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No time for a long entry right now.
Sep. 13th, 2007 09:29 amNo time for a long entry right now, so here's a short one.
I have 2700 photos and I have no idea where to start. You know how they tell you Japan isn't actually at all like anime and manga would lead you to believe, that you have to revise your expectations or you'll be really smacked around and disappointed and all that? LIES. FILTHY, STINKING LIES. At least, for the anime I watch and the manga I read. You know Megatokyo, of course? Of course you do. Piro kinda turns the reality down a notch. Not up. Down.
Except for the undead thing, of course. At least, as far as I know. But then, that's Largo. Largo, perhaps, is the balance, turning it all back up.
But I mean seriously, I know where Megagamerz is now. I know where it is. I know where it is because I've been there. No ph33rbots, tho'. At least, not at the moment. I have seen and experienced the Idol Rush. Just to mix things up, I had the Anna Miller waitress take a picture of us.
I have seen the Nausicaa glider. Here, you can too:
Nausicaa In Hangar
What you can't see from here is that it actually flies. Carrying a pilot, not a dummy, not by remote control. Oh wait, I took a picture, so I guess you can:
Nausicaa In Air
How cool is that? They had video, too. Oh, I cheated: they weren't flying it at the convention, you can't fly gliders in a typhoon. So the flying photo is a grab off another image. But a real image.
Oh, and did I mention who's on the cover of this month's Rolling Stone?
Rei
I will say one thing, though; neither anime nor manga - or rather, any I've read - prepare you for how many levels Japan exists on at once. And by that, I mean physically. In any of the cities, you'll have areas - large areas - which are multi-tiered complexes. If you've been to Seattle and been to Pike Place Market, take that, make it about, five to seven stories, and horizontally about, say, 10 times the size. If you haven't, you'll have to do your best to come up with a highly-interconnected five- to seven-storey-tall complex of independent stores contained within a single building on several levels, and "mall" is not really the right image, not even a multi-level mall. That picture of Namjatown I posted? It's an entrance to a theme park, of small but reasonable size, three levels inside, all contained within one of these kinds of buildings. It took up less than a quarter of the building.
Then make another one like that. Then a third. Then have three levels of interconnect between them. Big ones. Wide. One will be at street level, one above, one below. Then, underneath a nearby former dock, add a couple of levels under those levels that you can reach by outdoor below-grade (but extremely open) prominade or elevator. Then every so often put skyscrapers on top, big ones, which may have their own interconnections at upper floors.
Then add an amusement park outside, just because you can, and welcome to みなとみらい。 The linked AVI is not all-inclusive of what I've described. There's just as much more off to the left. I took this from a park half a mile away and I couldn't make it all fit in the frame.
Thing is, sure, this particular area's new, but it's not a oneoff. It's not even the one with Namjatown. This is all over the place. Minato Mirai 21 is special because it's the first area like that we saw, and the one where I realised that it was kind of like the multiple overlaid worlds I saw at PAX with Pictochat, only physical. I didn't make a habit of checking for more with the DS, but I imagine I'd have picked up a few at the Pokémon Stadium.
That is here, by the way. The Pokémon Stadium, I mean. In みなとみらい。
"Not like anime." "Not like manga." Yeah. Not like anime and manga my shiny metal ass.
I have 2700 photos and I have no idea where to start. You know how they tell you Japan isn't actually at all like anime and manga would lead you to believe, that you have to revise your expectations or you'll be really smacked around and disappointed and all that? LIES. FILTHY, STINKING LIES. At least, for the anime I watch and the manga I read. You know Megatokyo, of course? Of course you do. Piro kinda turns the reality down a notch. Not up. Down.
Except for the undead thing, of course. At least, as far as I know. But then, that's Largo. Largo, perhaps, is the balance, turning it all back up.
But I mean seriously, I know where Megagamerz is now. I know where it is. I know where it is because I've been there. No ph33rbots, tho'. At least, not at the moment. I have seen and experienced the Idol Rush. Just to mix things up, I had the Anna Miller waitress take a picture of us.
I have seen the Nausicaa glider. Here, you can too:
Nausicaa In Hangar
What you can't see from here is that it actually flies. Carrying a pilot, not a dummy, not by remote control. Oh wait, I took a picture, so I guess you can:
Nausicaa In Air
How cool is that? They had video, too. Oh, I cheated: they weren't flying it at the convention, you can't fly gliders in a typhoon. So the flying photo is a grab off another image. But a real image.
Oh, and did I mention who's on the cover of this month's Rolling Stone?
Rei
I will say one thing, though; neither anime nor manga - or rather, any I've read - prepare you for how many levels Japan exists on at once. And by that, I mean physically. In any of the cities, you'll have areas - large areas - which are multi-tiered complexes. If you've been to Seattle and been to Pike Place Market, take that, make it about, five to seven stories, and horizontally about, say, 10 times the size. If you haven't, you'll have to do your best to come up with a highly-interconnected five- to seven-storey-tall complex of independent stores contained within a single building on several levels, and "mall" is not really the right image, not even a multi-level mall. That picture of Namjatown I posted? It's an entrance to a theme park, of small but reasonable size, three levels inside, all contained within one of these kinds of buildings. It took up less than a quarter of the building.
Then make another one like that. Then a third. Then have three levels of interconnect between them. Big ones. Wide. One will be at street level, one above, one below. Then, underneath a nearby former dock, add a couple of levels under those levels that you can reach by outdoor below-grade (but extremely open) prominade or elevator. Then every so often put skyscrapers on top, big ones, which may have their own interconnections at upper floors.
Then add an amusement park outside, just because you can, and welcome to みなとみらい。 The linked AVI is not all-inclusive of what I've described. There's just as much more off to the left. I took this from a park half a mile away and I couldn't make it all fit in the frame.
Thing is, sure, this particular area's new, but it's not a oneoff. It's not even the one with Namjatown. This is all over the place. Minato Mirai 21 is special because it's the first area like that we saw, and the one where I realised that it was kind of like the multiple overlaid worlds I saw at PAX with Pictochat, only physical. I didn't make a habit of checking for more with the DS, but I imagine I'd have picked up a few at the Pokémon Stadium.
That is here, by the way. The Pokémon Stadium, I mean. In みなとみらい。
"Not like anime." "Not like manga." Yeah. Not like anime and manga my shiny metal ass.
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