Tokyo Game Show

Sunday September 26, 2004

James, Tanya and I went to the Tokyo Game Show, even though I am only interested in EverQuest and Final Fantasy, and Tanya isn't really interested in any video games.

The reason we went was that the previous night, while having dinner at Denny's, the manager who processed our bill gave us 6000 Yen ($60) back after we paid for a 4000 Yen meal with nearly exact change. With this extra money, going to the Tokyo Game Show was almost free. In retrospect I feel bad because a Japanese person would have been honest enough to fix the mistake, and not speedwalk out the door.

There were tons of displays for all the game companies, chances to play upcoming video games and video game systems, and hundreds of young Japanese women dressed in video game outfits. The crowd was very predominantly made up of young men, both Japanese and foreign. Taking pictures of people dressed as video game characters was common practice; that's what they'd been hired for of course; but lots of guys were also taking huge amounts of pictures of the booth babes - young women wearing short tight uniforms, but not actually dressed like video game characters. It would be like taking pictures of a good looking worker in a store.

Some characters from Lineage II.

Playing a handheld video game system attached to a young lady.

Some character from EverQuest II.

Chocobo! And a picture of the Square Enix display with the top of a "No Pictures" sign in the bottom right corner.

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