Back Home

Here's to the final post of my blog. Banana muffins without nuts to everyone!

Even after waking up on my last day in Japan I wasn't entirely sure what I was going to do that morning. Either head to Osaka for shopping: yodobashi camera, jump store, pokemon center. Or visit the tiny tiny game studio called Assemblent. I decided on Assemblent as it would be something different and I wasn't planning on buying anything. Basically it was a coin toss and either path would have been fine.

Assemblent was a small two story Japanese house with the studio on the second floor. Besides the head of the company five other people work there. Unfortunately they weren't there that day as they had got an unexpected call about job from another company. Koichi Abe the head of the company truly felt that not making employees work over time or on weekends was key to better performance and employee morale. Due to past personal experiences from working at other companies he wanted to start a new company where overtime would not occur. He wants and wants his employees as well to look back on the experience of making the game after it has hit the shelves and be able to say that they enjoyed doing it.

He showed us a small demo of a DS hooked up to his computer. The game the company was currently working on was an educational software for the ds to help people understand how to take care of the elderly. After that he let us play a super scope game which was the first one he ever worked on. It was a fun game and it was neat since it was a one on one battle type game versus robots.

Besides working on smaller ds games the company also helps in making larger games by working on portions of a game. For example they did the 3d battle animations for the gamecube fire emblem.

After assemblent I headed back to the hotel and decided to just chill there until it was time to meet yuri and takeo at 4 near astro boy at kyoto station.

I met up with yuri and then decided to see if Ian and Ari wanted to come along as well to the matcha cafe. I figured it would give yuri and takeo a chance to use there english with them. I am really thankful to yuri, takeo and mayumi for speaking with me in Japanese. It was tough being surrounded by so much english at times during the trip and it also didn't help that I really haven't had the time to study Japanese due to focusing on my animatinon courses the past few months. Getting the chance to speak with them in Japanese even though only for a short while meant a lot to me. Thanks!!

Mayumi had class so she wasn't able to meet up until after we sat down, but it was good timing as we still hadn't ordered yet. I suggested to Ian to try the warabi mochi as it was a favorite of mine from the last time I was in Japan. He liked it but thought it was strange how it seemed to take out all the moisture in one's mouth. I didn't remember that part of it but sure enough when I tried it that's what happened.

I then asked if we could go to a book store to see if they had the japanese version of bone in stock. We went but like the other book store i went to in Tokyo they no longer carried the book. We then decided to go up to the top of the stairs of Kyoto Station to check out the view at night. Took some pictures and then decided to go have dinner. We found a really good okonomiyaki place. I had the hiroshima version which has yakisoba sandwiched in the middle. I think it was one of the best dinners I had in Japan for the trip. They were even able to successfully make it without meat or fish. It seemed Takeo had a good time talking with Ari in english. Everynow and then I would pick up parts of their conversation and I remember Takeo using the word confectionaries. Technically the use of the word was fine, but it's usually not used as its more of a more formal word to talk about fancy chocolate or candy. I didn't think to correct him though as he was in mid conversation.

Another funny conversation came when Takeo said that he would like the u.s. goverment to really pull off a jurrasic park. Ian came back with a funny comment saying that if you make gundams we'll make dinosaurs.

Finally Ian besides thinking the food was "fishy" was sure that the soft serve ice cream yuri got with her meal tasted like rice. After my second try I guess I kind of tasted rice, but I'm still not sure. If anthing there was definitely a different taste that came at the very end. Yuri and mayumi sure didn't think it tasted like rice but I decided to go along with Ian yet in a joking fashion pretending that the rice flavor would just burst forth after eating the ice cream for a while.

Anyways even after dinner Ari and Ian still wanted a Mega Mac, so we headed to a McDonalds. By the time they got their food there was only about 15 minutes till closing. So they had to eat quick.

We said goodbye at the train staion and I told them I'd be back in July.

The next day was a full day of travel. I got to watch Elf in Japanese. It was done well but I still prefer the original since Wil Farrel is essential.

Anyone seen ginger flavored ice cream lately?

Kyoto Rocks!

