Tristan Thai, producer of G4techTV's Icons show, recently had the opportunity to travel to Japan to interview bigwigs at SNK Playmore Studios and Team Ninja Studios in Japan. Here's his journal of his experiences on the trip:

Tuesday/Wednesday

With my bags packed, I wearily step out of the front door at 7 a.m. to get to the airport on time for my departure flight to Osaka. Passing by apartment units 10 and 11 on my way downstairs, I smell the steamed mantou and char siu bao that conjure up images of my youth with breakfasts spent in front of the tube sipping on steamed soy milk. I hear the slight murmur of voices down the hall--parents whispering to their kids in Chinese to get the table ready as the blips and bleeps of a Nintendo GameCube plays in the background. Like Proust and his madeleines dipped in tea…

…OH, WHO AM I KIDDING. (Author’s note: Yeah, who is he kidding? A Marcel Proust reference in a G4TechTV column…how pretentious! Don’t worry though…more pretentious references are forthcoming.) So basically, the trip to Japan consists of flying into Osaka and shooting interviews and b-roll footage inside the SNK Playmore offices for an Icons episode on SNK. The company is most known for their NeoGeo arcade consoles, though certainly also for its fighting games like Samurai Showdown and the King of Fighters. The second leg of the trip will be in Tokyo where Icons will get an exclusive look inside the Team Ninja offices in addition to a sit-down interview with the mysterious and mercurial Tomonobu Itagaki.

Upon touching down at Osaka’s Kansai International Airport, Justin (Senior Manager of Games Editorial at G4techTV) and I meet up with an SNK rep named Shinya, who drives us to our hotel, situated conveniently next to the SNK Playmore offices. After freshening up, Shinya takes us out to a delicious tonkatsu wako dinner before our scheduled shoot date tomorrow.

Thursday

I meet up the next morning in front of the SNK offices with our camera crew, who introduce themselves as Shimizu and Rocky. Shimizu, small and ferrety looking with a bandana on top of his head, is our DP. The sound mixer, Rocky, big and muscular with a scruffy goatee and ponytail reminds me right away of the kind of low-level tough guy you see in Yakuza movies who’s usually the first guy offed. I later ask him during a lighting set-up how he got the nickname “Rocky.” He tells me stoically, “Because I look like Japanese Sylvester Stallone.”

The SNK representatives finally come down and greet us. Some of them instantly recognize me as one of those orange-shirted fellas at E3. They take me up to Noise Factory, SNK’s in-house development studio responsible for games like the Metal Slug series. I’m introduced to Keiko Iju, the President of Noise Factory. To my great surprise, the person responsible for the Ikari Warriors series, Sengoku, and some of the latter Metal Slug games among others, turns out to be this tiny, matronly Japanese woman. Despite her shy demeanor and reservations about how good she’ll be on camera, Ms. Iju is surprising quite comfortable and candid during the interview. At least, this is what I can only surmise since Ms. Iju’s lengthy responses to questions like, “Talk about your involvement on the Metal Slug games,” would in turn be answered by the translator as, “She think they fun.” Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point.

In any case, the interview goes on for about an hour when all of a sudden, it happens. Horns blare outside on the streets below as I glance over at our sound mixer Rocky, insuring that our sound is okay. Right at this moment, Ms. Iju talks about Ikari Warriors and how she needed to create half-naked Rambos as characters. “Noooooo!” I think to myself as the image of a half-naked Rocky, the so-called “Japanese Stallone,” penetrates into the dark recesses of my brain. Luckily for me, this image is fleeting as I quickly move on into a discussion about Samurai Showdown. Thankfully, the thought of a half-naked Rocky doesn’t infiltrate my head ever again until the moment I decide to recollect and recreate this stupid anecdote.

After Ms. Iju, I get the chance to sit down and have a chat on-camera with Kazuya Hirata, SNK’s Director of R&D. Hirata’s involvement with the company traces back to the days of the NeoGeo AES console and to some of the later King of Fighters games. What I remember most about the NeoGeo was that at a price tag of $599 for the console and $200 a pop per game, my only chance of ever playing the system would come with the consent of a certain Yaojen Chang. Now, all of you know who Yaojen Chang is, the name doesn’t matter. Every school had a Yaojen Chang. He was that spoiled rich kid whose parents bought him every system on the market and every video game released with it. He was the first kid to brag about getting the Sega Genesis. He was the kid who had the Super Famicom Fed-ex’d to him from Japan. He was the first get to a 486 computer while the rest of us were still on our 386’s. He was the kid whose parents bought him the $599 NeoGeo. Going back to the interview now, as Hirata-san waxes on about the powerful nature of the NeoGeo, I can’t help but think how much I hate Yaojen Chang.

