Hopper's volume 2: Snake vs Zombie

This Saturday, games developer Grasshopper Manufacture held the 2nd edition of its annual Hopper's festival. The festival was a one-day event in Club Asia in Shibuya, featuring talks by prominent video game developers and live music. While in one part of the venue the talks were held, live music was played on another stage elsewhere. Various Grasshopper goods such as their soundtrack CDs and signed copies of the book Hand in Killer7 were on sale at the event and seemed to be selling well.

Speakers included Tetsuya Mizuguchi (best known for the games Rez, Space Channel 5 and Lumines), Fumito Ueda (director and lead designer of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus), Keiichiro Toyama (director of Silent Hill and the Siren games) and Hifumi Kono (Steel Battalion).

The main event, Snake vs Zombie, was a joint talk by Konami's Hideo Kojima and Capcom's Shinji Mikami, and hosted by Grasshopper's own Goichi Suda, better known as Suda 51. For the non-gamers: Kojima is famous for his creation of the Metal Gear Solid series of games (the lead character of which is called Solid Snake, shown right on the flyer), and Mikami is best known for creating the Biohazard/Resident Evil games, which can be credited for re-popularizing the zombie-genre in both film and video games in recent years.
The two men were asked things such as how they first got to know each other's work; which films they watched recently (all seemed to like the TV show Lost) ; and to explain their jobs, which differed in that Mikami said he was more concerned with scheduling while Kojima is more hands-on with the game's (visual) design.

All the talks were very much of the talk-show type; informal discussions which were loosely lead by some questions. I didn't attend all the talks, as my Japanese is still quite limited, but I was just able to understand the main points they were talking about. A better-Japanese-speaking friend had come along, and some of my colleagues were also there, so I was able to get some translations as well.

Following the main event there was also a recording of Kojima's podcast, in which members of the audience could ask questions to the speakers present.

The evening was concluded with a performance of the Grasshopper sound team, which played tracks from games such as God Hand, Killer7 (the Handsomemen theme song) and the upcoming No More Heroes. I can't be certain, but I think I heard the Grasshopper sound team announce that a Killer7 soundtrack CD is in the works. I also think I heard Suda 51 announce that one of their earliest games, The Silver Case is due to be appear for the Nintendo DS in the future.

Standing most of the day while trying to concentrate on the Japanese being spoken made the whole event slightly too tiring for us to go to the "after-party" nearby, which was some kind of Lumines Xbox360 Tournament party hosted by Mizuguchi and Microsoft. Still, it had been an interesting and fun day - I'll be back next year, when I should be able to follow the talks a little better!

Happy Mascots: Cats and Dogs

I've amassed something of a backlog of Happy Mascot photos, and most are of cats and dogs! They're everywhere! And most are poor designs as well!

That's a very fluffy-cheeked cat.

Acorn, dog...or both?

The sign says it's a dog hair salon. Cats are also welcome, by the looks of it.

That boy and his dog...they've got the same eyes!

If you have an orange dog or green cat, visit this pet clinic.

International shipping company Yamato's famous black cats.

Hanami at night

Cherry blossom fever continues. Yesterday evening we went to see the cherry blossoms lit up along the Nogawa river. The event was started eleven years ago with the lighting up of a single tree.


Against a black sky, the white trees look even more surreal and make for a somewhat tricky camera subject...Click on any of the images for a larger view, or here to see a video.


The lights are only set up for one night, and only three hours, so it draws quite a crowd. Police were on the scene to tell people to move along.

Hanami weekend

As this weekend was officially the best time to go look at the cherry blossoms this year, we decided to go visit one of the many sakura festivals held in the city. Going out to see the flowers actually has its own word for it: hanami, "hana" meaning flower, "mi" to look.
Click on the pictures below for a larger image.

Panorama of one of the sakura-lined streets surrounding a block in Akasaka, Tokyo.

While the skies may have been overcast all weekend, it was still a spectacular sight to see these white trees. For me, it was the first time to see it on such a scale. As we first entered the street, we were greeted by a blizzard of flower petals. I took of a video of it, but after putting it online it has been scaled down and recompressed, so much of the effect is lost.

So that's what they look like up close.

Some larger trees seen along the Zempukujigawa. These weren't even the largest around, just the more photogenic ones.