Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 and Street Fighter x Tekken

A brief post to list my latest PS3 acquisitions: Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 and the limited edition of Street Fighter x Tekken.

I'm not going to do a lenghty rant about how the recent Capcom fighting games are nowhere as good as they used to be as I did in a previous post, but to summarize after playing the regular Marvel vs. Capcom 3 I adamantly refused to buy those games and was my brother who finally bought them (Marvel vs. Capcom 3 back in December and Street Fighter x Tekken last weekend).

After playing both games for a few hours against my brother, my opinion remains unchanged; I don't like Marvel vs. Capcom 3 at all and Street Fighter x Tekken is marginally tolerable at best. At least is interesting to see the "new" characters Hugo, Poison and Rolento in 3D renditions (I don't care about Tekken franchise since Tekken Dark Resurrection, that I have for the PSP).

The limited edition included this piggy bank shaped in form of a (fictional) SFxT arcade cabinet

The only interesting extra is a mini-mini comic booklet drawn by Udon Comics. Is nice to see Ingrid, a forgotten character that I really like, as the mastermind behind the Pandora Box...

Recent game purchases

Those are the games that I purchased (and finished) recently (and by "recently" I mean the past 3 months...):

Ace Attorney Investigations for the NDS and Marvel vs. Capcom 3 for the PS3.

Ace Attorney Investigations is a spin-off of the Ace Attorney series starring the prosecutor Edgeworth, and taking place outside the court.

Is more in the vein of the Ace Attorney series than Apollo Justice, the fourth installment, and the cases are quite good. Despite that, I disliked the "friendly rival" Shi-Long Lang, and the main sidekick Kay Faraday was kinda boring and irritating. In fact, for me Edgeworth's best partner was Franziska von Karma, specially in her 13 year old appearance:

Cute young Franziska

Is not not the best game in the Ace Attorney series, but unlike Apollo Justice, is a worth sequel. Too bad that the second game starring Edgeworth is not coming to Occident...

And for Marvel vs. Capcom 3... I don't like it at all.
My brother and I play a lot of fighting games, mostly Capcom ones, and he was quite hyped for this one so at the end I purchased it, but it never was appealing for me for several reasons.
The first one is that, except for a very few exceptions, I don't like 3D visuals in fighting games. The second is that I dislike about a third of the cast represented. I don't like the recent Resident Evil games (the last one I liked was RE2) , Devil May Cry or the new Bionic Commando, so from the start I dislike 6 characters from the Capcom side (not counting the characters that "I can tolerate but I don't really like" like Zero or Crimsom Viper), and my knowledge of Marvel characters is mostly from the late 80's to mid 90's, so "new" characters like x-23 and Deadpool are pretty much unknown to me (and seemingly quite fan-service characters) and some old-school characters like Thor, MODOK or Dormammu are quite uninteresting... To compare, in Marvel vs. Capcom 2, with a bigger roster than MVC3, the only character that I disliked was Marrow.
And the 3rd reason is that I dislike the game mechanics, very different from the previous games from the series and with unnecesary gimmicks like the X-factor.
Worst of all is that a couple of weeks after I bought it, Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 was announced Orz

Ghost Trick

Last weekend I bought Ghost Trick for NDS, and a couple of days ago I finished it.

In summary, Ghost Trick is a visual novel with a puzzle segment in each of the 18 chapters, but the puzzle is mostly cosmetic since the story is the main focus.

You play as Sissel, an amnesic ghost with a special power to manipulate small objects and go back in time 4 minutes before the dead of any recently deceased person besides himself. With that power he must find who is and why was killed, and he have time until dawn before disappears from this world.

Is hard to not compare it with the Ace Attorney games, not only because the developer of both series is Takumi Shuu, but also because like the AA games, the main charm of the game is the quite unique characters, each with distinctive quirks and behaviors, and see how interact with each other in a seemingly unconnected way, until you see the full picture in the last episode.

The story is pretty good, with several plots twist. Some of them are pretty evident (I figured Sissel identity at the end of the chapter six, and is one of the last revelations in the game) but some of them are totally unexpected (like the identity of the ghost that explains your powers at the beginning).

