Japan! Part 1 - Tokyo + Anisama 2019 + Mika PIkazo Exhibit

It's certainly been a long time since I've written anything for this.  I can really only blame laziness as to why I haven't bothered doing anything here, but I've recently gotten my hands on a camera (Sony a6000 to be exact) that I've been playing around with.  I had the chance to go to Japan so I decided to bring it along to try my hand at random photography.  That being said, fuck photography is hard and certainly something I'm not used to, but it's a pretty interesting thing to mess around with.  Because of that I think a lot of my shots are either under/overexposed so bare that in mind.

hey look it's girls frontline

hey it's akiba

The nightmare kirby himself

So during my past trip to Japan, I was there for about weeks, the first week working in Tokyo and then attending Anisama.  The second week was traveling eastward from Fukuoka all the way back to Tokyo, making stops in Hiroshima, Kure, Onomichi, Takehara, Kobe, and finally Osaka to see Sphere.  The third week was spent working in Tokyo, ending with the Yama no Susume Autumn Fes.

the mysterious box with kitkats lol

Since I was working the first week, I spent most of the time in the office, but I did get to spend some time around Tokyo, visiting the usual things like Akiba, Shinjuku, Shibuya and what not, but I didn't take too many photos.  I learned that Akiba has a weird little corner there's a weird vending machine corner.  There's a lot of machines you normally don't see like a popcorn vending machine, mysterious boxes with weird stories on them that are priced at anywhere between 500 to 1500 yen, and just other weird signage in general.  My friend got one of 1000 yen boxes which happened to have just 3 packs of KitKats in them.

A random list of other things that I did was eat at a great curry place called カレーは飲み物 which a good friend brought me to, watch a couple movies Girls und Panzer das Finale Chapter 2, and Tenki no Ko - Weathering With You and play some MaiMai Deluxe and Pop'n Music.

ANISAMA!!!!

Now one of the reasons for this Japan trip to begin with was Anisama over at the Saitama Super Arena.   I had tickets for all three days which let me see a lot of fun stuff.  There's some random stuff at Saitama Super Arena aside from the actual concert itself.  There's a mini stage that have smaller acts, DJs, and other Anisong related stuff throughout the day, a food stalls and of course there's buppan. Though there was also booths from Bushiroad, and Good Smile Company.  

As you get closer, you see buppan and one of the entrances

The evil Aniuta can badge gacha for artist's signatures, and
potentially a signed t-shirt.  Also has a speaker where
they blast songs in Aniuta, generally related to artist at Anisama

What you see after you walk towards Saitama Super Arena
from Saitama-Shintoshin Station

Some mobage called CUE! where you manage your own seiyuu

The following section is just kind of a dump of how I felt during each day of the lives so it's going to be a mess of thoughts.  They seemed to be doing a lot more things that incorporated footage from anime compared to 2018 which was interesting to see.  Day 1 started off strong with Youkoso Japari Park with Kemono Friends x i☆RiSphere along with a cameo appearance by Oishi Masayoshi for the S2 OP.  It had a whole bout of Garupan from Sayaka Sasaki starting with the first movie's OP, a surprise Ankou Dance into High Flying Future!!.  The set ended with Enter Enter Mission! with a collab with Fuchigami Mai, the seiyuu for Miho. Aoi Tori live was a surprise, but very welcome.  Similarly seeing a Teekyuu OP live (ファッとして桃源郷 by Mimorin) was absurd, but very much appreciated. i☆Ris didn't do any of their Pripara stuff, but Ultimate Magic is a very very fun song. fhána came out and did Aozora no Rhapsody and alluded to KyoAni and remembering them in these times.  Closer was Sphere which was a nice little thing to help prepare for the live later in Osaka

