Day 2 was mostly about spending time in Akihabara, the electronic district of Tokyo. On my first trip to Japan I only had time to check it briefly at night as part of an attempt to ride the entire Yamanote line to hear the platform jingles. On my second trip we just popped into Yodobashi Camera, the largest department store in the area and having been told off for taking photos of the giant televisions, we left fairly promptly and headed off to Roppongi. This time I had much more time to spend here but spent way too much time in that same store (and being a bit more subtle with the camera this time). I was hoping to be able to pick up a Nintendo Switch here, after they'd sold out in the UK. Prior to the trip I was reading stories that they were also out of stock here, so bad in fact some places were offering a raffle to be in with the chance of winning a chance to buy one, not win one. I also checked out Super Potato, a highly recommended treasure trove of video games, as well as hitting the arcades.
For lunch I rode the Yamanote around to Roppongi, the worst part of Tokyo as it's where the western immigrants hang out to party. However on the edge of it there's a cool looking restaurant called Gonpachi, famous for being the inspiration for that restaurant fight scene in Tarantino's "Kill Bill".
I finished today travelling back to Shinjuku to spend time in the newly opened Bandai VR Zone, a cool VR entertainment complex which I added into the trip when I saw a trailer for a Mario Kart VR game. This alone was the main reason to go but the centre has a number of other attractions too. Rather strangely at the time I went it didn't appear possible to just buy the tickets for the rides you wanted to do instead the rides were grouped into 4 colours and you bought a ticket that granted 1 go on a ride of each colour. The place is also prone to booking up but I'd heard it got quieter towards the end of the day, which is why I put it at the end. Since my visit they've also announced single ride tickets but not for the best rides (including Mario) and they're only available for sale after you've bought the 4-ride ticket.
Akihabara is the place to go for electronics in Tokyo. There are way too many shops to visit in a single trip.
I've no idea how the 2x2x2 cube rotates.
There are vast collections of models in some of the stores. Collectors items of course!
Located on 3 floors of a small building down a back street Super Potato is a treasure trove of retro-gaming and merch. But it's expensive, the original Parappa is around £200. Treat it as a museum of the old an unusual and it's a worthwhile visit. Go there looking for games and be prepared to splurge the cash.
I spent several hours hitting the arcade halls here, and splurging the cash that way. There are all sorts of games here generations ahead of what we have in the UK. Tabletop games where cards are scanned and impact the game on screen., so many variations of games of button hitting games, collaborative musical instrument games (not just guitar hero), games with more controllers than I have hands that I had no idea how to play, games with 20 minute tutorials, and games you can't reach because local kids are having battles on them. I was terrible at most of them, and not just because of the language difference.
At Gonpachi. I'd clearly come at a quiet time of day as bar 2 groups I was the only one in there. I had some lovely tempura and plum wine
The VR Zone had only been open for a month or so, and there are already plans to open more around the world. As I type this one has been announced for London. Cool!
A game where you walk a plank, which doesn't look that bad until you see it from the participant's perspective.
This one is Evangelion, a gundam robot simulator where I struggled to control my robot and proceeded to smash it into skyscrapers.
The best attraction and most popular by far was the Mario Kart VR. The immersion was exceptional and the weapons provided a lot of fun. They fly past on balloons and you have to grab them with an outreached hand. 3 weapons were available: Bananas (which I never got a hold of on my go), green shells (which you aim by looking making them much more powerful than in the game) and the most fun was the hammer which would lead you to drive one handed whilst you bashed the opposition with your other. I got from 4th to 2nd on the final bend taking my human opposition out with successive blows to the head. Bowser in his rather large tank/car thing beat me. It's a lot of fun but with just one extended lap the experience is over too quickly. I could play this for hours.
There are around a dozen different experiences for you take part in. All of them are showcases for the tech.
In this game you work in pairs to negotiate an asylum where the patients have escaped. The catch? You're both tied into electric wheelchairs which is a neat way to get people moving without taking up more floor space. For those of us visiting alone, one of the staff will step in to be your partner.
This skiing simulator looks like a reworking of the old skiing game that is still present in most big arcades. The immersion wasn't so cool as in the karting as skiing by it's very nature has you focused on the track ahead to get the right racing line. Now if we could throw shells at the other skiers...
In this one Goku from Dragonball teaches you how to throw a fireball.
I was sooooooo tempted, but figured I'd get mugged pretty quickly if I carried this around town.
and nightime in Shinjuku. Neon heaven, and yes that is a godzilla statue peering over the Gracery Hotel building. It's there as an advert for the Toho cinema complex next door. Toho was the film studios where the Godzilla films are made...more on that later on in the trip.
As someone who wrote papers on VR when at Uni, at a time when the technology wasn't where it needed to be, it's great to see it now where it needs to be and accessible to most. I've seen bad installations of the technology (theme parks adding headsets to their rides) and I've seen exceptional installations such as the Ghostbusters attraction in New York. This centre has a mix of games with Mario Kart clearly being the all-out favourite. The VR technology is the same we have at home, we just need that Mario game (the full game) and the top-end simulator chair that comes with it.
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