Kyoto is hilly, Tokyo not so much. In general people seemed a little more used to talking with each other versus just heading to their destination as in Tokyo. Things are more spread out in Kyoto and of course the buildings aren't as high. Tokyo is a cool place as it truly seems that the city never sleeps, yet I like how Kyoto feels like a city suburb. I guess it's probably also due to the fact that I grew up in the suburbs and Chicago to me has always felt a little too compacted and just not enough personal space.

(Mt Fuji taken from the train ride from Tokyo to Kyoto)

In general though I prefer Japan's public transportation versus driving everywhere like I do back home.

I get to see more things as I move about, get exercise while doing it, and can think about whatever I choose while riding the train versus having to pay attention to the road. Plus it's just so easy and comfortable. Boo to the EL. People are often loud, seats aren't as comfortable and the stations are just dull and boring.

Now what the shell happened these past few days? Sit back and enjoy as this will probably be my last blog before my return home. I guess Ill say it from the start, just like last time I really don't want to leave. Japan is awesome!

The first thing we did in Kyoto was head to an elementary school in Hirakata fairly close to Kansai Gaidai and got to see elementary students as well as a group of two high school students and one college student perform taiko drums. After seeing them perform we also got to first take short lessons and then in groups of three create and perform our own songs. Kevin, Dan L. and I did pretty well but our rhythm got lost toward the end of the song.

Then after dropping our luggage off at the hotel which was near Kyoto's biggest train station we all went to the restaurant shopping arcade underneath the station. The place where people decided to eat didnt really have anything I could eat besides 600 yen pancakes or 600 yen toast so I decided to get a matcha parfait. It was really good. From there Dan W started the reoccuring joke of me only eating dessert for dinner. All in good fun. カルツォーネは日本にもあるよ！

(Calzone's are in Japan too!)

Afterwards we checked out a electronics store called Bic Camera where I bought a copy of oendan 2 for the DS today. I plan on playing it over the wireless with Nick at the airport.

The next day it was time for some visits to Buddhist temples. We started off with my favorite kyomizu dera. I have some good memories of going their with kansai gaidai pals. Actually the first time I met aya, yosuke, and shiochi we went to that shrine at night. Unfortunately the season wasn't exactly right for the visit but it was still fun to go back.

Macro that Flower! すげい！

anyways.....the next temple was sangen...... it's a very long name and i can't remember all of it but the temple has the longest wooden building and inside there are 1001 golden buddhist statues. Pretty cool stuff but the day we went it was pretty cold and I could have used one more layer of clothing.

The final shrine we went to was called kinkakuji or the golden pavillion. It has a really beautiful lake which goes around it and there were still some nice trees still with leaves remaining on the tree. Pretty much at the end of the path vendors were giving out free samples of yatsuhashi. Basically a type of mochi shaped like a triangle with the base being longer than the sides. Inside there is sweet red bean paste and the mochi can be different flavors. strawberry, green tea, regular.

One other fun note was that Matt didnt make it up the hill right away with everyone on the way to kyomizu dera so he decided to head back down and check on him. On his way back up Josh's head could be seen floating above vans that were trying to get down the hill. It was funny how he was towering above everything since he's so tall.

I still haven't had any Skal!!!!!!! Carbonated skim milk!!!!!! Hopefully tomorrow. Atleast I know I'll be trying a short Creme Brulee latte tomorrow morning after breakfast. It's Japan's holiday drink to replace Egg Nog at Starbucks.

After the temples we took a top a uemaza movie land. Basically a Samurai movie set theme park. Yet it was actually used to film samurai tv dramas and movies. There I had a naan bread pizza. Unfortunately it came with bacon and mushrooms. Somebody suggested to me to tell the waitress that I didnt know that it came with that, but I felt maybe I shouldn't because I didn't feel like making a big deal out of it. I sort of fell to peer pressure I guess/my inner voice wanting to try to use my Japanese so I ended up asking. My Japanese kinda failed during this point but they seemed happy to remake it for me. I'm glad I asked otherwise I would have been really hungry.

Irvin and Michelle played a shuriken throwing game and one some cardboard hitting sticks. aka cheap japanese fans I believe. Later Irvin, Dan W, Dan L, Lauren and I entered this samurai play show and others happened to show up for the show later as well. After a short little skit about a magic flute that some evil samurai were trying to steal, the actors began taking volunteers from the crowd to perform in a samurai duel.