Day 2 was my personal highlight.  This Anisama, they had a mini stage at the very back of the arena where they would from time to time bring people up and my seat happened to be right by it which was very very cool. Day 2 also opened strong with Minori Chiara collabing with TRUE to sing Paradise Lost.  Minoringo is always super fun to watch live with how much energy she brings to the stage.  Oohara Yuiko was put on the back and sung the Takagi-san 2nd season OP.  The song that followed was a surprise appearance by Takahashi Rie (seiyuu for Takagi) who sung Kimagure Romantic, a song I listened quite a bit back in college so that was a real treat.  Star Divine by Starlight Kukugumi is always a crowd pleaser.  Last year they did Sakura Taisen's Geki Teikoku Kagekidan, but this year they did The Galaxy Express 999. Minoringo made appeared during Asaka's SHINY DAYS, popping out of a tent.  TRUE had a nice medely of Hibike! Euphonium songs starting with Finale's theme Blast!, followed by Dream Solister with Kitauji Quartet.  It was nice to see how well TRUE and Kitauji Quartet got along on stage.  Kitauji Quartet then did Tutti!, going around the stadium on the carts.  I was hoping that they would also do Vivace, but it was not to meant to be.  angela (Lady Gaga) fucking killed it.  During their MC, Atsuko mentioned that in all the years they've been at Anisama, they've never ridden the carts around stadium.  Apparently when they asked management, they said only let you ride the carts if you're cute which followed by everyone calling them cute.  So they began with their cutest(?) song Zenryoku Summer! and began the carts.  But they went one step further and made a meme come true live and went further by going back to Zenryoku Summer, then to Sidonia.  All throughout this, they're on the carts and they ended up doing a figure 8 pattern, going every single part of the arena that the cart that they could visit.  Most artists don't do and you could tell why.  The people moving the carts had to push them at fucking lightspeed, just making those carts fucking go.  I personally appreciate it since again, most artists don't do this so it was a super nice gesture.  I honestly can't wait to see this on BD.  TrySail always gets the crowd going which is always good too.  Aqours closed day 2 and their choreography is always dynamic.

Day 3 started off with Aoi Eir and Aoi Shouta doing Preserved Roses.  Very very cool collab, but I also wouldn't have minded if the originals were there too... Before the last act before the intermission, they had a video to introduce the next group.  Now, throughout these three days, people were guessing that Houkago Tea Time would appear since this year was the 10th anniversary of K-On! and a couple years ago, they brought back together SOS-Dan.  Out of all the days, it made most sense for Day 1 since Sphere appeared which has both Toyosaki Aki (Yui) and Kotobuki Minako(Tsumugi).  But with nothing on Day 1, people definitely thought that the dream was dead. But, there were some that still believed.  As the movie played there was a mic, some wires and a blurred out guitar.  The first assumption was Popipa since they were scheduled for Day 3 and instruments would be a natural way to introduce them.  But as they focused in on the guitar, it was Yui's Les Paul, Gi-tah.  But what really confirmed it was Mio's lefty Elizabass.  They proceeded to show everyone else's instruments and when they turned the lights back on, all five were standing on stage in their Don't Say Lazy outfits (with Azusa's being from the Bluray box) and started with Don't Say Lazy, followed up by Go Go Maniac. Being only a high schooler in America when it aired, there was no way I was making it to a live back when K-On! was much more relevant so to see this live was very touching.  Not to be one upped, following the intermission, JAM Project set the stage finishing with Skill.  A little surprising since I think most people expected JAM Project to close Day 3 like last year, but I guess they wanted to give the highlight to another group this year.  Ogura Yui and Uchida Maaya came out afterwards to the Hamtaro OP, made famous through Anikura.  Of course to accompany this, there was plenty of mix and calls. Popipa has fun songs.  Aoi Eir was the closer which was nice to see since her come back last year.

hi jason

otsukare anisama

Something that I would like to mention is that there was a surprising amount of repeats of particular songs, but those songs also were from KyoAni anime like Aozora Rhapsody so there was a lot of nods to KyoAni, but nothing explicit that was said which I think is unfortunate, but I imagine it might have been the artists wanted to do, but couldn't explicitly say it due to adult reasons.

Mika Pikazo Art Exhibit!

The actual entrance with the same
illustration as the cover of Mika Pikazo's
art book!

