A good friend of mine just sent me an interview with Tokyo Otaku Mode containing the following statement:
Kodaka explained that while there are a lot of otaku news sites in Japanese, there isn’t a site that publishes in English.
To which I saidマジデ？！
There are in fact several otaku news sites in English. I have been writing for two of the bigger ones for years! Here are my writing samples, one and two.
So you can imagine my surprise at this statement. I believe there is only one possible response to it: I offer myself in service to Cool Japan.
It doesn't matter what kind of Cool Japan thing you hire me for, I promise that I will be great.
I will be グレートだぜ。 Like Josuke.
Do you need me to be a professional foreigner, like the guys who show up on those TV shows? I am very tall. The last time I was in Japan, I came across a gathering of itasha, and I got so excited about those cool cars that everybody was gawking at me. So I can definitely be a professional foreigner, if that's what you're looking for. Wouldn't you like to hire a big Puerto Rican guy to get excited about otaku things? I can be that for you.
Aside from my writing work I am deeply and personally involved in otaku culture. Among other fan activities, I am the author of a popular 4-koma manga about videogames. I hear it even has a few readers in Japan!
I am also the only person who cares about Gatchi-Ota.
In conclusion, Cool Japan needs promotion, and I really miss Japan. This can happen. Let's work something out, Cool Japan.
The New Year is the
biggest Japanese holiday. Being in Japan for this would probably suck
in most parts of the country, because everything closes... but Akiba
doesn't. Nothing is sacred in Akiba.
My
hatsumode (first shrine visit) was perhaps the fondest memory of my
entire visit to Japan. I walked with all my new drinking friends from
our regular bar to the local temple... and I had my mind blown. I
understood that the new year was a big deal in Japan, but here in
this temple at midnight stood thousands
of locals lined up to make their first offering. The place was
enormous and naturally beautiful, which are two things that impress
you even more when you're very drunk.
On account of the
line being so long, we opted to just stand around and enjoy new
year's snacks (Yakitori! Takoyaki! New Year's Sake! Asahi!) as we
hobbled around the shrine. See a shrine. They are beautiful. You will
not regret it. Just don't show up drunk, I figure that's gotta be a cultural faux pas when it's not New Year's Day.
COMIKET:
I actually was only
at Comic Market for maybe an hour and a half. I know, I know, this is
the biggest comics gathering in the world. But I simply didn't have
any plans to buy anything, and I especially didn't want to end up
with something that would give me trouble at the border... and you
don't know what's going to be in those doujinshi unless you check
every page! We saw some friends with books to sell-- including one
person we met at the hotel breakfast!-- checked out the cosplay and
got going to the life-size Odaiba Gundam.
You
still have to see Comiket, if you're in the area at the time. It is
an overwhelming spectacle of otaku crowding. The pictures you've seen
cannot prepare you for the actual scale of the thing. It is bigger
than the anime convention you are thinking about: lines for a
single circle will exceed the
lines at a big US convention, with the poor schlub at the back of the
line forced to hold a big cardboard sign featuring terrible things
being done to Nanoha.
That
said, you can just walk on in pretty easily if you don't have
to be there as Comiket opens on account of some book that's in short
supply. (I heard of a Sword Art Online book that went to 30,000y the
day after it was on sale!) We showed up around 2: the crowds were
still insane, but it was pretty easy to get around. Again, you should
definitely not miss it, if only to understand the sheer size of the
event. It is the biggest otaku thing you'll ever see in your life,
guaranteed.
OTAKU STORES:
5-foot Great Mazinger outside a figure shop in Akiba.
I actually didn't
do a ton of otaku shopping because I knew my budget would only allow
so much loot straight-up dropped on toys and such. Also, one floor at
Kotobukiya really did me in.
If you're buying anything, go to Nakano Broadway. Damn right I'm taking you out of
Akiba. This is the home base for Mandarake, the biggest otaku goods
chain. Press through what appears to be a normal, bustling shopping
mall for a little while, and you'll start to notice something: there
is no end to this place. To call the complex merely massive is a
criminal understatement. Nakano Broadway is a black hole of commerce.
Get all the way back, and you'll see Mandarake outlets for every
otaku and fujoshi niche that it is possible to sell products to. If
you were blown away by the shops in Akiba, your head is going to come
flying clean off in this place. Everything you were thinking of, from
new to extreme vintage, is here and it is reasonably priced. Make it
to the top and behold the ultimate vintage robot moonbase, complete
with shrine gates, atmospheric noise, and the enbalmed body of an
alien. One of the robots was a million yen! The cashiers I bought
stuff from were dressed like Quattro and Red Buster.
There are
apartments here, people live here. What a life! They don't have to go
far from home unless they get lonely, I presume.
I didn't run
through a lot of the stores but I did check out Kotobukiya's entire
store. This never comes up on Astro Toy, because we don't do PVC, but
I actually really like Koto's stuff: they pride themselves on their
quality and it is indeed consistently high. Their store, like so many
others, is divided by audience. The bottom floor has merchandise from
the major current hits like Eva, Fate/Zero, imas, and others. The
next floor up (don't quote me on exactly what the layout was) was
definitely girl-ota-oriented, with a general mountain of pretty boys,
cute mascots, and JRPGs. The next floor up was the one after my own
heart, with robots and tokusatsu stuff. After that I believe there
was a misc floor, and the top floor was a temporary exhibit on Sword
Art Online.