That night, a group of SNK reps take us out to a sushi dinner. There’s about eight of us and we get seated in a private room. I’m handed a menu by the restaurant hostess and as this is not one of those restaurants with big colorful pictures printed on it for illiterate foreigners like me, I blindly accept SNK’s offer of ordering for me. Yoshihito Koyama, SNK’s Marketing Director’s eyes suddenly pop open as he looks up from the menu, “Do you like squid?” I nod yes. His eyes widen, “Do you like live squid!” Now as my gastronomic sensibilities have grown exponentially since becoming an Iron Chef junkie and reading Anthony Bourdain’s food travel tome A Cook’s Tour, I’m excited over the live squid appetizer that Mr. Koyama orders for the entire table.

Before the live squid arrives though, a set of other appetizers are brought to the table. One of these is some kind of gooey gelatinous cubed substance served in a chilled bowl. I ask Miwako one of the SNK marketing employees sitting beside me what it is. She shrugs and looks at the others around the table, who also shrug in return. As a Chinese-American, I’ve grown up eating all sorts of strange and exotic foods that the contestants on Fear Factor would cringe at the sight of. Looking at what is in the chilled bowl set before me, I immediately recall my late grandmother feeding me such delicacies as fish eyes, which I sucked on and spat out for “better vision.” The sweet gelatinous skin of chicken feet during dim sum each Sunday morning strengthened the bones in my own feet so said my grandmother. Eating pig brains that she stewed up would sharpen my senses. Pig’s feet noodle soup would clarify my skin, stir-fried cow’s tongue made you handsome, while cow’s ears would sharpen my hearing. All told, my grandmother tried convincing me that if I ate this food, I’d grow up looking like Hong Kong matinee idol Andy Lau. Screw Andy Lau, I thought, I better turn into freaking Spider-Man with all the enhanced senses I’d develop. Looking in the mirror nowadays and seeing no traces of Andy Lau, I’ve come to the realization that either my late grandmother lied to me or I should’ve eaten more cow tongue. (Author’s note: In what was a subconscious attempt to evoke faux Asian nostalgia a la Amy Tan, the writer realized midstream how much he despised Amy Tan, thus resulting in the lame non Amy Tan-ish recollection above).

…But I digress. Miwako is the first volunteer to slip the gooey cubed-shaped appetizer into her mouth. After much contemplation, she concludes that what she’s eating is some kind of chilled eel skin and eel fat concoction. Despite looking and sounding quite disagreeable to me, I soon plop it into my mouth and slowly chew. It tastes much like it looks. Slimy and gooey with a slight bitterness, some of it even sticks to the rim of my mouth and has to be washed down with tea. Not bad, I think. Tastes like chicken feet.

The fresh squid arrives soon after. With much of the body already sliced thinly into sashimi, the squid’s head and tail serve as bookends. Koyama-san, wanting to make a point of how fresh the squid is, pokes and jabs at its head with his chopsticks, which as a result still moves and squirms about despite being detached from the rest of its body. A couple of other SNK employees poke and jab at the squirming squid head while chowing down on the squid sashimi. Well, when in Rome… I proceed to poke and stab at the head myself. Finally making my way to the squid sashimi, I have to say, with a little wasabi on top, it’s quite good. As our table finishes eating and staring at the squirming squid, our hostess removes what’s not finished and comes back with the remnants, which returns to our table as squid tempura. Or for Italian restaurant devotees, calamari. Yes-- for those of you who choose to remain ignorant of what you eat, that live squid kicking and screaming its way out of the tank, is where calamari comes from.

We spend the next day shooting more interviews and b-roll footage inside Noise Factory offices. Once complete, I get the honor of meeting SNK founder and chairman Eikichi Kawasaki in his office. There is an all-knowing glint in his eyes and a confident and at times intimidating air about him that exudes respect, something you see in the manner his employees treat him. Apparently, Kawasaki-san was once a boxer in his youth and according to SNK employees, enjoys taking on a hands-on approach in suggesting how punches should be thrown in SNK-developed fighting games. I score quite a coup when the notoriously camera-shy Kawasaki-san allows me to take his photograph for use in the show.

We finally wrap things up at SNK. Happy with the footage we’ve shot, I help our camera crew wrap up and thank the SNK reps for granting us access as we prepare to take the bullet train to Tokyo. As it’s Friday and I’m not scheduled to meet up again with my fellow G4 travel partner until the next shoot at Tecmo and the Team Ninja offices on Monday, I have the weekend to myself to explore the streets of Tokyo.

The Weekend

The weird thing about traveling solo in Tokyo is how much it leaves for private reflection despite the sensory overload you’re inundated with at every moment. In fact, walking in the subway and deep in thought (Author’s note: a rare occurrence and in this particular case, deep in thought = me hungry), I couldn’t help but feel like I was moving in slow-motion, just like in a Wong Kar-Wai film with the hustle and bustle of the streets constantly passing me by... a Wong Kar-Wai movie set in Tokyo minus the blonde wig, dark shade, trenchcoat-wearing female assassins, of course.