Not the actual entrance, but very cool

Oh yea, I also visited the Mika Pikazo's (aka Mika-Mama) exhibit which was cool.  It had a bunch of her doujinshi there too that you could flip through and see what she's been up to.  Also featured statues of Kaguya Luna and last year's Magical Mirai designed by her.  Her official artbook was on sale early and if you were there early enough, you could get a autograph ticket as well (not that I knew about it early enough or would be in Tokyo for the sign session).

Half of the doujinshi laid out to read!

Kaguya Luna - Beyond the Moon!

Pinky Pop Hepburn herself

Magical Mirai Miku and Kaguya Luna :O

and posters of them!

I wish I could have one of these posted on my wall
Also why the fuck did blogger put you down here

Well this ended up being a lot longer than I expected... which is scary since I have a lot more pictures to deal with for the second week since I ended up doing a bunch of anime pilgrimages where I tried to recreate shots so uhhhhh we'll see how those go... Hopefully those get done as the week goes by....
Also holy shit blogger's fucking shit at formatting photos properly.  It takes a surprising amount of effort to massage the dumb pictures where you hopefully want them to go... Maybe I'll move this dumb blog over to something else that will not fuck up image formatting

Senior Year/Graduation + Crunchyroll

this actually serves no
purpose but to ruin spacing

don't judge me

It's... been definitely quite a while since the last time I decided to make a blog post.  I don't think I made a blog post during senior year, so I guess this update is going to be like a really broad update as to life and what has happened I guess up until now.  I can only hope that I can actually update this a little more often than I have for the past year... maybe even once every few weeks!  Ideally every week but there are never any guarantees :<

Random Short Guide to kakorokuRecorder

This isn't really that important, but here's just a short little guide on how to use kakorokuRecorder.  First of all, this is used to download timeshifted videos, so I'm assuming that you already know how to timeshift videos and have already timeshifted one.

Options

School + NEC

It will be all over soon :<

It's actually been way to long since I've written a blogpost, like about a half a year at this point haha.  If you want to see NEC shoutouts, they should be down there.  Hopefully I'll be able to take care of this blog a little better until the next NEC.  In fact, alot has happened since the last post here!  School started, BBCP came out, NEC happened, and the second last semester for me ending yesterday.  Honestly there's alot of things inbetween that I don't even remember all that well, but this semester has honestly flown past pretty quickly, I feel like possibly the fastest, but at the time it was also one of the more arduous semesters for me.  All I have to say from this semester is that I hate signals and systems and I hope I never ever have to deal with them again.  If I do, I will be very sad ;__;

AX + EVO

It's about time I made a blog post about my experiences in the past couple of weeks which were pretty crazy.  I got to go to alot of places namely Los Angeles and Las Vegas which was nice to see a
different part of the west coast outside of the bay area.  Though I do have to say that out of all the places I've been to so far, I enjoy NorCal the best right now.  The weather and the community as so far been a blast to be with so I'm very happy that I've had the opportunity to intern here in NorCal.

Fanime + NCI

pretty coo

Well, it's been a while since I've written a blog post.  Mainly because I've been kinda busy just doing things, but I've been having alot of fun out here in California.  The last time I remember talking about things was Fanime.  Fanime was hella godlike, and there was alot of really fun things to see. I got to meet the majority of the Norcal scene there including ApologyMan, 2Gb, DacidBro, Mike, Pavo, and a bunch of other really fun people.  There was some great times with Chun, Ron, Tone, Daryl, and others and the legend that is Dokapon.  That game is so depressing... I don't believe anyone should ever be subjected to it ever again.  Fanime has the most gdlk game room that I've seen so far at an anime convention.  Monitors are actually lagless, there's a decent game collection and there were alot of people to play with!  Though, Marvel was a pay to play setup which was really sad, but I had alot of good times hanging out with the Norcal scene.  I've also had the opputunity to go to GameCenter quite often.  Myung, the owner of GameCenter, is a really cool guy.  I only wish that GameCenter was more successful than it is right now because it's a great place to hang out with people.  Unfortunately, it's also the only place where I can netplay so that's really inconvenient for trying to play which kinda sucks.  