Yo, guys, little
etiquette. I know SAO sucked-- trustworthy sources told me so
emphatically-- but do not leave asshole messages in English like
“NOVEL WAS WAY BETTER” (but you've left this message in English!)
or “ANIMATE SUCHANDSUCH INSTEAD” on these people's Post-It wall.
This makes you unbearablel. People pretend to listen to you in
conversation, but they only do so out of politeness.
Anyway, I bought:
Akibaranger DX Moe
Moe Z-Cune: this is the gun that the Akibarangers use to transform.
There is also a large-scale PVC figure inside! Surprisingly the gun
was on half-off sale at 6000y (about $80), but I haven't noticed any
serious problems. The insane design of the item demands that you be pretty careful with it, which means don't wave the gun around too much... but what did anybody expect from a toy gun
holding a PVC figure inside of it?
Charge Man Ken mug. There was a whole display case full of Charge Man Ken stuff, including stuff commemmorating great episodes like "Dynamite in the Brain!!" and the special "Charging Go!" PVC.
Generic towel with
Japanese “Dododododo” sound effect printed all over it, hiding in
the Jojo section (fooled me!), Garo bandanna featuring the Horror
inscriptions from the show, Zaruba clear sticker to put on my next
computer/tablet.
I put
away a lot of things
that I wished I could afford. I am still sad over Hot Toys Ryo Saeba
(10,000y on sale!!), Soul of Chogokin Leopardon (Spider-Man's robot),
and a huge, very ugly 600y figure of Guy Shishio from back when
Gaogaigar was on TV. Again: when I come back it will be with twice
the time and three times the money.
THE GUNDAM:
So the Odaiba
Gundam is a mall ornament. This isn't to say it isn't astonishing: it
will pull the breath right out from your lungs. But you need to know
that it is a mall ornament.
Diver City is a
typical and boring mall that would really like you to check it out!
That's why they have this “Gundam” thing in the back. They make
it really hard for you to actually find the Gundam: it's not even on
some of the maps! Facing the main entrance, go left where it looks
like there's nothing around. Just keep going that way. You will
eventually come upon it, even though nothing really indicates that
you will. As a tourist, it's probably a total waste for you to hang
out in Diver City-- see the H&M! The Lacoste!!-- though we did
have food court udon superior to most I've eaten here.
The Gundam is
actual size. Go ahead and gawk, that's what everybody else is here
for. Oh my God, holy shit. Wow.
A family chuckled at us as we made
fools of ourselves in front of it. The dad was complaining that the
Gundam didn't hold a beam saber.
They sell Haro meatbuns and Gundam
taiyaki here, and also at a little stand outside the full-fledged
Gundam Cafe in Akiba. Both were decent. The girl who took my order there was wearing a
Celestial Being uniform. We didn't eat at the actual Gundam Cafe
because I heard from a lot of people that it's actually pretty lame, and I'm willing to believe that.
Don't waste good meals when you're on vacation!
JOYPOLIS:
If you're in the
area of the Gundam you're also right by Tokyo Joypolis, one of Sega's
amusement parks. Again, I wish I'd had a couple hours to spend there. We thought it'd be lame, but it's a full-scale amusement park. There's a high degree of
interactivity, since it's Sega and all, and nearly all the rides are also games to some
degree. We saw a huge amount of “awesome!!-- oh no the line is an
hour” attractions and rode none because we had somewhere to be. For gamers and Sega nerds, there's a version of
Initial D that lets you ride in full-scale models of the cars from
the series, and alternate versions of House of the Dead 4 and Let's
Go Jungle that take place in movie-theater-size chambers. And of
course there's a Sonic Land. It's definitely a place to spend a day:
day passes are 3000y, if I recall.
ARCADES:
This is still a
surviving institution in Japan, unlike most places on the earth! When
the guys and I were not actually seeing people and doing things, we
were probably having fun in the arcades around home base: the three
Club Sega locations, HEY, TRY Tower, and Taito Station.
They're all
basically laid out like this: UFO catchers and kids' arcade games on
the bottom floor, and then progressively more “gamer” things as
you go up. Music games, then shooters, then fighters, and after that
the really hardcore stuff like card games, Derby Owner's Club, and
others of that ilk. Mahjong is usually around there too.
Pretty much any of
the places I hung out in in Akiba-- but especially these places!--
would make an arcade game geek from anywhere else in the world weep.
The difference is that vast. Games that would be impossible treasures
elsewhere in the world (like, say, complete histories of Cave,
including footnotes like Batsugun and DDP2) were just sitting around
in these joints.
If you only go to
one it has to be HEY (Hirose Entertainment Yard). Their centerpiece,
a custom-made Darius II featuring two screens the size of a grown
man, forced me to reconsider art and life themselves. I grinned
really hard when the line “I ALWAYS WANTED A THING CALLED TUNA
SASHIMI” came booming in. Don't take pictures, it's not allowed. Be
nice.