When a characters speaks, like most of the visual novels, a 2D image of the character is shown, but when appearing "on screen" they are modeled in 3D with astonishingly fluid animations. This aspect and the stylish character designs gives a really edgy feel to the game.

The puzzles consists most of the time to save a character from his/her death, manipulating the objects that you can possess. Even if you fail, you can go back in time 4 minutes and redo the situation, but the puzzles are fairly obvious, with only one way of solving them and usually you can do it with the first attempt. As usual with this kind of games, it rather short (about 10 hours) and have zero to none replayability value.

Since most of the fun is to know the truth at the same time as the main character, I won't spoil all the characters, only the ones you'll find early in the game.

Sissel

The main character. He regains consciousness and find himself as a ghost, dead and without any memory of who is he or how was killed. Despite his looks, he's not as sarcastic as Phoenix Wright and usually is pretty naive.

Lynne

The main heroine is this vivacious detective that have a more than passing resemblance to Gurren Lagann's Yoko. Seems to be the the only witness of Sissel murder, and is the first person that you need to help to literally escape from the death in hand of a hitman.

Kamile

Known as Kanon in Japan, she's a little girl living with Lynne. She's pretty smart for her age and is the second character that you need to save.

Missile

Kamile and Lynne little dog. In order to help his masters, he becomes one of the main characters later in game.

My videogame collection III: PlayStation Portable

And the last one of my portable consoles is the PSP.
I bought a white PSP-1000 in early 2007, anticipating the extra PSP game included in the PS2 version of Fate/stay night.
Except for 5 titles, all the games that I have are ports of previously released games.

Guilty Gear Judgement (2006). Guilty Gear is one of the few fighting game franchise that I like that is not by Capcom (I don't like most of the SNK games). This game features a somewhat crappy beat'em up (the "Justice" of the title) and as a "bonus" includes a full Guilty Gear XX game, in this case #Reload.

Guilty Gear Judgement (2006). The Japanese version of the previous one, that includes Guilty Gear XX Slash instead of #Reload, adding A.B.A. and Order Sol to the roaster.

Tekken Dark Resurrection (2006) An updated port of Tekken 5 adding Lili (a great addition), Dragunov and Armor King. I don't like the Tekken series that much, but is a nice port and was a budget title.

Darkstalkers Chronicle: The Chaos Tower (2004) One of the PSP launch titles, is a port of Vampire Chronicle for Matching Service for the DreamCast that included all the fighting styles from the series. Darkstalkers/Vampire is my second favorite series from Capcom fighting games.

Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX (2006) The ultimate Street Fighter Alpha 3 version, adding Eagle, Maki, Yun and Ingrid, each with their own story modes.

Power Stone Collection (2006) Contains Power Stone 1 and 2, an underrated franchise by Capcom. I don't like the 3D fighting games that much... but is a Capcom fighting game after all.

Fate/tiger colosseum (2007) A fighting game featuring super deformed characters from Fate/stay night. The artwork for the game was made by Hirai Yukio (of Pixel Maritan fame) instead of Takeuchi. Gameplay-wise is similar to Power Stone 2 and the story modes are nice, but as a fighting game is really crappy.

Fate/tiger colosseum Upper (2008) An updated version including all the characters that didn't make the cut in the previous one (Avenger, Kiritsugu, Irisviel...) plus new ones from Tsukihime (Phantas Moon, Magical Amber, Neko Arc). The game is as crappy as the first one.

Fate/unlimited codes PORTABLE (2009). I did a lengthy entry about it here.

Tobidase! ToraBuru Hanafuda Douchuuki (2007) The translation is something like "Rush out! Trouble Hanafuda Journal Diary", with a pun in "trouble": Tora (Tiger) referring to Taiga and Buru(ma) (Bloomers) referring to Illya.
It was an extra in the limited edition of Fate/stay night [Réalta Nua] for PS2. Is a port of the hanafuda game included in Fate/hollow ataraxia, adding a Yukika-Kaede-Kane team.

Capcom Classics Collection Remixed (2006) A collection of 19 old Capcom games.

Capcom Classics Collection Reloaded (2006) A collection with 20 more games. Man, I really love old school Capcom...