NorCal + Internship

This is a little late... as in exactly from last week, but I decided why not post it anyways? I'll write one soon enough about Fanime and that whole experience sometime before Friday... I think :/

So, while I wait for a build to be made, why not start a blog post or something?  Probably won’t be able to do that much after this with work picking up and what not.  Alot of have things have changed since my last blog post... which was like 4 months ago.  Semester has ended, which turned out to be as I expected, and actually better than I was bracing myself for.  Not to say that it was great, it was still kind of a shitty semester, but hey it’s suppose to be my hardest so woo!  I’m now in Alameda, doing an internship which is pretty sweet.  So, I’m living in NorCal for the summer which should be a nice and refreshing experience since it’s my first time on the West Coast.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

It's been quite a while since I've actually bothered to write a blog post. Mainly because I've been pretty lazy and haven't really wanted to do anything. Though I have done quite a bit since my last blog post. I've finished my Akihiko combo video right before NEC, went to NEC, finished school that semester, went skiing, played through FF XIII-2 (mostly), Jourdal's youtube channel got bodied, created a burst tutorial, went to Apex, and just finished MGS4 yesterday. Oh and the new semester started on Monday, but that's not relevant of course. Quite a few things have happened over the past few months, but it's been quite the ride. I'll probably write a separate post for my Akihiko CMV after I'm done talking about other things.

Fighting games and what not + skool stahp pls

meh

It's been way too long since my last blog post, partially because I feel like I don't have anything important or interesting to write about, but also because I'm lazy and don't feel like writing about anything as well.  But then again, I think I forgot that I started this blog for myself to just write about whatever the hell I wanted so if you don't find this interesting then meh :<

Bang CMV Pt2 + Summer Jam

I'm... working.
Yea.

It's been a long time since I've actually wrote a post for my blog for many random reasons, but the majority of it can be blamed on laziness and P4A.  After I finished my combo video, I went home, got P4A when it came out, and pretty much haven't stopped playing since it's release.  I'll probably write a little bit more about P4A in my next post about what I like and dislike about the game.  But, for now I spend a little time playing catch up and write about my combo video and Summer Jam.

Bang CMV Pt. 1 + Work

It turns out it wasn't as fun as this video ahhhhh

So making a combo video turns out to be painful and slightly annoying.  I haven’t completed it yet since I still have to edit it, but I’m done making these combos.  Going into this, I only had one combo idea at the time, but aside from that, everything was improvised.  Because of that, it took me a long time to get all combos that I felt were acceptable and even then, I’m pretty sure when I’m done editing it and watch it, I’ll think all of the combos that I’ve done are boring.  Either way, I’ll finish editing it and upload it really soon either tomorrow or the day after that..

TSB 6/23 + Spring Anime 2012

I dunno what to put so have some
yukkuris :<

So this past weekend was a Team St1ckBuG tournament, also known as TSB, a tournament that is based solely on more niche(read as anime) fighting games including Blazblue, Guilty Gear, Virtua Fighter, and Melty.  Honestly, I went to the tournament to have fun, and see friends.  I didn’t expect that much from results and such because I was still (and still am) preparing for my combo video.  Also, I hadn’t played fighting games against someone else since ECT which was 2 weeks ago.  Either way, going to TSB was convenient since I was already in NY so travelling wouldn’t be an issue thanks to the subway.

Bang CMV + Persona 4 Arena

@PSRRAGNAGOD
TOO GDLK

So after watching the multitudes of combo videos that America has made recently in Blazblue, I was thinking that I want to make one myself.  If nothing else, it’s something that interests me and something that will keep me occupied at actually produce something (unlike last summer :/).  Most importantly, this project has a concrete deadline which should force me to get into it.  I have to release this CMV before P4A comes out in Japan, in other words, when Blazblue fades into obscurity.   So ideally, I will release it a week or two before P4A comes out which gives me about 3-4 weeks to complete this combo video.

