Archaeology

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Archaeology

Post by Green Gibbon! »

Green Gibbon goes to Game Souko, Part II! (゚∀゚)

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When I went last week, I was with a (hot) friend and didn't want to look too irresponsible, so I just grabbed the original model SG-1000 for 8000 yen. (She still laughed at me and called me an otaku, right before going on to spend like 3000 yen on Kamen Rider toys...) I dashed back alone the first opportunity I had (which would be today) to pick up the more expensive second model for 10,000 yen. Both boxes are a bit faded and the original model is missing the manual, but the consoles themselves are like new. First time I've seen either one in the field.

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I already had a Mega Drive, but this one has the original 1988 packaging. The console itself must be a few years younger, though, because there's a flyer inside dated June 1992 with ads for the Mega-CD and Wondermega...

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As far as PCE hardware goes, this is at the less common end of the "not really rare" group, but it's the first time I've seen one boxed (no picture). There were only like 7 games released specifically for it and 2 of those are also compatible with plain vanilla PCE's, so people who collect retro consoles to actually play the games and not to hoard them in their closet like me aren't too interested in these. More for me, Precious...


They also had a beautiful boxed Master System (Japanese version) going for a whopping 65,000 yen. I can't begin to imagine what would make it worth so much, they're not rare at all. I gazed over the packaging and found no hints. Even I have to draw the line.


Incidentally, when last I was in Super Potato (about a month ago) they had a boxed Dataship 1200 going for 80,000 yen. Since I'm probably the only person here who knows what a Dataship 1200 is, I will explain it! It's a stand-alone version of the Tsuushin Adapter, an (also very rare) modem for the Famicom used for online banking, stock trading, and other things rich Japanese people with too much money might've wanted to do on their Famicoms in the heyday of the bubble economy. It uses special software cards (not normal Famicom cartridges) that I have only seen in blurry photos. Basically, the Dataship 1200 is, to my knowledge, the single rarest piece of Nintendo hardware ever. The one at Super Potato could well be the last boxed one in existence. I'll be happy to give it a permanent home if anyone will loan me 80,000 yen.

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Re: Archaeology

Post by Locit »

(She still laughed at me and called me an otaku, right before going on to spend like 3000 yen on Kamen Rider toys...)
Japan, everybody!

Keep buying stuff, Gibbon. This is interesting. Any games?

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Re: Archaeology

Post by Green Gibbon! »

Not yet. I try to hold out for hardware at the moment, in case something awesome comes along (like today). I do have a couple of Famicom mahjong games from Capcom with 27-button mahjong controllers and a baseball game for the Super Cassette Vision (I still don't have one of those... there was one at Super Potato last time I was there, but the box condition was pretty awful).

It's amazing how good most of the games look, though. 25 years or older and they look like they could've been manufactured yesterday, box, manual, registration cards and all. Apparently the air in this country is less corrosive to paper products.


If anyone else has any interesting old pieces of hardware, I'd love to see some pictures.

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Re: Archaeology

Post by Locit »

The only interesting hardware I've ever owned is a Sega Pico:

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SO FUN. I ended up giving it to Holic. I don't even know if he still has it, but if he does he should post pictures.

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Re: Archaeology

Post by Cuckooguy »

I don't collect gaming systems, but I did recently obtain every single Japanese Dreamcast Magazine. Okay, actually one issue is missing but it's pretty close. So much Sakura Taisen coverage that it makes me want to play the series. Speaking of which, I played an hour or two of the localized Sakura Wars: So Long My Love a couple months ago and it tickled me in a this-game-is-so-90s-anime way that it's kinda embarassing in how 90s it is but somehow blissfully nostalgic. If the game ever comes into my possession I wonder how deep I would sink my teeth into it.

Anyway the only reason I got every single Japanese Dreamcast magazine was to hunt down Eternal Arcadia information. There's some funny pictures, such as a picture in the style of Aika's tall tales of them discovering treasure and 6 Toukutsusha Simons (localized as Zivilyn Bane) looming behind them in a foreboding manner. I also like the various renders of Shenhua of her being dolled up in various costumes; they've outfitted her in a lot of dresses that I've never seen before. This is a good example of one of the many Shenhua images there are.

I don't have any old hardware, but as a game tester I've used and touched development tools and consoles with much more options than a consumer console that you will never touch!

