Pikachu Day 2009

Up good and early today, yet despite my doing this every day for the last week and resenting it each time today it was a far easier task. Because today I was getting a Pikachu with Last Resort.

Met up with Mark down at the Karasuma Oike platform, where we took the Tozai further than I'd ever been before: the terminus at Uzumasa Tenjingawa. From there we crossed the street to the Uzumasa Ranzan Station, a much smaller affair than I had imagined. It took me a little while to figure out that we were on the right side, and that we paid as we got off as if we were on a bus. The train itself was a quirky little thing, a cross between a small train and a tram, but it travelled at a fair speed and we were at our destination in no time. It did not take long to figure out that 90% of the people on the train were heading in the same direction.

From the station near the film studio where the event was being held, we followed some Nintendo-brand clothing-clad guides (but who didn't give us gaijin a map because obviously we didn't possess the Japanese required the follow the big black arrows...) as well as a growing stream of people to set 1, and the start of the queue. Getting to the end of the queue took us another 5 minutes.


I have never seen so many DSs in one place. This is us at the far end of the queue. From here it took 2 hours to reach the front, so I felt sorry for Dan and Greg who turned up later and had to start their queuing much further back.

Well, not that sorry. I was too busy negotiating the terms of exchange of Pokemon with a 10 year old girl called Nihiro to really care.

The Wireless Union Room was packed to the infra-red rafters with Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, HeartGold and SoulSilver players, it was difficult to move without some random fellow called Kyousuke or Theo or something asking for a trade. I got 2 new Trainer Cards today, people I'll never see again but will hear the exploits of in the game's TVs.

Trading with Nihiro got me an Aerodactyl (lv 25), Macargo (lv 52, stronger than anything else I have at the moment), Omanyte (lv 20), Anorith (lv 20), Cranidos (lv 20) and Cricketune (lv 25), traded for Bellsprout, Machop, Paras (she was well excited about that), Spinarak, Drowzee and Wooper. A good deal, I thought. You have to bear in mind that she was on Pearl, so the original 150 were out of reach for her until today. She showed me her fossil collection, she had quite the obsessive streak.

Pikachu was obtainable in the queue, a cute little Lv 30 fellow with Last Resort, Thunderbolt, Quick Attack and Slam (I think, haven't tried it out yet). He's coming with me to Victory Road.

Here's the front of the queue.


By the time we got in at just about 12, there was still no sign of Polly. Still, she had said to go in and not wait for her, and by this time we were very eager to see what was going on. Just inside we got a little exhibit on the history of Nintendo, with cased Famicoms, Super Famicoms, N64s, Wiis, Gameboys all the colours of the rainbow, and walls of the cases of the classic games that made Nintendo famous.






Good, nostalgic stuff. The exhibition was indeed small, and soon it reached into the main event. On the immediate right was the Pikachu corner, of sorts, which had a woman handing out cardboard Pikachu hats on one stall and a download corner for the PokeWalker's Yellow Forest course. Didn't take long to grab a copy of the course (and a hat) and move on.



The rest of the corners were taken up by game demonstrations for Pokemon Scramble on WiiWare (like an action-based RPG thing with super-deformed legendary Pokemon), Mario and Sonic at the Winter Olympics, and one corner for both Wii Sports Resort and Wii Fit Plus, each sporting a Nintendo staff member with a placard happily telling us that we should be expected to wait more than an hour for any game. Thoughts of gaming were put on hold, however, as we were taken in by the stage on the far side on the hall with the Pokemon Sunday logo on a screen, as well as a short podium with 4 DSs on it. We were told during our chat with an anonymous staff member (y'know, the kind in RPGs that only repeat one thing over and over) that at 1 (it was now 12.30) Pokemon Sunday would put on a show and ask some of the kids in the audience to have a four-way battle using pre-set Pokemon. Sounded like fun, and we didn't really want to be in a queue when that started up, so we took our places near the crowd waiting for 1 o'clock.


Oh, Pokemon Sunday is a weekly 30-minute program that has seasons on during big Pokemon events such as the release of HGSS. We found out today, much to our amusement, that it airs on Thursday afternoons.

The show started promptly at 1, with a highly enthusiastic Nintendo representative greeting the crowd as a part of Pokemon Sunday, and then we watched an actually slightly creepy trailer for the show. By that I mean that there was a really creepy Pikachu-dressed person in it. Creepy.

Anyway, 2 of the show's mascots turned up soon after; Lucario and Sableye. This was one of the things I truly wanted to have on camera, but we were told by the signs everywhere that we weren't allowed for some reason. Didn't stop everyone else in the whole entire crowd, though! And so it didn't stop us either.



The cameraman's backside, however, did stop us. Like how it looks like I've put together the guy in the middle of the 2 pictures? So not intentional.

The photo on the right shows Team Lucario going up to start the game. A father and son team, and the one I hoped would win. Let's see, their Pokemon were Chikorita, Slowpoke, Phanpy, Farfetch'd... umm, and 2 others.

Team Sableye was a pair of brothers who picked the same Pokemon as their favourite, and who had obviously done this before because they won with a decent degree of style. Not very enthusiastic about it, though, a trait I've noticed about most Japanese kids of a certain age. Anyway, they had Hoot-hoot, Teddyursa... and some others. I honestly can't remember.

Just to point out, I would have been more than happy to go up and participate, but it is a kid's game. And the prospect of fighting a towering gaijin like myself may have been too much for many kids, especially if Mark and I teamed up.

I'm going to put up a couple of videos of the match, but they're not great. First the camera on this thing isn't that good, and also it's on sideways...



Sorry. But I think you can get a good idea of how it worked. You may not be able to see, however, that it was awesome to watch. The sound quality was perfect, and the tension was actually pretty impressively high. I could watch Pokemon battles like Dad watches football, I think.

With the stage show over, we decided we were far too hungry and tired to stand in line to play the games, so headed out to grab some food in the cafeteria next door. More kitsune udon for me, thanks. I could, and may well, live off that stuff. Whilst eating, Polly showed up. Turns out she overslept. Huh.

Anyway, with the Pikachu Event over we decided to head to Polly's to see what it was like, then check out the nearby temples. Polly lives in International House II, owned by Ritsumeikan University, and its a nice little hotelly place that apparently lets the bugs in.

And what bugs they were.

We had been enlightened in an earlier conversation about the horrors of bugs in NW Kyoto, and the centipedes especially. Apparently there's a big fuss over centipedes that get into rooms through windows and bite people in their sleep. The pain has been likened to getting stabbed by a cigarette end, but constantly until you get the thing to let go, done by crushing the head and boiling the rest of it. Apparently. Let's hope I never have to put that knowledge to use.

Oh, but we did see one. Here he is.



This is at Nanniji Temple, a big temple about 20 minutes walk from Polly's. A nice place with some truly great architecture. Pagodas and the like. Here, I made this Cloverfield-esque video to show part of what we saw.



From Nanniji it was off on the bus then the train home, where I now learn that Mark just got SoulSilver. A bit late, my friend, but better late than never. Church tomorrow, nothing special there, and then a free day to relax ready for another week of work. Apparently there's meant to be a nomikae at 7 tonight but... it's 7.45 and outside is silent. Huh, another unfulfilled promise.

Anyway, that's me. Thanks for reading.