ECT 4 + Internship

I don't even remember seeing a Hakumen
Only Ragna :/

So ECT 4 just happened last weekend and I have to say, it was a great experience.  I got to meet a bunch of people on the east coast including a couple of people from Montreal.  Even without playing Blazblue for over a couple of weeks, I didn't do too poorly considering that.  Even so, I'm still disappointed for not being able to make it out of pools, and because of that, there are no match videos of how I messed up, though I do have a general idea of what I did wrong.  I also entered Marvel... but I don't really want to think or talk about that.  Also, last week I started my internship at an investment bank.  Actually working is very different than school, especially here.  Expected behavior, social conduct, and what's in general expected of me, is very different than what I'm used to.

Season's Beatings: Summer Slam + Sophomore Year

Unlimited Blade Works
Cause it's cool and stuff

It's been quite a while since Season's Beatings: Summer Slam, but I might as well write about them.  I can say that this was easily one of the worst tournaments that I went to experience wise.  The venue was great and it was nice that the venue was quite spacious without being crowded with people, but even so it turned out to be a pretty bad tournament for Pittsburgh in general.

Stream Commentary + toi_yet's Kumite

Commentary is hard :/

I've been wanting to talk about stream commentating for a while because it has been a relevant problem for our stream for a while.  This sort of problem has been an issue for not just our stream, but for the fighting game scene in general.

Power Up 2012 + Reflections

WHAT EVEN ARE YOU

This past weekend I went to Power Up over in Cincinnati.  Before I got any further, I warn you for impending salt coming your way.  To sum everything up very quickly, I went 0-2 in Skullgirls and 3-2 in Blazblue, and 4th in Melty Blood.  The one I'm really disappointed in is Skullgirls to be honest.  just the way I got eliminated was pretty frustrating for me.

Street Fighter x Tekken + Winter 2012 Anime Review

WE IN THERE FOR SFxT

Recently, there's been something interesting that has occurred in the Pittsburgh scene.  For one thing, we were able to hold ranking battles for our scene which we did stream.  There was some issues with running the tournaments mainly because of the time constraint, but I think it went pretty well overall even with all of the complications that happened.  But the more interesting was what turned out of Street Fighter x Tekken and it's future in the Pittsburgh FGC.

Persona 4 + Persona 4: Arena

Out of season, but w/e :<

So a couple of weekends ago, I finally finished Persona 4.  Now, before I talk about anything important, I'm going to make the warning that this review or reflection about this game is going to be full of spoilers so unless you don't want the game to be spoiled, I recommend not reading the next few paragraphs.  I'll make the second point that if you have any intention of playing the game, you shouldn't read this as the story is one of the more important parts of the game.

Winter Brawl + Distant Worlds

It's been quite a while since I've written on my blog.  Mainly due to a bunch of work coming up such as tests, homework and what not.  In fact, I just finished a homework assignment due today and I still have another one due Friday which will take quite a bit of time.  But in the mean time, I talk about the more interesting things that I did over the past few weeks.

It kinda worked out like this

So, a couple weeks ago I went to Winter Brawl with a bunch of people from Pittsburgh.  I would have to say the most interesting thing about this trip was actually the ride there and back.  Due to some complications, we ended up having to fit 6 people into a car.  It wasn't a sedan so we didn't have to cram 4 people in the back, but since we did have a Prius, we had to stick someone into the trunk.  So, a friend sat in the trunk for the whole 6 hours to Pennsylvania, and the 6 hours back to Pittsburgh.  Keep in mind that aside from him, the trunk was completely packed.  So he was squished between all of our luggage which was quite amusing.  But, what I found even more amusing, was when we took breaks to get gas or food.  We would have to take him out of the car through the trunk, and when we were done, pack him back into the trunk.  Watching the reactions of people that could see us doing this was absolutely hilarious.  Unfortunately, there aren't any pictures of this, but the confusion on their faces was definitely something to see.