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Re: Archaeology

Post by Green Gibbon! »

They've got Pico's in abundance at Game Souko, but they all have more recent packaging (the Pico was supported here until just 6 or 7 years ago). I'm still trying to find one with the original packaging from the 90's. (They also have a Japanese copy of Tails and the Music Maker for like a hundred yen.) They have the kids stuff in a separate section, but sometimes there are interesting things there. Last year, I found a Bandai Playdia for 500 yen.


I want to see funny pictures of Aika's tall tales.

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Re: Archaeology

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Re: Archaeology

Post by Popcorn »

I was last in Super Potato about six weeks ago. I think I saw that Dataship too, or at least I saw a staggeringly expensive Nintendo console I couldn't identify. (I also went to the maid cafe opposite, which I can confirm is a rip, and, I suspect, pretty vanilla by maid cafe standards.)

80,000 yen is nothing. I took a photo of these rare and exotic gems:

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Re: Archaeology

Post by Green Gibbon! »

Apparently late era MD games from overseas were sold here in very limited quantities and are extremely rare today. Not that Maximum Carnage isn't totally worth the equivalent of a US grand.

I have yet to try a maid cafe even though I really want to cause I always go to Tokyo alone and, well, I'm 30 years old. I've never heard a good impression of one, though, no matter who I ask.

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Re: Archaeology

Post by Locit »

Green Gibbon! wrote:I have yet to try a maid cafe even though I really want to cause I always go to Tokyo alone and, well, I'm 30 years old. I've never heard a good impression of one, though, no matter who I ask.
I've only ever looked in from the outside. They just look like normal restaurants where your servers are maids. At least the ones you can look into from outside, anyway. Pop ought to give us a more detailed account.

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Re: Archaeology

Post by CM August »

No idea what a Maid Cafe even was until I checked the wiki entry. Sounds tepid and awkward, but maybe that's all part of the otaku experience™!

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Re: Archaeology

Post by Green Gibbon! »

My general understanding is that the food is overpriced and consistently lousy. Apparently you have to pay just to enter and if you stay beyond the designated time limit, you have to pay again. And if you want to take pictures, that's an additional fee.

But yeah, maybe Duffy can provide us with a more detailed first-hand account.

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Re: Archaeology

Post by Popcorn »

Here's what I wrote about maid cafes elsewhere, before I visited one:
A couple of hours later we stagger back onto the street, drunk on coin-op. Young women dressed in French maid costumes cry high-pitched greetings and thrust flyers for notorious maid cafes into our hands. In these baffling enterprises— I haven’t been, but have since learnt— you pay quite a lot of money for Japanese ladies dressed as maids to act like your adoring servant for about twenty minutes. They say things like “Welcome, my lord!”, smile and giggle and wave their hands around, serve food with names like “white puffy bunny cakey treat”, and, for an extra fee, play games like rock-paper-scissors or battleship, which they allow you to win.

I am fascinated by these women. Do they like their work? Do they consider it a performance art, or acting, or is it just a paycheque? Is this a career for them, or a way to pay the bills until the band takes off? What would happen if you said to these maids: “Look, ladies, drop the act. Tell me about yourselves. Your real selves, I mean, none of this bunny cakey treat bullshit. Your fears, your passions, hopes and dreams.” Would their eyes wobble in feigned confusion? Would they only respond, “Our only dream is to serve you, my lord?” What would happen if you let them win at battleship? Do they have defences against that? Are they okay? I’m worried about them.
I've been meaning to write a full account of our experience for a while, so, by popular demand, here it is:
It wasn’t until our final week in Tokyo that Tom and I actually visited a maid cafe. I suppose it took that long to feel sufficiently inoculated against Tokyo weirdness. We went to a cafe opposite Super Potato, merely because it was the first one we found. A quick Google gives the name “Popopure Animation Studio and Maid Cafe”, if you want to look it up; there are some videos on YouTube, and apparently the Backstreet Boys shot a music video there, which is clearly exciting. On another trip I had seen a maid standing on the cafe’s balcony with a megaphone, striking poses, miming to J-pop and looking, to be honest, a bit disappointed with the direction her life had taken. Today she was absent.

We hung around the entrance, looking at the prices and wondering if we were about to do something that would scar our consciences for the rest of our lives, until a maid appeared and guided us wordlessly into a cramped lift papered with homogenous anime maids. (This is a thing about Akihabara, by the way; every surface is so coated with kawaii shit it creates a constant dissonance with the reality next to it, which is perpetually underwhelming by comparison.)