Coming down from
the station, the third Club Sega (presently it has Virtua Fighter and
Border Break signs way up on the building) has a museum floor at the
top where techs in Sega jumpsuits keep watch over a historical
archive of massive deluxe cabinets. Present is the super-rare F-Zero
AX, an Afterburner Climax doubles cab, Ferarri F355, and others,
including the humble Super Hang-On sitdown. No Sega fan should miss
this floor. On F-Zero and Afterburner, make sure you buckle the
seatbelt to activate the machine's motion features. Climax in
particular is an exhilarating ride.
The staff got my
bag when I lost it playing MJ5 and presumed it lost forever. Nice
bunch of guys. I think that by the last day or so they recognized me (you know I couldn't go a day without Afterburner).
Thanks.
The most popular
game overall is easily Gundam Extreme Vs. (FULL BOOST). The game that
started back at Federation Vs. Zeon on the Dreamcast has grown
tremendously over the years and I don't think anyone who watched it
could question it as a solid versus shooter. Every place has an
enbankment of at least eight of these machines, and usually they have
two such units.
However, like any
arcade fighting game, it's really hard to actually learn anything:
multiplayer cabinets will throw you into deathmatches with highly
skilled strangers who will combo you into dust without pity.
No
joke, I was actually Gundam-bullied. Some guy saw me playing, sat
down on the other row, picked Wing Zero, and mercilessly chased me
and only me for as
many games as it took for me to get up and walk away. What a dick!
The only other game
that was really occupied all that much that weekend was the new
Blazblue version, and a little SF4 at HEY. Under-Night was there, for
example, but I didn't see a single person play it but me. These
didn't really seem like fighter hotspots. Plus, in my experience,
people were straight up scared to play with the foreigner. I got
through an entire game of Garou on the only free machine in that
arcade (TRF) and nothing!
Fans
of “poverty” (lesser-loved) fighting games will want to go to TRF
at the top of Nakano Broadway, where guys laugh their way through the
incredibly difficult “basketball
combos”
of Hokuto no Ken and play stuff like Breakers and Chaos Code on the
side. This was the arcade most like the American fighting game scene
with which I'm familiar. TRF used to have a maid.
The coolest game
you'll never play was Gunslinger Stratos, by the Gundam Vs.
developers. It's controlled by a 9mm and Magnum (concept by Gen
Urobuchi, natch) with thumbsticks on them to move the player. Gunkata
motions as seen in Equilibrium are required of the player. Seriously,
the guns are magnetic and you have to pose. It's an insane game and
according to a friend who's quite skilled himself, “I think you
have to be a genius to play it”.
The "variety" order at Baird in Harajuku, which brews its own beer. So does TY Harbor, actually. Don't get the impression that that's common, those are just the kinds of places we drank!
Next post is all mahjong stuff, pictures of the beautiful new set I bought, thoughts on the MJ arcade games. They're pretty sweet!
Hi, guys. If everything goes the way it is going now, I'll be taking a week-long vacation to Tokyo in the future. The perfect opportunity has come up, and I feel like if I don't do this now, that it's never going to happen.
I also have a ridiculous geek stash, the vast majority of which I haven't touched in years and which I realize I will never look at again in my life. The plane and lodging are all taken care of, but I'm trying to get together spending money.
(I ALREADY WENT TO JAPAN. IT WAS GREAT.)
I want to bypass the huge cuts Amazon and Ebay take if at all possible, so I'm listing things here first. Please contact me at dave (shift-2) colonydrop (period) com. The more folks buy, the more fun I have! Of course, if you just want to give me free money for my Japanese vacation, I'm not above that.
This post will change as I put more items in the pile.
First come first serve but I will not tell a lie: my personal friends have dibs.
Games:
-PS1-
Original Black Label releases only: I don't do ugly boxes.
Final Fantasy 7: $50
Xenogears: $50
Soukyugurentai aka Terra Diver (great 2D shooter by Raizing): $60
-Nintendo-
Gamecube Zelda: Ocarina of Time + Master Quest, 25 shipped.
-PS2-
Ar Tonelico Limited Edition: Box has some scuffs, however this comes with a soundtrack CD that was only ever made available to preorders and which I can't even find records of anybody selling online. The CD is sealed. I will give you the game + book for $20, CD for $50.
Dodonpachi Dai-Ou-Jou: This is probably the hardest videogame Cave ever made or will make, which is saying something. PS2 version by Arika has exclusive modes and a superplay DVD included. $100.
My Bemani PS2 collection:
I have Beatmania IIDX -
3rd, 4th, 5th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th, from the years I was really into the game.
Major caveat about the Bemani games: these titles were all made before HDTVs were widespread, and the timing does not get along with HDTVs due to lag. I only ever played these games on a CRT TV. I no longer have a PS2 hooked up to my current TV, but I was able to play the games emulated on my laptop without issue.
I want $25 for 3, 5, and 7, $40 for 4th, $30 for 8th, 9th and 10th.
I also have Pop'n Music 7, 8, and 10. I assume the games have similar problems with HDTVs, but I don't know for sure. $30 for each.
Finally, a Pop'n Music Arcade Style Controller. Not easy to part with; it's probably the single most beautiful videogame item I own... but I must admit I haven't seen or touched it in a few years. Unlike the IIDX ASC (which I already offloaded to a friend) this one is the exact same panel as on the arcade game. This is well-used, as you can imagine. Very noisy. Comes with the original box, which is the same plain brown box that Konami shipped it in. This box is beat up, but I've been saving it all these years. I will not let this go for anything less than $300.
