|
One of the best places on earth is the "Shirone CHANCE" arcade in Niigata, Japan. There are monthly tournaments held for Anniversary SF2, and the last one was honored to host some guests from Tokyo that included some of the best players in the world. Because they drove up to visit, it was one of the best possible experiences, considering Tokyo arcades are much more tightly cramped. Besides Shirone CHANCE having a lot of elbow room, the two-floor arcade features great in-house restaurant dining, as well as fine artwork of the highest craftsmanship and engineering, bar none. Show up on Saturday around 8 or 9 PM to register and practice up; tourny starts at 10. Players continue well into the morning. |
|
Nagata Shyougatsu - uses Super Honda*, CE Claw and CE Boxer |
|
Tsunoppi - Guile*... can't quite remember his other characters |
|
The arcade even has a setup to record and burn DVDs you can get for a couple bucks as an extremely valuable service if you want to analyze your games later. This tournament's footage only went to the guests- I wasn't able to get a DVD of it yet.
I hope some of these photos of the Tokyo guests can supplement nohoho's profiles. I might not remember who everyone was so if you have corrections, let me know in the comments.
Under the player's photo, I put an asterisk after his best character. In this tournament, you had to register for it by writing down three character choices, in any version, but you could not have the same character twice (eg you can't pick ST ryu and then S ryu). |
|
TKP - our local 3S champ, who also happens to have a mean ST ryu when I got him into ST some years back. |
|
PONY - Zangief/T.Hawk master |
|
M-tsun- Ken*- he also picked ryu. very dangerous, don't get caught off-guard in his Ken's combos. |
|
Sorry...I can't remember if this is Niia^, a Honda player, or
Ojii, a Ryu player.... |
|
That's Komoda playing DeeJay on the main event stage. Two head-to-head cabinets, DVD record and widescreen |
|
KKY, doing the announcement honors |
|
KKY plays Dhalsim*, also used some Blanka and (disappointingly) usually began with CE Bison (dash Vega/dictator). Staff guy in white shirt, picking his nose. Wouldn't gimme a DVD. |
|
Komoda on the right, winning with Blanka against Pony(?) |
|
too dark- taken from outside in parking lot |
|
Yoshio, who plays Guile |
|
Nagata Shougatsu won the tournament, facing off against Komoda. Two CE characters *and* Honda managed to take out the mighty Komoda. |
|
The one bad thing about Japanese arcades- smoking is allowed, and many do. |
|
For his grand prize, Nagata won... hm... looks like all the crap they couldn't sell at the confectionery downstairs that is about to expire. Breakfast of Champions. |
|
Komoda playing next to KKY, with Tsunoppi and M-Tsun waiting their turns to rack up big win streaks. The guy in the orange jersey plays a decent Cammy at most of our tournaments (from Ishikawa I think) |
|
I won my first match, against a Zangief player. Next up, I had to face local Suzuki, a Hawk/Zangief pro himself- in practice sessions the day before, we played for a while and I even started to get a few wins against his Hawk, and tore through his Zangief. In the tournament, I couldn't even get past his Zangief. Single elim and I'm out. Before continuing, I get some late dinner in the restaurant. |
|
Suzuki - T.Hawk*, Zangief, ST Ryu. Took out BUY-san, local CE Bison player with T.Hawk (last tournament I was at, he took him out with ST Ryu). |
|
This is a table in the restaurant- there is a glass top you can't quite see, which this Alien is supporting, as its base. Another similar table right next to it, but of Spider-Man. Manga library in back, TV hanging from ceiling out of view. |
|
I guess the PET bottle does a better job of showing scale. |
|
These pieces seemed to use various motor machinery parts. The lousy photo below was supposed to try and capture the scale, of me standing in front of it. |
|
XSPR - ST Dhalsim*, ST Ryu |
Please wait while we load