We went up a couple of floors, the lift doors opened, and there we were. It was immediately underwhelming; surprisingly small, the place didn’t really resemble a cafe so much as an ugly reception area, or some kind of clinic. There was cheap furniture (with cushions like packing foam), faux-brickwork wallpaper, and tinny classical music over the PA. The few windows had curtains drawn over them. Romantic views of European countryside were painted on the walls.

I understand the maids typically greet you with something to the effect of “welcome home, master”, but if they did, the Japanese was lost on us. The maid who took us disappeared to ensnare more wavering tourists. Another appeared immediately to seat us. I have to say I took a shine to her immediately. There was something sympathetic about her, something almost sheepish, like you could see she was a normal person under the stupid frock. Unless that’s all part of the act. She spoke decent English, but her accent didn’t sound Japanese. Maybe she was sold into maid slavery from Korea.

I ordered a latte. Tom ordered a coffee and some cheesecake. The prices were high, but we’d feared worse. Our table offered a view of the kitchen, where a not particularly kawaii middle-age man in jeans and an apron prepared the food. I say “prepared”; all the evidence suggested his job mainly involved adding hot water to instant coffee and taking supermarket cheesecakes out of the fridge.

When our food arrived, our maid— I wish I could remember her name— performed the ritual that is apparently ubiquitous in such establishments, which is to form one’s hands into a heart shape and squeak “moe, moe, kyun”! (“Moe” refers to some abstract Japanese concept of super-cuteness, but I still don’t know what the “kyun” bit is.) The whole process supposedly imbues your order with magic and love and happiness, transforming it from instant crap to transcendental kawaii gastro-sensation. You have to join in the chant. Possibly if you don’t they start crying or something.

Our food sufficiently blessed, she left us to eat unsupervised. I felt a little short-changed. My research had led me to expect hyperactive doll-women spoon-feeding customers, playing rock-paper-scissors, singing and dancing and giving everyone kawaii aneurisms. (That’s mid-tier stuff. I kept one flyer that seems to offer something to do with feet.) By comparison, our experience was tame, which was admittedly a relief, but sort of a disappointing relief. I noticed there was audio equipment and microphones set up under a large monitor, so I assume things got a bit more intensive at busier times. Or maybe we just weren’t seizing the opportunity: at another table, Tokyo’s loudest, drunkest asshole (+ guest) was cackling and perving and having the time of his life with his maid. I assume he paid for some extra service.

Eventually our hostess reappeared to ask if we wanted anything else. For a few hundred yen you can get a photo taken with your maid (cameras are otherwise forbidden). She asked us which pose we’d like. We asked what the options were. She demonstrated several, each more kawaii than the last. I asked her favourite. This seemed to panic her. I changed tact and asked which the most popular was. She said it was the heart-shape hand thing mentioned before. We opted for that one. Another maid produced an elderly-looking Polaroid camera, Tom and I posed together with our maid, and photo was taken. We were seated again while the Polaroid was first developed, then customised, by our maid. She worked for some time with coloured pens and stamps. After ten or fifteen minutes, she presented us with the final product. It was obvious she’d worked hard: the three of us were enveloped in stars, hearts, and other kawaii miscellany. She’d drawn cat ears on herself. I don’t have the photo right now— Tom kept the Polaroid— but I’ve asked him to scan it so the internet can treasure it just as we do.

Before we left, I asked the maid if she liked working at the cafe. She hesitated for a long time before finally answering: “I like anime, so it’s okay.” She asked where we were staying. We told her Harajuku. She said: “Ah! I buy my dress from there.”

Obviously the maid cafe was overpriced and tacky. Certainly if you go there looking for the things people look for in cafe you will leave infuriated and hungry, but you don’t go for the coffee and cheesecake, you go for the “moe, moe, kyun!” But even that was strangely subdued. Pathetic, even. The production values aren’t really there. But I think it was worth the trip, if only to demystify the spectre of the maids in our minds. It wasn’t as embarrassing as I had expected, though if you get sucked into a song-and-dance routine your experience may differ. Perhaps it’s better that way.

What I can’t resolve about maid cafes is the politics of it all. I reckon Tokyo, Akihabara particularly, is a tough place to be a feminist. Before I went to a maid cafe I assumed it was a sex thing, albeit not an explicit one (unless you go to the foot place, I guess). In practice, the experience was weirdly sexless. It was clinical and patronising and sort of dull. But there’s clearly an ideal being sold here— an ideal of femininity as docile, childish and fluffy. That’s not really cool, or sexy. And the coffee sucks, too.