Bangaioh, US Dreamcast: I have the JP version and can't justify owning two copies despite the game's great sentimental value to me. Barely played, I put all that time into the JP version. $70 shipped.
Ikaruga, JP Dreamcast. No obi. Has big ol' scratch on the front. Easily replaceable but I'm not going to rip you off by doing that myself. $60 shipped.
Fire Pro D, JP Dreamcast: Is Fire Pro. $20 shipped.
-PC ENGINE-
PC-Engine Duo-R and additional parts: Okay, I have a PCE Duo-R here. Last version of the hardware. I know I'm never going to buy anything for it ever again. My loss is your gain. Caveat with this one is that the controller port is rather finicky. Wiggle it around for a bit and you're alright for the rest of the time the system is on, but it's really annoying. I still have the box, if you want it, but I lost the manual a long time back. If you want them, I will throw in the Battle Tap and Battle Pads. These have no problems but the plastic has seriously yellowed. $200.
All PC Engine stuff is Japanese version. HuCards will not play on US Turbo-Grafx 16s and CDs are region-free.
Devil Crash (aka Devil's Crush) - JP version, brilliant pinball game from Naxat, greatest box art you ever saw. $65.
Rayxanber II (CD) - shooty game, heavily memorization oriented (even more so than say R-Type), not my cup of tea. $30.
Gradius II (CD) - one of the all-time classics, has an animated intro not in any other version. Looking around I hear there is an exclusive extra stage on some print runs of this game. I have no idea whether or not it's in this copy. $50.
R-Type Complete CD: Port of the original. The HuCard version of this game was split into two, the CD has the whole game with cutscenes and CD audio. $40.
Super Raiden (CD): Similar port of the classic arcade game, with CD audio and two new levels. $40.
Tennokoe Bank II: save HuCard for CD games, I'm pretty sure. Never really needed it. $10.
-END OF PC ENGINE-
Megamari, doujin soft: A very literal combination of Touhou and Megaman in which the player is Marisa. By Tasogare Frontier, a storied doujin developer who have gone on to make official entries in the Touhou series (the fighting games). Doujin soft, never to be released again, I want $60.
-360-
Marvel Vs Capcom 3, Special Edition: Sealed with preorder size L T-shirt from the lovely guys at Meat Bun. The T features a Lovecraftian illustration of Shuma Gorath and a Servbot and basically doesn't exist in the universe anymore. There's plenty of this game out there but the T-shirt is the only reason I want... $70.
Anime:
Gundam Unicorn Blu-Ray 1 - a few years back I had the naive good will to seriously think I was going to buy this entire thing on BD as it came out. Never happening, and I know it. $35 shipped.
Serial Experiments Lain DVD - I have the BD/DVD set coming in so these will be redundant. $25 for the lot.
Armored Trooper Votoms Box: Good lord. I had no idea what this was worth and now that I've looked it up there's no way I can justify continuing to own it. You can get most of this series for nothing, but the final box set is impossible to come by, driving up the cost of this complete box. Furthermore, I believe the lunchbox and additional extras in this set were never released in any other way. Well, guess who preordered them as they came out? The company that put this show out is bankrupt, it's a really popular show in Japan, it's extremely unlikely to come out again in English. I want $250. If you're actually interested in paying that, you probably already know what a good show Votoms is.
Figures/Models:
This section is mostly there for people who are local to me (NYC) because I really don't want to go to the trouble and expense of shipping these huge things out. As per my agreement with ANN, nothing from the Astro Toy treasure trove is for sale, so please don't ask.
Perfect Grade Char Zaku II: Sealed. Ten years on it's the most spectacular Zaku you can buy... aside from that five-foot one. $120.
Revoltech Danboard, first printing. One of the few rare Revoltechs, in my understanding. Used but fully intact and boxed. The watch batteries for the light-up eyes are long dead and will have to be replaced. $80.
(This is an updated and expanded-- again!!-- draft of an old mahjong tips post designed for visitors to the 2012 Otakon panel.)
Hi. If you're here, you were probably directed from my and Carl's mahjong panel at Otakon this year. We hope you enjoyed yourselves, and we are happier still that you've decided to follow up on learning about Japanese mahjong! Now as I'm sure we said during the panel, we were seriously strapped for time and it was impossible to get you to walk out of that room knowing how to play from scratch. As content-stuffed as that panel was, we only ran through the barest, barest essentials of the game. This is the stuff that would answer the question "what the hell is Akagi/Saki doing?". If you want to play online, or sit down at a table with your friends and play, that's going to take a little time and some light study.
Because it was hard enough for Carl and I to learn the game, I had the idea of assembling the resources that helped us the most when we were learning in a post. I've done this before, but I think I can do better for the panel, so here we are.
In the age of the internet you have the luxury of being able to play at any damn time you want. I am a learn-by-doing kind of guy, so why not play right now? This Flash game supplies a reasonable explanation of the game, complete with yaku, right there on the page. Don't worry about being bad or not, it's the computer, who cares. It's completely okay to be lost at this point. Play around with this to get yourself vaguely familiar with the game, but try not to stay for too long after you've gotten the hang of it.