THE iDOL@STER SP: Wandering Star, Perfect Sun & Missing Moon (2008) An enhanced port of the original arcade game but divided in three different versions, each featuring 3 idols. A raising sim/rhythm game with extremely likable characters. I did entries about it here and here.

Hatsune Miku Project DIVA (2009) Another rhythm game featuring vocaloid characters (well, mostly Miku, a very few songs with Rin/Len and the rest only as alternate skins). I did a brief entry here.

Final Fantasy (2007) The latest remake of the first FF game to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the saga. Graphics with higher resolutions than the Dawn of Souls version, still in 2D.

Final Fantasy II (2007) Same as above, but with the second game.

Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions (2007) Another enhanced remake, this time of the great Final Fantasy Tactics for PSX. The new cel-shaded FMV are great, I wish all the new FF games where using that kind of videos instead of videos full of androgynous emo-bishounen jumping around like idiots.

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (2007) As much as I like Nomura's characters designs (in juxtaposition with the ethereal designs by Amano), I really hate that now every character in FF world looks like an emo J-Pop star... heck, even Gackt appears as a character!
Well, I suppose the game is not really that bad, because unlike Kingdom Hearts 2 or Dissidia, I actually finished this one.

Dissidia: Final Fantasy (2008) This is the epitome of all the things that I dislike of the recent Final Fantasy games: classic characters now became fashion victims pretty kids plus a non-existent plot that is a mere excuse to show the characters doing flashy and acrobatic attacks.
I received it as a gift, so I can't complain, but most likely will be my last "modern" FF game.

Breath of Fire III (2005) Breath of Fire was the only RPG saga made by Capcom and this one was the last that was worthy. It's a shame.

Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness (2006) I bought Disgaea for PS2, but never had the time to play it, so technically this was the first version I played. A good tactical RPG, with cool characters and funny plot.

Super Street Fighter IV

My brother bought Super Street Fighter IV for PS3 at the beginning of the month, and I've been playing non-stop until today (side effects of being jobless).

I must admit that I wasn't happy with the aesthetics of SF4, and I really hated the idea of a main SF game in 3D. When I was in Japan I refused to play SF4 in the arcades and I didn't really paid attention to it until I returned to Spain and played my brother's copy. It doesn't really looks like an Street Fighter game but plays like one.

I think Juri is the most interesting new character, and the only good looking Capcom new female character since Ingrid (C.Viper feels more like a SNK character than a Capcom one).

Juri and her sexy tongue

Juri is the first evil female in SF world (C.Viper was a double agent) and her psycho behavior and sadistic nature is kind of cool. It also helps her crazy/sadistic/erotical voice by a surprising Kitamura Eri.

Honorific mention goes to the extremely hot wife of Hakan:

Surely she beats all the other SF wives: Sally (Dhalsim's), Julia (Guile's) and Eliza (Ken's)

I'm a slightly above average player and I main Cammy (since Super Street Fighter II), but I managed to get all the 35 characters to rank C, a not so hard feat but extremely time consuming... I'm only missing about 40% of the characters trials, but is impossible for me to achieve that.

My videogame collection II: Nintendo DS

I purchased a black Nintendo DS Lite in late 2006. At first it wasn't a handheld console that I wanted to purchase (the gimmick of the touch screen is not really necessary in the kind of games I usually play on handhelds), and was very tempted to buy a PSP instead, until a fellow student from my university showed me Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan... 10 days after that, I purchased the NDS and imported that game...


Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan (2005) A rhythm video game that made me decide to purchase the console. Is about a manly cheer squad cheering for various troubled people, that sounds really weird (and, in fact, it is) . The crazy story mode, the overall setting and the 15 songs featured are really good. Since it uses fully the touch screen, is really hard to do a similar game in another platform (but Hatsune Miku Project DIVA was similar enough...)

Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2 (2007) The sequel to the former. Includes a playable "rival" cheer squad, and a bit of improvement in the gameplay (now you can skip the cut scenes until the very beginning of the song, for example), but the 19 songs included are in overall weaker compared to the prequel.

