I was very excited to stop by an arcade yesterday and see a new little fighting game by the name of Streetfighter 4.

Unfortunately, I have to say that I’m pretty mixed in the feelings department about the game. Why, why, WWWWHHHYYY did they have to make it 3D??? The game itself plays just like its 2D counterparts, but has a kinda-sorta cell shaded style that well…is lifeless.

Capcom always to me was the place to go for awesome 2D fighters. I’ll go to Virtua Fighter or blech…even Tekken if I gotta have 3D fighting action.  I can certainly understand if this was a Street Fighter EX kinda thing, but to call it Street Fighter 4 is crazy!

It was still a pretty fun game though. It plays solid, but it hurts just thinking of the fresh, crisp 2D fighters they could have had instead of this 3D nugget of poo.

Realistic looking bb (hop up) guns are all the rage here in Japan.  It’s amazing seeing 10 year olds pointing guns at other children. Maybe it’s such a gun-free country and that’s why there’s so little paranoia regarding these wonderfully life-like toys.

I can’t tell you just how great it was finding this gem on the way to that crazy concert I went to the other night.

This is so incredible that it’s beyond words, really.

What’s going on in this part of the picture?? There is much mystery and amazement happening here.

In celebration of unemployment, my fellow former english school teacher went out for a night on the town, little did we suspect what awaited us! We started out, but quickly got bored attending a kinda gaijin DJ night. That boredom brought us around town to a huge line for a reggae night. Boy am I glad I went in!

It was like finding a secret land of awesomeness. I think the one guy on the video is a celebrity of some kind that has unfortunately gone into the music biz. He’s the dude with the shades, people told me afterwards that he was a big deal. If anyone can name him let me know!

Sorry for the crap video, but that’s the best my non-video camera can pull off. Here’s another video….and another.

I was just checking out some SAME HAT! SAME HAT! action

Among these little dudes is one in particular that I knew I had to get my mitts on

BAKABON

I may have a lousy camera, but even this cannot stop this tsunami of Baka-ness.

This guy’s from a cartoon that pretty much the only one I can somewhat (but barely) understand what’s going on. My Japanese err…needs work :).

Here’s some of the cartoon. Dig it!!!

The love of Uncle Maruo got me into some of Yoshitoshi’s work, which got me into Ukiyo-e (a kind of of Japanese woodblock printing). I blew my top off when I found out I lived pretty close to a museum full of Ukiyo-e!

Sorry about the camera flash well…pretty much ruining the pics :). Not only that, but between the dark room and my lousy camera, the colours aren’t nearly as good as they looked when I laid my eyeballs on them!

Bat!
There’s some great colour going on in these pics in my opinion. I think the aging of the paper only makes it that much cooler.

How did I not notice the wicked die on this dude’s noggin before!? If I could be slain by any warrior…

I really recommend that people who are into learning more about colour to check out this kind of work. It’s taken me a long time to realize that tons of the greatest stuff in art is the oldest. See how retarded that makes me sound???

I’ve been checking out more of Osamu Tezuka’s work recently (more on that a bit later) and stumbled upon this which just opened a wave of memories!

I was never the biggest fan of Astroboy, but being a kid in the 80’s that would always wake up abnormally early it was usually a fix of this and Bionic Six in the morning.

The next best thing about seeing this again is hearing my little lady signing to the tune in the ol’ Nihongo on her way in.

Atomu!

I was walking around town yesterday with a fellow teacher of the white devil’s tongue when he sprang some wild doodles on these rollin’ orbs of mine! It blew my MIND!!!! Argh!!!

 I could go on forever about about ol’ Suehiro, but I really just wanted to say how great it is to feel genuinely sick when seeing somebody’s artwork! I haven’t had such unsettling feelings since the days in my Grandparent’s cottage reading those old horror stories with skeleton boys and catwomen clawing at people’s faces.

Suehiro Maruo’s work is not only great in colour and draftsmanship in general, but it brings to me the feeling that if I walked into somebody’s room with his work on thier walls, I would never come out in one piece!

Unfortunatly, most of Suehiro’s fine work is either not available outside of Japan, or not translated. Thankfully though,  the fine folks at SAME HAT! SAME HAT! not only have many great articles on him, but have much of his work online and some translated manga by him too!:

I haven’t been able to check out much of Suehiro’s Manga work yet, but judging from this story alone, I’d say you’re in for a real treat! Poison Strawberry! Dig!!!

I was so happy to find some Dr.Pepper over here and this can is a great bonus!

This may be the greatest country ever simply for all the great art you can find on the most unexpected things. Just about every boring old company has cool artwork or at least an amazingly strange mascot. I’ll have to go hunting and take some pictures of them sometime soon.

Crazy can, but same great taste. Outside of North America I’ve found it tough to find anything other than cola or sprite, although I hear there’s a cucumber flavoured Coke coming out here soon. I’ll keep you updated!

I recently became friends with a co-worker who’s been living here in Osaka for quite a few years and was kind enough to bring me to this crazy toy store. Kaiju Galore!

Although I love the designs of these lovable ruiners of communities, I don’t really know most of them by name or anything. Maybe someone can shed some light on a few of them?

I almost want to buy these things for the boxes alone.

Yeah, you saw right…

This stuff is barely scratching the surface of the craziness I saw that day. As soon as I can figure out how to properly warn people of work-safe material, I’ll but up really crazy stuff!