The game's also in English with Arabic numerals on the man suit, something you're not going to see on other Reach videogames or online play services. You're going to want to take this opportunity to start memorizing the numbers if you don't know them. You really must know these going forward, or you'll be missing out on playing online or even on a decent set. They're not very hard to learn (the first three are free) and it is much more trouble not to learn them than to do so.
Now you can learn the rules!
This is a friendly run-through of all the rules aimed at beginners, covering initial setup to everything about actual play. I think this is the most accessible guide online.
My personal rules and scoring bible is Japanese Mahjong Scoring. I recommend learning the yaku from here. When I was still getting a handle of the game I kept a printout of this entire document in a folder and referred to it as necessary.
Oh my god look at all the yaku:
Don't feel immediately obligated to learn all the yaku straight away: that's exactly how people get intimidated out of playing. Understand the most essential yaku that show up most often: riichi, pinfu, tanyao, yakuhai. Understanding these will help you more than anything else. Come back to the yaku charts every time you play and let the rest of them sink in, both through a conscious effort to learn them and by seeing them in play. Also, play the yaku quiz every once in a while.
By the way, I personally stick to the Japanese terminology or the super-straight translations on the Mahjong Scoring site simply because if you ask two or three different English-speaking Reach organizations or websites they'll give you four or five different English names for the same yaku. It's easier this way and my mahjong-playing friends always know what I'm talking about when I say "sanshoku". Unless it's sanshoku doukou but when do you ever see that one? Anyway!
Scoring:
At the panel, we probably said that scoring was complex enough in Reach rules as to be beyond the scope of the panel. Well, it is. The reason our example goes directly to 5 han is that when you're under that 5 han you have to count up another number (the fu) using some very particular criteria that alters the score somewhat.
1 han is not always 1000 points, depending on dealer/non-dealer and the fu. Once you get to 5 han you're at "limit" hands which have simple scores that are easy to remember, so long as you remember that the dealer gets 1.5x more.
Don't just say "I don't need to learn scoring" if you only intend to play online, that's crap. You are eventually going to be making decisions based on how many points you stand to make. Keep in mind that riichi is a game where you play for table position more than just for points, and you can take or lose first place by only a few hundred points.
(Also playing live is way more fun, try it out man)
Unfortunately, "memorize it" is the main tip I have for you with regards to learning Riichi scoring. There's a system, but it's extremely convoluted and you're actually better off memorizing a table. Here are some resources, including a chart you will need and a scoring quiz for quick and easy practice.
When you take this task on, I advise starting from the top with the big limit scores because those are the easiest ones to know. Mangan, haneman, baiman, sanbaiman (never happens anyway), yakuman. That's the easy stuff because the fu points don't affect it. Then, understand the way you count up fu scores. Then, from the scoring chart, know the lines that actually come up in a game: 20 fu, 25, 30, 40. Anything with more fu is pretty uncommon (hands with more than one triple, closed kans). Then do the rest. Keep a scoring chart on hand anyway.
Intermediate stuff:
There is not a lot of in-depth riichi mahjong strategy reading out there in English. If you read Japanese then absolutely hit up Beginner's Luck: there is a mountain of great common-sense info and theory there. It's the kind of material that I wish had an English-language equivalent. Of course there's a ton of strategy reading in Japanese, so I won't get into it.
Just Another Japanese Mahjong Blog posted translations of puyo's excellent strategy blog that cover a wide range of points about the game. Unfortunately, it looks like they're on hiatus.
Theseposts on Osamuko's blog about defense are pretty good info. Heavy terminology, be warned. If you want to win, you must play a good defense. If you read this stuff and decide "that's not my style!" then your style will be "Well, I lost again."
I like to watch pro footage on Nico to see how people who are actually good at mahjong manage their hands. I'm not telling you to directly copy their play, but try and play along and compare their decisions with your own.
Portable Mahjong:
On iOS your best option is Mahjong Tengokuhai. This one has a great interface, online play, and a lot of different things to do in single-player. No idea about Android, but there are a lot of apps.
(this part is from when I was actually using my DS)
I have Mahjong Fight Club for the DS. I have played every single other mahjong title for the console (by, uh, means) and this one is the best for more reasons than I have time to describe. It's particularly good for learning the yaku because an announcer reads out the name of every yaku a hand has. When you finish a hand in MFC, just sit and wait and listen. The sole interface issue is that it's not immediately obvious at a glance what your seat wind is, but you can figure that out. You can play online over Wi-Fi but it was a complete disaster when I tried it. I would imagine Konami doesn't care a ton about this service when they run pay services for MFC Wii and PS3, which I imagine nobody uses either...
Community:
You're going to want to play real people whenever possible: playing weak AI opponents in any game isn't really good for your play.
Aside with getting together with your own friends (who you should totally try and sell on the game), you're probably going to want competition against people who've walked the same hard road as you have. English-speaking Reach players are pretty rare anywhere, even on the Internet, so this can be tough.
Reach Mahjong is the largest Reach site online but it's also gone completely stagnant, despite a major overhaul of the site. The forums are a ghost town (I first wrote this two years ago and it is still the case), but there's a lot of good material on the site itself if you just dig deep into the site's old posts. I can't really recommend their beginner's stuff (and I don't think it's on the site anymore after their overhaul): the writing style and inconsistent terminology severely confused me when I was starting out. I have no idea about their book.