Elite Beat Agents (2006) The spiritual sequel to Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan for the western markets. The ones cheering in this game are agents from a secret government agency, and the 19 musical themes are all of western origin, but the overall gameplay is the same. Not as good as the Japanese counterparts...

THE iDOLM@STER Dearly Stars (2009) Really not as good as I expected. The original iM@S games are hard to tag (musical raising simulation game?) and the DS version manages to butcher almost all the aspects: the stats of your idol means nothing, the auditions are just a mini-game between chapters... The story and the characters are not bad, so is not a complete waste, but is not really iM@S game.


Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (2005) Is the port of a Capcom's visual novel for the GBA, released in 2001 only in Japan. You play as the defense attorney Phoenix Wright and you objective is to win in a wacky courtroom. I don't like the localization that much (I hate when people try to "westernize" names and places), but despite that is really an enjoyable game.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Justice for All (2006) The second installment of the series, introducing more memorable characters like Franziska von Karma.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trials and Tribulations (2007) The third one and the last that was originally released in the GBA. Possibly the most well rounded one.

Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney (2007) The first one that is not a remake. Maybe because almost all the old characters were dejected in order to begin a new era with brand new characters, but I didn't enjoyed the game as much as the first ones. Still is a nice game per se.

Another Code: Two Memories (2005) Known in North America as Trace Memory, is a little adventure game that creatively uses the unique features of the NDS to solve the different puzzles. A bit too short.

Hotel Dusk: Room 215 (2007) Another adventure game by the makers of the previous one. Longer than Another Code, is more oriented towards an older audience (after all Kyle Hyde, the main character, is a thirty-something years old ex-detective, while the main character of Another Code, Ashley, was thirteen.)


Nintendogs: Chihuahua & Friends (2005) The extremely popular pet simulator. It was bundled with the NDS when I purchased it. I only played with a Yorkshire Terrier puppy (the same breed as my real life one) for a week or so, and never again touched the game. Now the poor puppy must hate me...

Big Brain Academy (2005) The other game bundled with the console was this one. A Brain Training/Age wannabe more focused in mini-games. I kinda dislike this kind of "casual games".

Trauma Center: Under the Knife (2005) A "medical simulation game", is really a series of mini-games driven by a visual novel styled plot. Is enjoyable to play (except the X-missions) and I must admit that one of the motives that made me buy the game was the visuals of the nurse Angie Thompson (the blond in the cover).

Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales (2006) A series of Final Fantasy themed minigames. Way too childish, I bought it only because was only 9 euro.


Final Fantasy III (2006) An enhanced remake of the original Famicom/NES game. I highly prefer the stylized character designs by Yoshida Akihiko over the ones that appears in the CG movies. The similar Final Fantasy IV is in my wishlist.

Chrono Trigger (2008) A port of the original 1995 SNES version with added contents like the movies that comes from the 1999 PSX version. As I said in the entry when I purchased it, this is probably the best RPG from the 16 bit era.

The World Ends with You (2007) I think this is the best Square game released in the last 10 years or so (no including the remakes and ports). Visually similar to Kingdom Hearts, is truly a completely original RPG, taking place in the modern Shibuya instead of a fantasy world.
I think this game is the only RPG that takes full use of the touch screen (normally the lower screen is used to display maps and buttons) : you must touch, scratch, drag and blow to the mic to use some of the in-game attacks, and both screens are used during the battles.

Etrian Odyssey (2007) An RPG with old-school flavor. Very difficult, even with a max level party and the best equipment you can get easily owned in a mere random encounter. One of the features of the game is that it doesn't have an auto-map, and you must draw one in the lower screen. Also remarkable are the cute character designs by Himukai Yuuji.

My videogame collection I: Game Boy Advance

Since I don't have anything new to write about and the blog is disturbingly lacking in updates, I'll list the games that I own and I have at hand (the Dreamcast and PSX ones I have stored under a thousand of things, and the MegaDrive, SNES and NES ones are in "whereabouts unknown" status).

So I'll begin with the handheld games, starting with the ones for Game Boy Advance.

I bought a black GBA SP in 2003, mostly because at that moment I was doing over 2 hours of train commuting every day... Almost all the games consist of RPGs and ports of old-school games. My tastes in videogames had always been old fashioned.