Image (not my photo)

There are such things as butler cafes. These are the equivalent of maid cafes in that costumed young men serve customers hand and foot, but with a curious twist: all the butlers are western. Although they’re called butlers, the experience sounds to me more like a prom fantasy derived from Hollywood. The butlers are too young and fluffy-haired to resemble Jenkins and Alfred.

Tom actually got a job offer at a butler cafe. He came back saying it was “without exaggeration the weirdest experience of my life”. According to Tom, the place was run without a shred of irony by a menacing middle-aged woman and a strange man he guessed was her son. There were rules. The female clientele are referred to as “princesses” both in the cafe and behind the scenes. If a princess asks a butler where he lives, he is to tell them he lives in “the butler castle”. (The location of the butler castle is not disclosed.) If a butler is recognised on the street, he must explain that he is merely the butler’s identical twin. The pay sucked, the Japanese don’t tip, and you were expected to buy your own suit. He didn’t take the job.

In the process of researching this piece, I discovered a Times article that claims maid cafes were better before they went mainstream. The article despairs of “new style maid cafes” or “McMaids”, and singles out Popopure as an example: “touted by street hawkers brandishing glossy pamphlets and shouting “welcome” in eight languages.” I wasn’t aware any other variety of maid cafe existed, or that authenticity was really a quantifiable value in the maid cafe industry, but apparently I went to a tourist trap. Anyway, the Times alleges the next hot thing in the underground maid cafe scene is the “clumsy cafe”, where “the staff are incompetent, distracted and rude, spill things, ignore customers and their aprons are a bit shabby.” That sounds even hotter: an ideal of women as moronic klutzes. Reminds me of carstuckgirls.com. I’ll check it out next time I’m in town.

Here’s one final Akihabara tale of otaku depravity: on the same trip, we went to Mandarake, an enormous multi-storey manga shop that employs several women to walk around waving at customers, wearing huge wigs and not much else. They were, I am ashamed to say, distracting. I guess I wasn’t the only customer to find them distracting, because while I was there I saw a hand appear from behind a shelf of vintage manga and fondle an exposed buttock. The woman didn’t react. I wasn’t sure how to react either, so I decided not to react too. In this way, sexual assault will surely be defeated.

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Re: Archaeology

Post by Crowbar »

As a footnote to that lovely little tale, "kyun" is onomatapoeia for a heart palpitation, as induced by cuteness.

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Re: Archaeology

Post by Protodude »

Great writeup Popcorn. Sounds similar to most things I've heard about them, although I have heard some offered handjobs and the like in the past before they started to crackdown on them doing it, so I guess they weren't always entirely sexless. Not sure where I read that now that I think about it, so I could be remembering wrong. You better post that photo!

As for the original topic at hand, I've always been interested and admired Japanese game stores and how neat and tidy they seem to be with their retro products. It's something I always wished American stores took more care in, although there is a local one by me that's pretty good about it. Also, Batman Forever is probably one of the worst games I've ever played in my life.

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Re: Archaeology

Post by Popcorn »

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Re: Archaeology

Post by Popcorn »

TERRIBLE NEWS FROM TOM:
I have something terrible to confess. At the weekend I had my jacket stolen from a birthday party, both my phone and wallet were inside, as was the maid photo. I'd stuck it in the little window compartment inside my wallet and had completely forgotten it was in there until I saw your email. I'm really sorry about this.
maid tears ;_______________________;

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Re: Archaeology

Post by Green Gibbon! »

I strolled into a Japanese Toys-R-Us for the first time today. It was about half the size of the one I used to know back in the states, and that one was in a city that's about half the size of Morioka. Most of the toys were geared to a younger set, like the 5-10 age bracket. There was precious small space devoted to toys for older kids (like me).

I did find this, though: http://www.beena.jp/beena/index.html

It's basically Pico 2 and it is still actively supported. I remember these came out a few years back right after the Pico was retired, but I didn't know they were still on the market. As far as I can tell, the Pico was madly, insanely popular over here.

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Re: Archaeology

Post by Locit »

Popcorn wrote:I've been meaning to write a full account of our experience for a while, so, by popular demand, here it is:
This was totally great! Thanks for the yarn.
Green Gibbon! wrote:As far as I can tell, the Pico was madly, insanely popular over here.
The mind boggles. And yeah, that is totally a Pico 2. It's feels kind of weird to not have known it existed for this long! Any Sonic games?

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Re: Archaeology

Post by Green Gibbon! »

Not unless Sonic's head is now made of a bun filled with anko bean paste. In which case there are dozens!

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