If you can make it out here to NYC once a month, I highly recommend the USPML meets. I never miss one myself. Don't feel intimidated by that name: they're very welcoming and as they say, if you can play online you'll be fine here.
If you do IRC (I do) there's #mahjong or #osamuko on Rizon. I hang out on #osamuko as TRIPLEBREAK.
Online Play:
Keep in mind that videogames, online services and so on are going to be in Japanese. Mahjong Time is in English but that is the only thing going for it. The client is horrendous. I'm not even going to link to it, it's so bad. It offends both my gaming and aesthetic sensibilities.
I'm going to keep this short: just use Tenhou. It's the fastest, simplest client and it can have you up against three strangers in ten seconds flat. Furthermore, Tenhou is extensively documented in English here. While Tenhou is completely workable without any language issues, you'll still want to read that to know exactly what you're clicking. To make that even easier: the third row, 4 players ariari red, is the standard ruleset that most Japanese players use. The first column is an East-only round, and the second is East-South.
A small community of English-speaking players uses the 7447 lobby, though keep in mind that it will take a very long time to get a match and you might find yourself having to comb /jp/, 4chan's worst board and possible soul poison, in order to get games.
(Note 7/25/12: There are more people on 7447, basically because of Saki: Achiga-hen. I suspect and fear that it will go back to the way it was when the final episodes run.)
I usually just play the in default ranked lobby with random Japanese folk instead, but 7447 can be fun too.
When you are ready for Tenhou, I recommend the beginner's guide on Osamuko's blog.
Other online play:
There are other clients, but none are as good as Tenhou is. Janryumon is a flashy, popular clone of Sega's MJ arcade games, now open outside Japan. My argument against JRM is that aside from the league mode, the game is much more about grinding (playing matches over and over again) to get superfluous items and goodies than it is about getting better at the game. Its ranking system is a grind that anybody, no matter how bad at the game, can climb to the top of if they just play enough games. On the other hand, Tenhou's entire rank system is set up to force you to play better (and to avoid last place at all costs). JRM also has a lot of beginner-friendly training-wheels help, so if you're starting out that can be really helpful.
There are a ton of Japanese mahjong games for console ranging from serious to strip (and importers don't really bother stocking them because they'll never sell a copy), but your options for online play on console outside of Japan are pretty poor. You're gonna need a PS3, and your only viable options were both nominated for 2ch's Shit Game of the Year award in '09. I'll leave it at that.
Buying a real set:
I think there's nothing like live play: the feel of the tiles, the satisfying clacking sound, the friendly banter. I can jump on Tenhou for a battle against random strangers any time, but things are different among friends. Perhaps, if you can convince them, your friends will be as fascinated as you are. It's worth a shot!
See these two posts for recommendations on what to buy. Don't buy the Dragon set.
Well, that's about all the information I can think to dump on you. I hope it serves you well. Enjoy the game!
Yeah, that's right. After a one-year absence Carl and I are returning to spread the good word once more. What is this panel about? Well:
If you've watched such popular anime as Akagi and Saki, then you've been witness to the ancient game of mahjong-- and you had no clue what the players were doing. Let us enlighten you on the basics of Japanese-style (aka Riichi-style) mahjong, its appearances in anime and manga, and how you too can experience the thrill of the tiles! We even promise to have a mahjong-playing dog!
That's the idea. This is half an informational panel, half an entertainment panel. It is aimed at the fan who enjoys Saki or Akagi but who has found the game itself incomprehensible. That covers the majority of viewers of these series.
To actually teach the game to a bare-minimum beginner level would take a workshop, one of us for every four attendees, a ton of tables and mats, and at least six hours.
We have one hour. So rather than full player's comprehension, we want our audience to walk out with a rough understanding of what's going on at the table during these shows. They're not going to know every in and out of the rule set, but they're going to be able to understand what the hell is going on. That's our primary goal. This is pre-beginner.
We also prioritize the connection between the game and the characters the audience loves: how their personalities and their approach to the game run parallel. In turn, the audience's appreciation of the series is increased. Perhaps they take an independent interest in playing Japanese mahjong themselves. That's great too, and it's something we encourage throughout, but at this event we obviously consider the anime connection high priority.
For those of you who were there last year: it's a very similar panel. We've tweaked it, and there will be some new video. One of the new videos, though quite brief, is something that's never been made available in English ever before! I will be bringing my Take set along to show off but not actually allow anyone to touch.
Here is a big catch: we are in close to the same time slot as we were before, among the very first panels of the weekend. 10:00 AM sharp on Friday, in Panel 4 at the Hilton. A lot of people who wanted to go told me that they weren't even at the con by then, and yeah, I understand. I'm sorry if you can't make it, and I'm double sorry if you can't make it the second time in a row.
Last year I was worried about it, but this time I'm really excited about the slot. It's actually a great time for a panel like ours... for us, anyway. That early in the con, the panels and video rooms are about all that's actually going on. Furthermore, we're not in competition with anything major (aside from ANN's panel). We're actually in a great situation for a bunch of walk-ins to come in, which is exactly what happened last time we did the panel. In a room that held 300 or so, we had so many people that they were lined up against the walls and sitting on the floor in the front. For two guys talking about mahjong. It was awesome. And we're in a bigger room this year. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens this time.
