anji. I won a round but overall I was playing pretty nervous and not as solid as usual and lost. Im not very good vs Anji.

Anyway, I left there and made it on time for the Izakaya. Some Current regulars like Mitchi, Mai, SPG Chris, Sachiko, Johan, Andy, and some people I didnt know were there. Also, Mogi came and it was the first time I had seen him since he quit working at Current. He seemed genuinely happy to see me. Ayano showed up late for her own party unfortunately. The menu was fixed for everyone and they didnt have wine, so I ended up eating some foods Im supposed to avoid and I also drank Gin Tonic the whole time and had quite a bit of it. At one point they brought me a whole pitcher of it lol! The party lasted 2 hours and it was fun talking to everyone and hanging out.

After it ended, we all went outside and made other plans. Some people went home, others decided to stay out and drink. I went to this bar called Big Time where Piko works now. Its also in Shinjuku (which is where the Izakaya was as well). I went there with Ayano, NZ Andrew (who was the same guy I arm wrestled a while back in a draw), Michi, Mai, and Mogi. The place was small but pretty decent. They had a big screen TV playing softcore Eastern European porn for some reason which was funny to watch in the background lol. I asked Mogi why he quit Current and he basically said it was cuz Sushi always gets too drunk and does stupid shit and Mogi was sick of dealing with it so he left. Appearently Sushi does it often because I recently also found out that Masami quit 2 weeks ago cuz Sushi was harassing some girl and when Masami tried to stop him, Sushi told him to fuck off and quit if he didnt like it, so he did. Mogi works at a place in Roppongi now. I told him Id like to come check it out sometime and give him a visit. Im sure id have more fun there than Gas Panic lol. Ayano and NZ Andrew wanted to check out Current, and Emmet was there, so I figured Id go with them.

On the way to Current, we found a dead crow on the street and NZ Andrew took pictures of it for like 5 minutes cuz he said he wanted to draw it later. Emmet left Current and we ran into him and the girl he was taking back to a love hotel on the way there. He told us the place was dead and when we got there, we saw that he was right. It was Sushi alone and like one other customer. I mainly talked with NZ Andrew about fighting games because he was not so familiar with them and he had a lot of questions about them. The music was boring and the place was dead so we didnt stay long. NZ Andrew and Ayano opted to go to sleep. I left and figured id go check out GODZ. Also, Emmet left his bag at Current and asked me to get it for him so I had to carry it around with me the rest of the night.

It turns out GODZ was closed tonight cuz the previous night was their Anniversary Party (which I wanted to go to but got dragged to Roppongi instead). I ran into Jackie out from. He said he was going to PSY so I tagged along, We were the only ones there besides Natsume who was working the bar and one other guy, but it was much better than Current and Natsume played us tons of awsome music. We had some interesting conversations about various things. One unfortunate thing that Jackie told me was that soon the laws will change for manga kissas and they will be open seating only which means no more comfortable flat rooms. Its really going to suck when that happens. Jackied bought me a drink and kept bumming me cigs and Natsume gave me half a pack that someone left there. I managed to stay out drinking with only 4000 yen left and still have enough to sleep. I didnt have time to go to the ATM after leaving Mikado but I just skimmed by on the skin of my teeth. I left at about 4 to go sleep, but the manga kissa was full so I got a salad at the 7-11 and sat out front eating it while some Nigerian dude kept trying to promote his club to me for like the next 20 minutes. I finally managed to get to sleep at 5.

The next day at Mikado was the random 5 on 5 team tournament. While I was there, I asked FAB if our team won the 23 on 23 but he apologized saying we lost. I told him there was no need to apologize. I entered and they put me on a team and it ended up being a 6 man team cuz it was like the team of guys who showed up later than everyone else. The tournament still took a while to get started. I figured that once again I would have time to play, but a crisis came up and Ryoko needed me to come back to Gunma tonight so I had to leave before my team even got to play their first match. I was gonna be on a team with Nakamura but I told him I had a situation to deal with and had to leave. He understood. Its ok though cuz now they had a 5 man team just like everyone else so I didnt have anything to really feel bad about.

