This year was a rare occurrence in Japan. 3 different national
holidays aligned together to create what Japan calls "Silver Week" (Wikipedia does a good job explaining what it
is). This, combined with some mandatory holiday hours I needed to take for
working over the past weekend gave me a ridiculous 9 days off of work from
9/19-9/27. In an even more perfect storm, this also happened to be the weekend
of Tokyo Game Show. So I planned a route through Japan's 3 big metropolises and
set out Friday night.
The most efficient way for me to traverse
all the way to Tokyo was by taking the shinkansen, or bullet train. It's fast.
While expensive, it gets you where you need to go, and I'm glad to have
experienced it. I did find it humorous that to keep up with the idea of speed,
even when the train stops, the boarding window is extremely small, less than a
minute I would say. 
That morning I headed out to the Tokyo Convention Center for Tokyo
Game Show (TGS). It was quite a scene. Hundreds of thousands of people had convened
for the event, where companies showed off their newest video games and gaming
technology.
Different companies had massive stages constructed where they
debuted new products, had concerts, and live demonstrations. There was so much
to do, but unfortunately I learned too late that many of these things required
people to queue up for up to 3 hours before even getting the chance to try a
game or see a performance. Due to the sheer amount of people and things to do,
the best strategy was apparently to look at the schedule days ahead of time,
pick the 1 thing you really, really wanted to do, and go at opening and line up
for that particular thing.
Yet since I did not do that, I was able to explore a
variety of stages at the show, stumble upon some cool performances, and watch
other people demo games instead. Notable highlights were seeing the gameplay reveal
of a newly announced RPG I hope comes stateside, The Last Guardian gameplay demo and life sized griffin, as well as a piano performance
from the composer for the game Gravity Rush.
Different companies had massive stages constructed where they
debuted new products, had concerts, and live demonstrations. There was so much
to do, but unfortunately I learned too late that many of these things required
people to queue up for up to 3 hours before even getting the chance to try a
game or see a performance. Due to the sheer amount of people and things to do,
the best strategy was apparently to look at the schedule days ahead of time,
pick the 1 thing you really, really wanted to do, and go at opening and line up
for that particular thing. 
Yet since I did not do that, I was able to explore a
variety of stages at the show, stumble upon some cool performances, and watch
other people demo games instead. Notable highlights were seeing the gameplay reveal
of a newly announced RPG I hope comes stateside, The Last Guardian gameplay demo and life sized griffin, as well as a piano performance
from the composer for the game Gravity Rush.
On the evening between the first and second days of the show I
passed a street performer named TJ Ken rocking out. This is the second time
since coming to Japan I have seen an amazingly talented street musician, so
just like last time, I bought his CD. Here's a video of why I was compelled to support
him.
I asked one of the locals listening to TJ Ken where to go to eat,
and on his recommendation I met up with
a few other ALTs and grabbed a good dinner at an Italian restaurant in the
area. Isaak, Jefferey, and Chiara were also at the show and stayed in Tokyo, we went on a few different adventures throughout the week.
Day two was another day spent wandering around the show and taking in the scenes. For friends who cosplay, apparently that is quite a different scene out here. Cosplayers have odd cult celebrity statuses, and spend pretty much the whole day modeling for the flocks of photographers who seem to come to the show just to take pictures of them. This photo sums it up pretty well.
I was also surprised at how little merchandise was in the merchandise area, and that much of the cool swag had sold out halfway through the FIRST day. But I am coming to realize in Japan limited quality is not viewed quite the same way. They are rather obsessed with "limited" items (ex: McDonald's has a new item each month). So rather than a supplier looking bad for not stocking enough of a given item, it is seen as something more valuable, and if you didn't get what you wanted, it's on you since you should have made it a higher priority. So I did not get a sweet TGS hat like I wanted, but I did get a pretty cool banner type of thing as a memento, and the plus side was I had more money to spend later in the week.
Day two was another day spent wandering around the show and taking in the scenes. For friends who cosplay, apparently that is quite a different scene out here. Cosplayers have odd cult celebrity statuses, and spend pretty much the whole day modeling for the flocks of photographers who seem to come to the show just to take pictures of them. This photo sums it up pretty well.
I was also surprised at how little merchandise was in the merchandise area, and that much of the cool swag had sold out halfway through the FIRST day. But I am coming to realize in Japan limited quality is not viewed quite the same way. They are rather obsessed with "limited" items (ex: McDonald's has a new item each month). So rather than a supplier looking bad for not stocking enough of a given item, it is seen as something more valuable, and if you didn't get what you wanted, it's on you since you should have made it a higher priority. So I did not get a sweet TGS hat like I wanted, but I did get a pretty cool banner type of thing as a memento, and the plus side was I had more money to spend later in the week.
Overall I am glad I got to experience TGS, and if I get the chance
to go again I now know the strategy of how best to experience the show.
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