Golden Sun (2001). Was the best GBA-only RPG available when I purchased the console. I liked it when I first played, but now I forgot almost everything about it, so it was not a memorable game for me.

Golden Sun: The Lost Age (2002). The second part of it. Purchased at the same time with the first one.

Breath of Fire (2001) A port of the SNES version. I'm a big fan of old Capcom games and of the old school RPGs, so was an instant get.

Breath of Fire II (2001) Idem

Lunar Legend (2002) Yet another port. I have a soft spot for the Lunar series because of the reasons that I explained in a previous post.

Tales of Phantasia (2003) A port of the original SNES and the only version available in English. I liked this game a lot (I have figures of Arche and Mint) and embarrassingly is the only Tales game that I played.


Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls (2004) A port of the PSX version. I keep purchasing the old FF games over and over... Of both games, I prefer FF1 by far.

Final Fantasy IV Advance (2005). Another port and my second favorite FF game.

Final Fantasy V Advance (2006) For some reason, I never have the willpower to finish it. I began both this and the PSX version of the game and I dropped both late in the game (around the time of the death of certain character). Is my personal cursed FF.

Final Fantasy VI Advance (2006) My favorite FF game and the first one I played. This was the last GBA game that I purchased.

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (2003) This was the game that made me decide to buy a GBA. At the end it was not as good as I expected...

Sword of Mana (2003) an enhanced remake of the first Seiken Densetsu / Mana game using the style of the at that moment latest game in the series, Legend of Mana. This game, along with the aforementioned Legend of Mana made me to loose all the faith in the series (and is a shame because Secret of Mana was my first RPG ever and I remember dearly).

Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (2004) I really enjoyed the first Kingdom Hearts and this was the title that bridged it with the sequel. Unlike Kingdom Hearts 2, I sorta liked Chain of Memories .


Riviera: The Promised Land (2004) A enhanced remake of a Wonderswan game. I liked A LOT this game, probably due to the visual novel-esque characters drawn by Tobe Sunaho, because as an RPG is extremely poor and linear.

Yggdra Union: We'll Never Fight Alone (2006) The second episode of the Dept. Heaven series (Riviera is the first). I bought it after the hype that I had with Riviera. Actually I never played it (yet).

Zone of the Enders: The Fist of Mars (2001) A tactical RPG with giant robots, is a side story of Kojima Hideo's Zone of the Enders series. I'm not a fan of the mecha genre, but I liked both Z.O.E. games in the PS2.

Super Puzzle Fighter II (2003) Pretty much the best puzzle game for the GBA, featuring Capcom characters.


Final Fight One (2001) The classical Final Fight with added dialogue and two extra characters (Alpha/Zero versions of Cody and Guy)

Guilty Gear X Advance Edition ( 2002) A terrible version of Guilty Gear X with very bad graphics, ear-bleeding sounds and nonexistent AI. Purchased only because it was at a bargain bin for 5 euro.

Super Street Fighter II Turbo Revival (2001) For me this is the really ultimate version of SSF2T and not the disappointing Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. Too bad the GBA controls are not the best way to play it...

Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper (2002) I bought it because of the addition of Eagle, Maki and Yun, but now is largely outdated by the superior PSP version.

Final Fantasy Adventure aka Mystic Quest (1991). The only game for the original Game Boy that I own. Called Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden in the original release, is the first entry in the Mana series that was remaked as Sword of Mana. As odd as it may seem, I prefer this version over the remake.

Shin Seiki Evangelion Mahjong Hokan Keikaku (2000) I usually buy European releases because are easier to find, and a few cases the American editions if the game is not published in Europe or had a very limited print. This is the only Japanese version that I have.
I learned how to play mahjong with Eva to Yukaina Nakamatachi (PSX), and I wanted to have a handled Evangelion mahjong game. I still play it from time to time, since I still need to unlock Magi computer and chibi-Rei
UPDATE: Soon after I wrote that, I finally managed to unlock all, after years of attempts!

『Amazing. You unlocked everything. You played this game quite a lot, don't you think?』

And Metal Gear Solid aka Ghost Babel (2000) Pretty much a game based in the PSX game with 2D graphics and original story and characters.