I headed back to Gunma with Emmet who was at Mikado for a bit and got his backpack bag from me. I was really tired, sore, and hungover. Im not gonna get into details about the crisis I had to deal with but lets just say its still unresolved.

I got my test results back on Tuesday over the phone and my uric acid level is down to 4.0 which is pretty low so the gout meds seem to be working. Unfortunately I am still having a lot of fatigue and pain from it. I hope that goes away soon and I also hope that the doctors didnt mis-diagnose me.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Tomorrow, I leave for Chicago and will stay in the US for 3 weeks. I will also be at EVO. Should be good times and I am really looking forward to it. Ryoko is coming with me for the first week in Chicago as well. I wont be updating my blog for probably a month at least.

Also, I will be running a Guilty Gear tournament Chicago at the Chicago Heart 3 tournament event which is being organized by Heartnana. If you are still hungry for some GG action after EVO or just wanna come chill, please come support the event!

Laters

More Final Roundbats Action

Friday night, I drank in Numata with Emmet, Bloodbath, Phil, and some teachers from one of Emmet's schools. We started off at an izakaya, ended up going to a snack bar, and then went to a few other bars. I crashed at Emmet's cuz he lives in Numata.

I woke up the next day after only like 6 hours of sleep. I had to leave to catch the train to Tokyo to make it in time for today's Final Roundbats 2 tournament. I slept on the train most of the way.

Once again, the event was held at the Soundstone bar. This time, they had a lower turnout than last time. I think it might have been due to a Tokyo SBO qual for SSFIVAE going on at the same time. Lots of the regulars showed up as well as Abegen, Kusoru, and a few other Japanese players. The even was once again being streamed by GodsGarden.

I showed up pretty late and figured I would have already missed MK9 and Tekken 6, but since I dont play those games I didnt care. However, it turned out that due to the lower turnout, they hadn't even started the tournaments yet. I entered all 4 just for the hell of it since the general admission fee covers all entry fees.

I played casuals for a bit. I was feeling kind of out of it so I ducked out to the conbini to get some redbull and some red wine. I slammed both of those and chased it with a salad and then went back inside. I felt much more refreshed after that. Soon after, they started MK9. Due to the low turnout, every single match was streamed this time. This was literally the very first time I had ever played MK9 at all. I had to ask Bull410 how to do special moves and throw right before my match lol. I picked Scorpion just cuz I used to use him in MK Trilogy. Obviously I lost my match, though I didn't care in the slightest.

The next game was Tekken 6. Last time at Final Roundbats was my first time playing that game, so this was only my 2nd. I picked Jack-6 again and fought against that one robot chick character who shoots the missles. She kept spamming them from full screen and I tried to block it and kept getting hit and realized it was unblockable. So I tried jumping over them and then someone told me "yknow... you can just crouch under those" LOL! So once I did that, he stopped spamming the missles. I ended up actually winning a round but in the end I still got bodied of course. Once again, I didn't care at all. I bet the people watching the stream had a good laugh at that though.

For my first match of the MvC3 tournament, I fought someone who doesn't really even play the game at all and won pretty easily. I went with the same team I used last time of Ammy / Hsien-ko / Sent. Recently I started learning Doom like a few days before the tournament but Im not good enough with him yet so I just decided to stick with the team I was familiar with. For my 2nd match in Marvel, I had to fight Abegen. He used his signiture She-Hulk / Thor / Tron team. I actually played well and most of my stuff came out as intended during the first match and I won. Funny thing was that Hsien-ko on point actually ended up doing most of the work after Ammy died. The 2nd match was pretty close but I dropped some opportunities that could have won me the match. The 3rd match I just got raped cuz I failed at blocking and ate death combos. Abegen is really good at Marvel so I did better than I was expecting to I guess.