All that said, if you can, please come by and say hello. We'll be very happy to see you.
So I'll tell you. Doing the New York Otaku column has been a lot of fun and also quite difficult. Coming up with stuff for every weekday is no joke! Anyway, I haven't been linking it out as much as I should be, so I figured that I would go over the past month in the column and point out the ones that were particularly good.
A lot of what I'm doing is just letting my (imaginary) Japanese audience know things that I think nobody would ever tell them. A lot of it is kind of "yeah, I know" for American fans, but there are other things that I think would still be interesting!
Takashi Murakami and "there is no Cool Japan"- Given what I'm doing, I felt that when I saw this interview with Murakami I had to chime in as an American observer. Anime's image here is a hell of a lot more complicated than "Cool Japan", and also Cool Japan is kind of bullshit.
A story about Pocky and how American anime fans irrevocably tied up the snack food with their identity.
Of course, a piece on the very small trend of Japanese mahjong and American anime fans.
My all-time saddest otaku story. If I ever write a book about this stuff, it's probably going to be the first chapter.
And in which I out my friends on owning Japan-priced anime and get to talk about Akibaranger.
Akibaranger comes recommended. I thought it was going to be obvious, weak parody of the most-parodied subject in otaku-land, but it's really funny, not totally self-deprecating, and unexpectedly sharp. Give it a watch.
Hi, everybody, it's me, convention-sick Dave, and bluuuuuuuuuuuuuugh, I feel like shit.
But yes, if you're here from any of the panels, thanks for coming. If you aren't here from the panels, and that's the more likely case, I'm going to tell you what I ran.
MD Anime was gdgd Fairies, Idol Fighter Su-Chi-Pai, and the dubbed first episode of Garzey's Wing, which was dropped on the crowd Tomino-style with no explanation. All of these went over really great! I wasn't completely sure that people would be into gdgd's style or see the same mockumentary (BUT REAL OFFICE DESPAIR) appeal of the Suchie Pai stuff, but they loved it! Garzey's Wing, of course, I had full confidence in.
I used some tokusatsu intermissions for this panel to break it up: the first fight scene of Goggle Five and the Battle Fever J scene where the heroes first put on their suits... and dance.
MD Anime 18 was a guided tour of the Blood-C TV series, and after that the full length of MD Geist. Very simple panel, very effective. I combed through Blood-C for both its most boring parts and its most disgusting parts, and by the end the audience had both begged for mercy from the rampaging vampire hordes... and from Saya's songs about what she did this morning. Both the MDA panels were huge raving successes and again, thank you all for letting me entertain you.
The Game Center CX panel was okay? I actually spent the most amount of time on this one, and I think to the crowd it looked like the one I spend the least amount of time on. On a third straight hour of paneling with little sleep and too much caffiene, I actually felt myself crashing during the panel. Worse still, my presentation wound up shorter than anticipated, Media Player Classic started to crash on certain files... basically I could have done a hell of a lot better.
The mahjong panel I was late for. Really late. I apologize. First time I've ever been late to a panel. Blame me for going for a nice breakfast and not realizing exactly how long that takes in Long Island! I ran the panel at super-speed to a tiny but surprisingly interested group. Thanks to the people who stuck it out, and I'm so, so sorry to the people I abandoned. Won't happen again.
Other than that, I-Con was a good time as usual. Thanks to staff for arranging things: you all work too hard and I appreciate it.
Hey, guys. You've likely noticed that the blog's been alternating between Tenhou recaps and posts about how great Kamen Rider Fourze was this week. The truth is, I've been very busy elsewhere this week.
First, I have a new column at animeanime, a Japanese industry news site, called "Letters from the New York Otaku." This is a daily column that attempts to explain the American anime fan subculture to the mystified Japanese observer, or merely present perplexing things and leave the reader to scratch their head. I want to restate myself there: daily. That is going to be hard. No way around it. I've put myself on a killer schedule, but this is an amazing opportunity and I'm going to take it. Right now there's a deep backlog for the column. Expect stories explaining such topics as the failure of Gundam in the States, American anime fans' attachment to Pocky, and of course the bronies. I'm extremely excited about this column, and I hope you are too.
Will anime coverage at this blog decrease? Will I be writing less for Colony Drop? I'm just going to guess yes to both. I'm working on projects for both sites... but that stuff's definitely on the back burner right now. And when this week's stuff clears up I will be getting back to the Kawaiikochans' exciting adventures in gaming kingdom!
Second, I-Con 31 is this weekend at Stony Brook and I apologize for not mentioning it sooner. It snuck up on me just as fast as anybody else: this week has been writing the column, doing Astro Toy, and assembling my four panels all at once. I will be running:
-Most Dangerous Anime (and 18+)
-Riichi! (the Otakon mahjong panel)
-Old Man Vs. Old Videogames: Game Center CX (this is new)
And I'm putting the finishing touches on all of those panels as we speak, at the same time. I barely have time to be writing this blog post!
So yeah, I'm busy but I'm busy on the internet, so you're going to be hearing from me plenty no matter what. See the "my gigs" column in the upper left. I recommend you follow the Twitter (@sasuraiger), where I am rarely absent.
