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!
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.
After spending nearly 6 months rent all at once but before even moving into your utterly empty flat, you won't be very much in the mood to go spending much more on furnishing the place. Not only will you need to get your own furniture, you'll also need to bring your own fridge, gas cooker and washing machine.
Luckily, there are some real bargains to be found at this stage.
Second hand goods stores are usually quite depressing places; they tend to be disorganised, and stuffed with too much of that porcelain tat that absolutely nobody wants to buy. The Treasure Factory does just about everything to not make itself look like a second hand goods store. It's clean, well-lit, items are properly categorized and prices are clearly labelled. Six-month warranties are given on larger purchases such as refrigerators, cookers and washing machines, which clearly have been serviced and thoroughly cleaned. The year in which they were manufactured is also clearly stated, so you know exactly how old the item is you are buying. But best of all are the prices - one can really find bargains here.
The whole recycling marketplace in Japan is quite big, with the Book-Off franchise spin-off Hard-Off being the largest chain. Book-Off is an enormous (and now even international) chain of second hand book sellers that you'll find everywhere in Japan, but from I've seen their prices on second hand games are hardly discounted. I've not been to the ridiculously named Hard-Off so I can't comment on their prices.
For really low prices, there's no beating the shop in your local recycling center. These are dotted throughout Tokyo and can be spotted from a great distance as they all seem to have a tall, white chimney. The city will pick up, clean, repair and put on sale the unwanted goods they consider to be sell-able. Electronic goods and appliances aren't sold here. In some places they will even deliver any purchases to your house for a fee. Here you can also buy unclaimed bicycles that were parked in no-parking zones, fully repaired, for about 6,500 yen.
If you're out buying second hand goods, why not help another foreigner who is leaving the country get rid of his or her stuff? Sayonara sales, as they are called, are happening all the time and you can find them listed in either the paper or online version of the Tokyo Notice Board. Among other things, we picked up a good sized fridge, only 1 year old, for a mere 12,000 yen from someone. Several sellers gave us free stuff as they were so desperate to clear everything out before their departure.
So what first seemed like an immensely expensive task turned out to be not so bad after all. We didn't end up buying everything second hand, and I think we were able to furnish the entire flat (+ buy a bicycle) for the equivalent of about 2 weeks rent. With that out of the way, I'm in the mood for spending again.
Two months after being offered my job, I was finally able to start working on the last Friday of January.
I arrived at the requested time and was shown by the receptionist to a table where two other people starting that day were sitting in silence, avoiding mutual eye contact. I couldn't help but kick off with my "Japanese Lesson 1" material and started the introductions. We were soon met by our leads and taken to our departments.
During the day we were shown around the entire office and introduced to everyone, which involved lots of bowing and exchanging the words "yoroshiku onegaishimasu" several times. This translates more or less into "Please be kind to me", and is the most common expression when meeting someone.
As usual, most of the first day working at a games developer is spent getting your PC set up. Creating a login, password, installing and setting up all the required software, network paths, etc. Learning what-does-what in Windows software is a little trickier when it's all in kanji. Luckily though, the software I need to use the most (Maya and Photoshop) were both available in English. When I'm in deep "into" my work, there's little to remind me I'm actually working in foreign country.
In addition to that, the two artists sitting nearest to me in the office are the two employees who speak the best English - it really couldn't be more convenient. Needless to say they've been a tremendous help to me the past few weeks in translating my questions (and answers), reading error messages on my screen, explaning work practices, teaching me new words, etc. etc. I'm not sure I would have managed without their help. Also since my arrival, all my colleagues have now added their names in romaji to the list in our instant messaging software, making it possible for me to read their names.
At some point during the first day I received my contract. Apparently it is not unusual to get this on your first working day, and it's only one page. Being that short it is of course pretty basic, the only striking clause being something along the lines of "Should the company get sued for something you did, you get sued, not the company". You don't need to sign - or rather stamp - it on the spot, but return it to following week.
While I'm not the first Westerner to work at the company, at the moment I am the only one. All in all, the company and the employees have been extremely accommodating. I can do my work without problems and best of all, I'm enjoying myself. So far so good!
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.