For the SSFIVAE tournament, my first match was against a Japanese Zangief player. I played pretty well and managed to beat him 3 rounds in a row. For my 2nd match, I had to play a guy who was just learning and sorta just came to hang out and watch. He used Guy. I won that one as well. For my 3rd match, I was now already in the top 4. My opponent was Abelity's Abel. He's always tough and we always have some pretty close fights. I won the first round but he won the next 3. I just wasn't doing a good job of getting out of his pressure. I now had to fight Jude's Claw for 4th place. Jude actually had a great first match of this tournament where he beat the guy's Viper who was in the finals last time. It was a really clutch fight. Things didn't go so well for me vs Jude. He beat me and took 3rd, so I ended up with a 4th place finish.

I stuck around and played casuals for a bit longer. They delayed all of the finals until the very end of the tournament this time so that everyone would watch. The offical results list will be posted here eventually and you can see the entire stream here on the GodsGarden ustream site. I dont remember who won all the tournaments but Abelity pulled out a first place victory in SSFIVAE. Good shit.

After the finals were over, Scott told me that the next Final Roundbats will be at a new venue which is actually in Tokyo and in a more convenient location. It will have lots of microbrews on tap and also they make pizza there so hopefully the new venue will be a bit better and the turnout will be bigger next time. I wont be able to go to the next one though because I will be visiting Chicago during that time. I will go to the 4th one though which should be at that place again.

I stuck around and played casuals for a bit with Jude's Claw in SSFIVAE. This time, I was doing much better and actually won more games against him than I lost. I wish I played better against him in the tournament. Oh well.

Jude decided to come drinking with me so we left together to get on the train. Another guy named Niko, who was in charge of filming and photography at the event, walked with us and rode the train with us as well. He was the one who made the recent mini documentary video about Final Roundbats, which can be seen on their blog site where the results will be posted. It was very well made.

Pachi wanted to originally drink with me in Shibuya and Emmet was just there but decided to head to Shinjuku because he picked up some girls at an international party and wanted to bring them to Current. I told Pachi to meet us at Current and said we would maybe go somewhere else from there.

When we got to Current, Pachi was already there. Emmet had no girls with him and didnt look so pleased. He said that when he was at the train station in Shibuya, he ran off to buy a ticket without telling the girls (and the random Japanese guy that was with them as well), and when he came back, he couldnt find them anymore. It was really crowded so they probably lost him. Emmet said that one of the girls was really into him, too so he was really kicking himself. He said that the Japanese guy was trying to cockblock him all night and kept telling the girls he was a play boy (which Emmet is lol) so that dude might have played a hand in it.

Current wasnt super great but a few people I knew were there. We stayed for a bit and talked to Pachi, but Pachi decided he was really tired so he went back to drink near his place. So, Emmet really wanted to go to Roppongi. Jude and I didnt mind so we ended up taking a cab out there. As soon as our cab pulled up, we got rushed down by 2 massage girls and 3 Nigerians at the same time and this was before we could EVEN LEAVE OUR CAB! WTF!!! We tried going to this one place called first bar that I can tolerate but it was being renovated. Then we tried going to 911 but they changed the name and now didnt allow people in with shorts which I was wearing... so I ended up getting dragged to Gas Panic which I really hate. I slammed a bunch of wine on the way there and before going in, so at least I was pretty wasted. As soon as we got inside, Emmet dissapeared into the sea of people and Jude and I hung out and talked for a while. I eventually went and danced a bit. It was pretty lame overall but oh well... Current was sorta dead anyway.

After Gas Panic closed, I took the train back to Shinjuku and slept at the manga kissa.

I spent all day on Sunday just playing GG casuals at Mikado. Kunihiro showed up and I played him a bit. A few more good regulars were there, too. It wasnt super packed up there were enough people to get some good practice in.

So thats about it. Next weekend is a 3 day weekend as well as the Johnny-o Cup tournament, and I will be playing on the Tokyo team for the 23 on 23. Should be good times.