A lot of people I follow on Twitter are a little upset. Remember Read or Die? It was a really fun OVA series from the early 00s about a bibliophile secret agent who could manipulate paper.
It's still fondly remembered, in part due to the obvious nerd-fantasy appeal of the protagonist: she's the "cute, meek librarian" type to a tee.
So here's the Yomiko from the new ROD manga. Everybody's really pissed off about it, even though this is the only image that exists, because it's such a tremendous departure. Yomiko was one of anime's only reasonably dressed heroines, you know. I consider the new Yomiko offensive myself, but mostly because of how blatantly unoriginal this new character design is: the guy who drew Black Rock Shooter should sue!
They're trading common nerd fantasy X (the librarian, old Yomiko) for the new cutting-edge nerd fantasy straight off the Nicovideo weekly top ten. I bet the new Yomiko will be aloof, depressed and robotic. But you know, as bad as it is in cartoons, it can always get worse. As such, I decided to write a little something.
"Taro Toshokan is just an ordinary Japanese high-schooler-- until a girl falls from the Sadness Dimension into his life and changes everything!
"Are you the one who will call me into a new, ecstatic despair? Read it slowly and gently... Yomiko's heart."
This girl wants to organize Taro's shelves, literally and figuratively! But the movement of books is the least of Taro's concerns, because when a new twintailed menace appears from the Gate of Disenchantment, Taro's going to find out fast that he's got to read... or die!"
So be glad you aren't watching that anime I just made up in ten minutes. Japanese media companies, if you're paying, I'll write it.
If you didn't know, Japanese media giant Toei requests more takedowns from streaming video sites than anyone else in the world does. This has a lot to do with the fact that they produce extremely popular anime like Dragon Ball and One Piece: in fact they just tried to sue a bunch of Americans over torrenting One Piece, a ridiculous case I doubt will go anywhere.
But I don't even want to get into the full-episode thing or online streaming. One Piece is streaming online, after all, and there's no reason Toei shouldn't ask Youtube to take down the full episode downloads that probably pop up constantly on the site. Toei doesn't just do that with their properties, though, or they wouldn't be the #1 requesters of Youtube takedowns in the universe.
Toei does its damnedest to erase any trace of any title they have the rights to from the internet. As watching Kamen Rider Fourze and Kuuga has gotten me more interested in Japanese superhero shows lately, I found out very quickly how impossible it is to find things like the openings for the shows on Youtube. And I don't just mean the current season shows, I mean any of them. Toei must have some kind of automatic deletion system going, because only the worst copies of those videos make it through. Like you might find a guy taping his TV, or a severely aged VHS copy, or something with Indonesian fakesubs on it. Search "Kamen Rider" on youtube and all that's left are the theme songs (audio only) and toy reviews. It may as well not exist.
The last straw that made me decide to write this post was when I noticed that a lovely subbed video of the opening to World Ninja War Jiraiya was removed from Youtube. Really, guys? Why? This show's gotta be thirty years old, it's not like someone's going to rush to the store and buy a $50 two-episode DVD or whatever!
Also, and this is a complaint that extends to the anime business, what possible harm is there in that 90-second sequence-- the sequence that was created specifically to advertise your show-- being freely available online? That's how people find out about shows, that's something that catches their eyes. It's supposed to. Ask fans of robot anime, we've all seen every single robot OP ever, even if the show's not available in English. I use Sasuraiger as a handle online because it sounds good, and I really love that opening scene.
The Toei thing actually gets worse, though. Toei actually has a Youtube channel where they post a large amount of full episodes their back catalog, mostly 70s and 80s stuff with a few Rider shows from last decade in there. When I saw that they were doing this, I subscribed. Well, guess what? The channel is region locked. You can't watch any of that stuff outside Japan.
So let's look at what Toei expects of you if you are outside Japan and interested in Riders or Super Sentai. Don't pirate the shows online, that'd be illegal. You want to watch them, though? Uh... go to Japan, watch them on TV, buy them on video for ludicrous prices (which is the sales model for super-fans who already saw the show on TV). If you don't want to do that, well, Toei says, our superheroes just don't exist. Please ignore the anniversary celebrations, Christmas trees, any action figures you may have on preorder, and 5 yearly team-up movies. We're in a global culture and the best thing to solve that problem is to just pretend stuff doesn't exist.
Meanwhile, import sites routinely sell out of cheapo toy henshin belts at ludicrous prices (I have an Astro Switch here, and I'm pretty sure it's just a repurposed printer ink cartridge) every god damn season, but Toei doesn't believe there's a market so you're all boned. Toei's a big, old company, and they're probably so big that people at the company know this and can't do anything about it... but policies like this don't benefit them. If anything, they are actively stunting the growth of both their existing audience and their potential audience. Youtube and other streaming sites have been powerful tools for the promotion of obscure and cult movies especially and this "it doesn't exist" strategy is a joke. We're fans, not suckers. Don't treat us like the latter.
In conclusion, I really wanted to put up some of Fourze's goofy scenes... but Toei would just have my Youtube account deleted. That's a shitty relationship to have with your fans! Instead, enjoy this Friends mashup on a site that Toei does not yet bumblingly police.
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