Tokyo Day 3: Sunday, September 26, 2004

Ahh, the Tokyo Game Show. TGS is sort of like E3 here in the USA, except anyone can go the TGS. For 1000 yen. That's like nine bucks. It cost us more to get to the show than to attend.

I won't say much about the show, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. A lot of the games that drew huge crowds, like Metal Gear Solid 3 and Resident Evil (aka Biohazard) 4, I had already seen in San Diego at ComicCon. I will say it was crowded (as in, difficult to move around in) and it was loud. Deafeningly loud.





Look, a giant chocobo.



Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children is a CG movie sequel to FF7, rumored for DVD release or for the Sony PSP. The stills and clips I've seen are amazing. This is the one thing I wanted to wait in line for, but the line had already been cut off for the rest of the day.



Speaking of the PSP, here is a giant PSP...



FF7: Before Crisis is a FF7 prequel (boy, FF7 sure is popular) for Vodafone mobile phones. I think it is SquareEnix's first foray into mobile phone games. Sadly, no release here in America.



Kingdom Hearts II was here and playable. I wasn't willing to test the throngs of sweaty gamers to give it a try though.





Can't go far at these types of things without running into cosplayers...



...or Star Wars. Did you know Japan has an official Star Wars credit card? Do we?



A few booth babe pictures. I didn't take a lot because, of, I don't know, I WAS ON MY HONEYMOON. Duh.









We left the TGS and stopped in Shibuya to do some shopping. Here's Rhonda with her friend Hachiko.



We went back to the hotel to change, then went to our one nice dinner on this trip. The restaurant of choice:

Ninja.

I can't make that up.





(I took some video there, but it was so dark I don't think anything came out. Yes, there are special effects, and yes, the wait...er, ninjas, try to sneak up on you.)

We finished off a lovely day at Starbucks, right next to the hotel, our first taste of home on the trip (Pepsi and AM/PM don't count). They had a green tea frappucino so Rhonda had to get it. Unknown why they don't have it here, as it is really good.



I was a little taken aback when I ordered a scone and they asked if I wanted it warmed up. Since that never happens, I said, "Hai!" It was a lot more biscuit-like than here in the States, not sure if I liked that more.

Coffee is like $4 at Starbucks. Not an espresso drink, coffee. If you go somewhere else, it's more like six bucks. And there aren't free refills in Japan, at least not very often. No Big Gulp at AM/PM. Oh, and they don't have venti on the board behind the baristas. They do, however, have a size smaller than tall. They have venti on the menu at the counter (where ignorant foreigners like me point at the pictures), but I doubt many people get it. I like a venti coffee now and then, but just one cup a day - I pity people who are used to drinking a pot of coffee every day. They must go broke.

Then again, a can (I mean, an aluminum bottle) of soda is 120 yen, or a little over a buck, and there were no 12-packs (or 6-packs, for that matter) to be found...

All the pictures from Tokyo can be found here.