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[our own pictures coming soon!]

So we’ve been here a couple weeks and have seen most of the things you’re supposed to see in Tokyo. Architecture, people, trains, food. It’s a glorious city, probably my favorite of the ones I’ve been to. I was kind of saving the best part for last, and Akihabara is it. We’ve been there three times now in four days and I can’t wait to go back. :)

So far, we’ve seen five floors of plastic models, five floors of retro games, five floors of anime, five floors of pc parts, five floors of hentai, five floors of pachinko. We’ve been served tea by a catgirl at Cafe with Cat and oogled hundreds of high-tech vibrators (did you know sex toys are illegal in Thailand?). Boxes of PC accessories and flashing LED-coated gadgets down every alley; whole floors of Yaoi doujinshi and UFO-catcher machines. This afternoon we watched a dude rock out on an arcade drum game to the cheers of three dozen gathered spectators, visited a vintage godzilla collectibles store, played on a Virtual Boy and bought a USB adaptor for my DS. Still so much left to see and do in Electric Town.

Oh, and the games! We’ve picked up copies of Panel de Pon (aka Puzzle League) DS, Princess Maker 5, pokemon diamond in english, a period yaoi / bl / dating sim / adventure / rpg, and a ds puzzle game based on pipe dream. We’ve been playing Panel de Pon on the train and remarking on the play changes that the stylus makes to our old fave.

Fact: the term “PC Game” here seems to be mean “dating sim / porn”. This made it a real bugger to find Princess Maker 5 which is for the PC but isn’t hentai at all – it’s a delightful child-rearing game kind of like The Sims, but much simpler, cuter and more personal. We finally found it squashed in with shonen games (gay romance stories for a female audience).

When trying to figure out how to play PM5, I learned that with AGTH and haxxed Fujitsu ATLAS (ask me) you can translate Japanese PC games on the fly, passibly enough to play through them. Horrays! I went back and bought another dating sim; looks like a three-kingdoms-esque rpg with decades of dialogue. We’d already played through so-called dating sim Kana: Little Sister in Thailand, which really had more to do with trajedy and death than dating and sex. It’s a complex genre. I’m not sure I like them yet (too emotionally manipulative and slow for me), but after seeing whole stores of it here, it does seem conspicuously absent from North America.

Dating sims could kill on the NA market if you found the right spin. Maybe western guys aren’t into making cute anime chicks fall in love with them by listening to them talk for hours then timidly requesting to walk them home, ok. But what if you were a streetwise ninja with a selection of techniques for graphically disembowelling your foes, who managed a prostitution ring of girls you’d seduced, and you could skip to the sex scenes any time you wanted? Huh? Dating sims yayaya!

OK we’re taking requests for odd japanese thingamawhagits. You know all those times you wish you had a friend in Japan who was going to come home in a few months so they could buy you things? Now you do.

Caitlin has requested a Spike Speigle bento box. Which we are keeping a lookout for. Add your random thing to the list (no I will not buy you soiled school-girl panties… ok I will but you will owe me bigtime).

(although a day in Akiba turned up zero(!) cowboy bebop stuff we are still on the prowl)

Asahi Prime Time “Original All Malt Beer For the Best Moments In Life, Let yourself Go”. Let

yourself go to spend 5 dollars on 500ml of fad-following artificial flavours!

I haven’t tried it yet but I assume Asahi’s entry into the OMG MALTS! catagory of beers will fit

in there snugly with suntory and kirin’s. Decent but lacking inspiration.

This is also the first Asahi beer I have had in Japan. Lets crack that attractive dark blue can

with gold lettering.

Wtf it looks like a lager. How do you have a malty all malt 100% malt beer with malt if it

isn’t dark!? Malt beer has clearly been branded to be dark! Catch up Asahi!

Nice even, thick, head. Shortly lived. Generally laggery coloured. Smells like nothing.

First sip: Weird. Shit this is going to be hard to explain. It aint strong. Again this

appears to be another beer designed to make that 5 bucks go as quickly as possible. Here is

your beer sir. Drink it now! Faster! Buy another one!

There is no primary taste. It does not exist. Mabey that’s why beer companies don’t make beer

entirely out of malt.

Ok the aftertaste… if you just take a sip it doesn’t offer anything but if you give it a

really good pull it brings a little taste to the table. And that taste is… a tiny bit fruity

but mostly… beery?

Yes. The aftertaste tastes like beer. Asahi has managed to make a beer that tastes like

fermented barley. Although only faintly.

Sarah describes the taste as “ugh, camel piss. For the Best Moments In Life, Let yourself Go,

and then drink your own piss”. But I think that’s stretching it. Drinking your own piss would

surely be a more noteworthy experience.

So… yeah. I have well over 1/2 a can of this left. I think I’m going to spend the rest of

the night drinking Shochu and attempting to wish this beer into more Yokohama Habanero.

Alan complained that I complained too much in my reviews thus far. Thus I picked, from our

growing battery, a beer that I have high hopes for. Hopefully this time there will be mostly

praising.

Actually it’s the brewery I have high hopes for. I forgot I got the habanero ale. Unable to

resist the novelty. Still, this should be a cure for all the weak, scrawny beers that we have

been wading through.

We did purchase this beer in Yokohama. A city outside of Tokyo. A place our landlord refers to

as ‘very far away’. It took 1/2 hour to get there.

OK opening the bottle (yay, no can). Light, perhapse reddy colour. Strongly carbonated.

Smells like the desert!

First Sip: WHHHHOA! good googly moogly. It’s, like, a beer made with Habanero! What a great

aftertaste. Just like a spicy bite of salsa.

The primary taste is of… hibiscus? (which is what it smells of as well) Which is nice. And

goes well thematically. The carbonation bites nicely just as the hibiscus is dying and the

gentle burny peper falvour is settling in. The alcohol% is 5.5 but it isn’t really a beer that

wants alot of alcohol. The taste fits nicely in there with the carbonation giving the

aftertaste a cheery sort of boost on it’s way.

Now that the beer is almost gone (300ml, 6 bucks) I notice the habanero in there to begin with,

sort of dancing happily around on your tongue playing peek-a-boo with the hibiscus.

Well good job Yokohmama brewery! Way to make a beer with some flavour. Alot of flavour! Even

a beer with an original taste. I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone had one at the next beer

fest in vic.

Complex, pleasent flavour. None of that unpleasent pringles taste about it. And a nice water

colour label to-boot.

We have to find another reason to visit Yokohama!

We were hangin with robes in Yokohama the other day and stumbled upon a “Kirin the Brew Pub”!

Sarah and Pierre indulged my burning desire to eat at an austrian brew ‘hause’ run by a japanese

mega-corp.

The experience was novel. Unlike the beer. We tried their brew meister, pale ale, and ‘dark’

beers. I also added their ‘alpha number one’ or some such brew to the list later in the day.

All the beers tasted _exactly_ the same. And tasted very little. The experiences differed only

in the colouring that had been artificially added to the beer. And in the price (alpha number

one cost 1$ more).

So to Kirin beers in general a great big dismissive wave of the hand. (this is excepting beers

brewed under their Yebisu label, which must first be tasted and then dismissed)