My room (I)

Again, sorry for the lack of updates. I've been busy, but also I didn't received anything new from Japan to write about. So, as promised, I took a few pictures of my room:

This is what you can see upon entering: a small desk full of manga, plushes and a ton of figures.

The 90% of my stuff is either TYPE-MOON , Evangelion or Capcom games, and to a lesser degree also To Heart and Final Fantasy series. I also keep some posters from Ranma 1/2, that was the first series that I purchased merchandising about it.

The framed thing is actually a 1000-piece puzzle. The Arcueid shikishi at the left of the picture is signed by Ozawa Kaoru the character designer of Shingetsutan Tsukihime, and the director Sakurabi Kazushi.

Frontal view of my desk. It was standard sized until I added all those shelves to put manga on it. Now is rather uncomfortable...

The TV zone. I keep all the gashapons that I have in those mini-shelves.

The shelves that are over my bed. The "empty spaces" are for the upcoming figures, such as Good Smile Company's Saber Lily that is on it's way...

Plushes and posters along the wall...

More plushes.

As can be seen, my room is very cramped (about 1'90 meters wide and 3,60 meters long), so a few years ago I "stole" part of my brother's room, and now most of my figures are there. I'll take pictures of it in another post.

Comiket 76 coverage - Day 2

The second day was still very female oriented, but with some stuff like Touhou and Umineko that is popular among males as well.
Like the previous day, I woke up at 4 AM to take the first Yurikamome train and started the queue at 5:50.

The guy in front of me was wearing a Yuyuko hat. A lot of people was wearing Touhou related products...

First of all, I went to the corridor with the circles doing Capcom games stuff. I have a weak spot for old school Capcom games, specially their 2D fighting games.

potsu (circle Shouyu) works. I bought all the doujinshi that she had available; the older releases Ai Wa Makai Wo Sukue, Kurayami Bijin, Makai Tou No Meikyuu, Aoiki, Kairo Kouri, the new release With Floss Silk and a Morrigan mobile phone cleaner.

Random page in With Floss Silk.

I discovered her works when by chance I visited her blog, and I liked her style a lot (specially the colored ones). She is focused in Vampire/Darkstalkers series, specially Morrigan and Jedah. I wanted to visit her booth also in Comiket 75, but I was unable because Shiki bath towel was sold out when I arrived in the first day and I did again the queue in the second day.

Tetsu from circle Kimuchi works: Cho Rakugaki 2009 Haru released in the past Comic 1 and the new release Cho Rakugaki 2009 Natsu.

Random page in Cho Rakuragi 2009 Natsu.

Another author that I discovered by chance when I visited his blog. He is focused in Capcom games with special predilection with Ingrid, but he also draws from several series like Touhou, Culdcept or even TYPE-MOON. His drawing are truly gorgeous, but sadly his doujinshi are just a compilation of drawings from his blog... Again, I wanted to visit his booth in Comiket 75 but I was unable to do it.

My next stop was in the East halls 1-2-3 zone. It was so massively crowded with Touhou fans that the people in the horizontal and vertical corridors were making turns in order to move... After 15 minutes of struggle I managed to arrive at Black Sheep Symphony booth. There I greeted EvoSpace that was alone at that moment and I bought:

A shooting doujin game with TYPE-MOON characters, Type-A.

Then I went all the way to the commercial booths and I stood in the queue of Rondo Robe, that I skipped in the previous day because it was very crowded. After about an hour, I managed to buy the only thing that I wanted:

A casual Saber clear file and a telephone card.

After that I wanted to talk again with EvoSpace, but I was scared to return to the Hell on Earth that was the doujin game circles (sorry Evo, I really wanted to talk with you again!) so I headed to the hostal to recuperate.

In the train, I managed to take a few pics of the giant 1/1 Gundam that is displayed in Odaiba:

Not so great photo, but I'm not a Gundam fan anyways.

Purchases in Den Den Town

Pretty busy week.
Last Friday I had the placement test, on Saturday I went to Hiroshima (photos of the trip in a future post... or not) and today I went to view cherry blossom in the most famous spot in Kyoto, the Philosoher's walk.


