 This is the first installment of Hintalove's ranblings about being an American Akiha player Japan. This one is mainly introducing "Team Ai Ai Gasa" as well as giving a little background info on the players involved and going over our general routine. I've been on break recently and out of the tourney scene but now that I'll be back and active, I think this space could be an exciting avenue to get insight on what the arcades in japan are like under the SBO level.
Ai Ai Gasa Team: Hintalove and HeartNana. I’m Hintalove, or Matt, if you ever meet me, either is fine. I’m a 20 year old American currently in the ‘Japanese’ phase of my life, AKA, I’ll be living off and on in Japan till fall 2008. I am studying Japanese at Kansai Gaidai University in Osaka, and all you really need to know about that is I am in the Kansai Area. I play mainly Melty Blood, but back in Oregon all they play is Guilty Gear, so my focuses might change a bit when I get back home. If you’ve nosed around the forums at all you could probably guess that I play Akiha. I started playing in December and between a little tutelage from Veteru and a semester in Japan, I think I have become quite strong.
There's also HeartNana, or Rob from SRK, AKA the naruto4/SC3 guy, but more recently famous as the most advanced American Arcana player in the world. Together, we enter the Ko-hatsu tourney every other Saturday for Melty, and Rob and Toshi(a 3s guy from Portland, lol, what were the odds of that?) play in the Arcana tourneys there. Rob plays Sion, and a fairly beastly Sion if I do say so my self. Some day he is going to learn some real Sion tricks and I think that’s when I’ll stop winning in our training sessions.
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Our Stomping Grounds
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Our main haunt is a little arcade attached to the Hirakata-shi Station called “The Dino”. The Dino is ideal for a number of reasons. First, every game worth playing is 50en a play(roughly $.50 in usd) and set on best 3 out of 5(even arcana!!), except Virtua Fighter 5 which is a retarded 100en, but it’s like that every where. Second, the player base is pretty diverse and a good number of skilled comp rolls through there all the time. I personally love playing Melty there because there are enough people worse than me to let me play my monies worth, but enough good people to keep me interested and inspired to improve. And thirdly, the Dino Guilty Gear is freaking rad. When you don’t feel like spending any more on playing your self, grab one of the stools, or sit down at the vf5 cabs(lol who plays vf5?) and just watch the guilty guys go at it. It’s a good way to cool your head after a tough loss or just a nice way to save money/blow time. I usually can be found melting blood for about 2-3 hours a day here when I don’t have too much work to be doing outside of the arcade, also some times intense training/gaming sessions in Rob’s dorm will unfortunately take away from arcade time, but free melty on a console is hard to pass up.
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Ain't she pretty?
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The places we pilgrimage to on a fairly regular basis are the Kyoto A-cho arcade, and the Osaka Ko-hatsu arcade. From my homestay, it takes me about 30-35 minutes to reach Kohatsu, and about $10 round trip in train fare. Their tournament only costs 100en to enter, and you get a free drink, so it’s basically free. If you go to their website(www.ko-hatsu.com) you can see the top 4 from the bi-weekly tourneys. These are the beasts that the members of Ai Ai Gasa Teamu have to go up against, and for some reason we always draw the lot to play the winners first round. I guess that just means we’re going to have to win the tourney if we want to get to round two. As for the A-cho arcade, I only discovered it in the past couple weeks, and have yet to make it out there since it’s a slightly longer trip and costs a little more. Besides tourneys, Ko-hatsu is rather devoid of people most of the time, so I think I might start heading out to the A-cho arcade every other weekend when there are no tourneys in search of lots and lots of good comp. I think I’ll probably make it down there by the next article so I can talk a little more about that and the coming tourney down at Ko-hatsu. Oh yeah. Ai Ai Gasa is Japanese for sharing an umbrella in a romantic way.
Discussion Thread: Team Ai Ai Gasa
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