The first day is spent wandering through rows of merchants along pedestrian-only Nakamise on my way up to Sensoji Temple in Asakusa and later wading my way through young Japanese hipster teens playing dress up in Harajuku. Though already tired, I forcibly drag myself over to that money pit known as Akihabara before day’s end. After enjoying my time in a massive, multi-leveled Sega arcade that reminds me of Game of Death where level upon level of arcade games situate themselves on each floor all with differing themes, I find myself in a small anime and manga shop where I convince myself not to purchase a Yoshitaka Amano Final Fantasy art book reasoning that I could probably find something just as cheap on eBay without the hassle of adding extra weight to my luggage.

I then go to one of those massive, multi-leveled electronic stores where floor upon floor is concentrated on a particular theme much like the Sega arcade. I see a DVD sign and a down arrow pointing to the basement and decide to go down and browse, figuring this would be a good opportunity to look for a hard to find a Takashi Miike, Takeshi Kitano, or Takeshi Kaneshiro movie. In fact, I promise myself that I’ll walk away with a DVD starring or directed by a guy named Takeshi. This is where not being able to read kanji hurts me as I miss out on the fact that the theme to this floor is, to put it simply, porn. Surprisingly, quite a large number of Japanese businessmen and a few gaijins browse through aisle after aisle of adults-only DVD’s. I walk back upstairs before I keep my promise to buy a movie sold here directed by or starring a dude named Takeshi.

Monday

After spending the rest of my free time in Tokyo aimlessly walking around and exploring trendy nightspots in and around Shinjuku, Roppongi, and Shibuya, I’m ready for work again and arrive at the Tecmo offices on Monday morning waiting patiently as Team Ninja’s figurehead, Tomonobu Itagaki, is known to start his work day much later than the norm. Once Itagaki does arrive, he takes us inside the Team Ninja offices, which is quite a big deal, as other game journalists I’ve talked to have previously only gone as far as Tecmo’s conference room. We go around and shoot a number of brief interviews with various members of Team Ninja as they’re hard at work finishing up Dead or Alive Ultimate, a game I’m excited about and can’t wait to play. And no, I checked… unless it’s some deep, dark secret I’m not privy to, the life size Kasumi and Ayane mannequin room is indeed just a fanciful rumor.

After finishing up in the Team Ninja offices, we go back to conference room where I get to interview both Yasushi Maeda (Team Ninja’s main programmer and Itagaki’s right hand), as well as Tomonobu Itagaki himself. In keeping with his reputation, it’s not the easiest interview I’ve ever had, but the end result turns out surprisingly well once Itagaki warms up and gives us some interesting sound bites.

That evening, after our work is complete, Itagaki, Mitsuru Tsutsumi (Tecmo’s Deputy General Manager), and Satoshi Kanematsu, the quirky producer of Rygar and Monster Rancher invite Justin and I out for drinks. Anachronistically wearing a leather vest over a tie-dyed t-shirt, Kanematsu looks like a fetishistic American culture lover who can’t decide whether to go with the Marlon Brando Wild One look or stick with the sartorial fashion of 60’s Woodstock. I take along a video camera to shoot some handheld verite style footage of Itagaki and Kanematsu drinking in their favorite local haunt in Roppongi.

The taxi drops us off in front of a nondescript building where we walk down a flight of stairs into an alleyway. No signs or placards are posted anywhere as I follow Itagaki and company into the dive. Dimly lit in gaudy neon purple, the décor inside is a blend of Tales from the Crypt skull-and-crossbones mixed in with cheesy biker gang Americana. With the capacity to fit no more than 15 people comfortably, I keep wondering how the heck a place like this even stays in business as there are no other patrons in this joint the whole time we’re there. Staring at a strange loop of 1980’s Harley Davidson cruising-down-the-streets of Las Vegas videos on the bar’s big screen T.V., I can’t help but think I’m in some surreal David Lynchian universe as I sit in this smoke-filled room drinking beer with a Brit, a conservative shirt and tie company man, a brooding rock star of a game developer, and his quirky neo hippie/Hell’s Angel aspiring game developer of a friend.

Meeting Kanematsu-san is one of the greatest pleasures I have on this trip. A generous and often hysterical bear of a man, Kanematsu-san keeps me rolling in the aisles as he tells a myriad of off color jokes that can’t be repeated in this journal. The night eventually comes to an end and after another day spent shooting b-roll at the Tecmo offices, I find some spare time to enjoy a little more of Tokyo by hitting up a Mos Burger and revisiting Shibuya before my flight back to Los Angeles.

Like Proust and his remembrance of things past evoked by the sweet taste of madeleines, I hope this trip will similarly bring back such memories… where the simple sensation of a taste, a smell, or a sound will remind me of the time I spent in Japan. (Author’s note: I know, a completely contrived ending, but as you see, I did manage to pretentiously use Proust again and tie the ending to this journal up with the opening paragraph after all).

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