On Thursday I went to Osaka with a fellow exchange student from the university. It was his first time in Osaka, so I showed him the otaku shops of Nipponbashi area.
While talking with him, he remarked that I indistinctively use "Nipponbashi", "Den Den Town" and "OtaRoad" to refer to pretty much the same area, but nitpicking the matter, that's not true.

"Nipponbashi" is the name of the bridge that crosses the Doutombori. Going south, down Sakai-Suji street, you find "Den Den Town" (electric town) from Nipponbashi 3-chome through 6-chome. There's a few otaku shops there (Gundam's, VOLKS Showroom, the two shops of K-Books, Animate, the main branch shops of Super Position...) and the rest are electronic shops and videogames shops like Super Potato Osaka.
"Ota Road" is the parallel street at the west side of DenDen, and is almost totally focused to hobby related stores: Melonbooks, Kotobukiya Shop, Gamers, Toranoana... and a few maid cafes.

First we went to Mandarake Grand Chaos, located in America-mura (NW from Nipponbashi).
I went to the buy-back counter to sell some doujinshi that I brought from Spain. Sometimes I buy from Yahoo! Auctions doujinshi lots, and among the stuff there are things that I had already bought. I sold 7 doujinshi (one from King Revolver, one from Crazy Clover Club and the rest from Shoujo Hyouhon, one of them containing a Takeuchi collaboration), Tsukihime Shiryoushuu (most known as White Book) and Maikaze's Touhou anime. I earned 9,800 yen, most of it coming from Touhou dvd (6,000 yen) and Tsukihime White Book (2,500 yen).

I purchased a Fate/stay night shitajiki (for 105 yen) and Ok Zwei, a Mai-HiME doujinshi from circle Twinzito that contains a collaboration by Kikuta from circle King Revolver. I think that now I'm not missing anything from him, but everytime I say this, an obscure and hard to find collaboration appears...


After that we went to OtaRoad, stopping at several shops. In Toranoana I bought:

Milk Hunters 5 by circle KuroYuki. Milk Hunters is a series of doujinshi based in the first and second seasons of Pretty Cure, where Nagisa, Honoka and Hikari are abused by a fat and ugly otaku...
I have the Milk Hunters 1-4 compilation, but the 5 and 6 seems very hard to find.

In Melonbooks building, after a brief checking on the 1st floor, we went to the second floor, that usually avoid because is the girls section, but to my surprise now a Lashinbang shop was opened there! I didn't check it all because we were short of time, but in my next trip to Osaka I want to buy a couple of goods there. I purchased Kara no Kyoukai Gengashuu Kessaku Sen 1 for 10,000 yen.

It was very expensive for a 2nd hand book, but since it was a C74 exclusive is very hard to find (only 1,000 were made). Nodaways, I was expecting to pay that much for it in Yahoo! Auctions, so it was a good purchase since I'm avoiding proxy bidder fees.
It contains key animations from the first 3 Kara no Kyoukai movies, but unlike the regular books (that I pictured in the C75 loot entry), this book is in full color.


Our last stop was K-Books. I bought:

Street Fighter Artworks Ha. Released a few days ago to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Street Fighter series. Contents wise, is similar to the previous Eternal Challenge (that commemorated the 15th anniversary), but with the new illustrations of the past five years.
Unlike previous books, is sorted by artist and not by games.

Akiman, one of the legends from Capcom's earlier period. Sadly, he left in 2003.

Bengus, now known as CRMK. The guy who defined the main Street Fighter II cast and created from scratch the Darkstalkers/Vampire cast. Until he left in 2006, he was my favourite artist at Capcom.

Nishimura Kinu. When Bengus left, she became my favourite.

Shinkiro. Formerly an SNK employee, I didn't got used yet to seeing his works with Capcom label.

Edayan. Sometimes I find some of his drawings a bit ugly, specially the girl's noses, but most of the time his works are great.

Ikeno. I don't like his "realistic style", but is the main one in SFIV... I prefer his cartoonish style better (like the pics in the photo).


Bonus photo. Capcom Main HQ, located in Osaka. Was my first stop in my first trip to Osaka.