Our group decided to volunteer Dan Loane to go up so we helped push his hand up into the air even though he didn't really seem to want to go at first since he knows very little Japanese. One of the samurai actors could actually speak english and a small Japanese girl went first so he had an example to follow. Basically the staged fight started off with a block and then a push off of the enemy. Then as the enemy charged forward the volunteer would do one final strike to finish him off. Finally the volunteer had to make a victory pose. Dan did really well and it was very funny to watch.

After that we viewed show where they showed us how a samurai drama was shot and how some of the sfx were done. For example for a arrow that shot out of a window it actually just flew on a preset invisible fish wire. Then when one samurai throws a small dagger at another samurai they both are holding the same knife so the one who gets attacked secretly pulls out the knife and pretends that he was hit in the arm with it. Fun show!

Later that night we headed to downtown kyoto. I wanted to go to the shopping area of teramachi and i kind of wish I would have suggested going there in the first place to look around but instead we basically just hung out in the Namco arcade for the night. I spent around 2,000yen on crane games, time crisis 3 and mario kart. Nick really got into this one 100 yen game where you scoop up gems that are going around in a circle and drop them onto a platform that's moving back and forth. The platform then pushes the gems into tiny bears and chickens. Anything that drops becomes yours. So he basically won hundreds of these plastic white and blue gems. It was fun times. There's all different types of things in these types of machines. Usually they have small pieces of candy instead of gems. Basically on the platforms there is a main piece that ur trying to make the scooped items push off the edge and if the main piece gets pushed off the edge by the main pieces a huge amount of candy or small toys pours out of the machine. The best way to play these games is with a group of friends. You take turns putting in 100 yen coins and then share the loot once you finally hit the jackpot. These machines are usually pretty fair and winnable. There's skill involved as you have to time both the scoop into moat of loot and then the drop of the loot onto the platform.

We took a break and went for some japanese food. I ordered goma tofu. Black soybeans inside a really tasty piece of tofu. I also decided to split an order of yaki onigiri with Nick. I though they were just going to be plain but they ended up having something inside. I tasted it and then decided to ask the waitress. When I asked if there was antying inside of the onigiri she at first said know but then I showed it to her. She was pretty cute and smiled very surprised when she saw there was something in the onigiri. She told me she was going to go and ask and be right back. She came back and said that there was ume boshi and katsuo (pickled plum and a type of fish) inside. I like umeboshi but the fist was too much for me so I ended up not eating it. Long story short it's really fun when you can bring up a conversation with a Japanese person especially someone you don't know and have it natural enough where they smile or laugh.

Back at the arcade Dan W won a giant pink santa hat wearing micorganism that looks like an octopus that always has a huge grin on his face yet only 6 legs.

Next day was kimono wearing day. Before that a small group went out to visit the three Nintendo buidlings in Kyoto. Two are still being used but one of them was the old building back from there Trading card making days before there was Mario.

I enjoyed putting on the kimono. I felt like a true samurai. The only thing I was missing was my kantana. I've learned that officially putting on a kimono by yourself is pretty much impossible, yet it was very comfortable to wear. We also learned a traditional japanese dance. Off the top of my head though I can't remember the name. We did all of this inside someone's home.

Next we headed to shabu shabu. Giant pot of boiling water where various vegetables, tofu, and mochi is placed. I cooked a small bit for myself before people started shabuing in the meat. There's a really tasty peanut sauce to dip the food into. Just like with salsa and tomato sauce ocassionally I just ate the peanut sauce by itself. I also munched on some uncooked veggies and tofu. At the end of dinner people started high fiving for mcflurries. I joined in on the fun but decided later to get a choco kinako mochi parfait from the Heart In konbini on the way back to the hotel.

One more day to blog about. That's all that remains.

ナムコバンダイゲーム(Namco Bandai Games)

The building looks like a giant aztec pyramid. Inside there are cabinets for each arcade they have released to the arcades free to play. My favorite game is a light gun shooter where you take aim at physical moving alien pigs that come toward you to try and steal your energy crates. If they come close enough they will snatch one up and start pulling back to where they came from. You can still shoot them at this point but the crate will remain in its pulled back position making it easier for the alien pig to snatch next time. Basically you have to be able to kep all your energy crates for a certain amount of time. Normal mode was a breeze but pro is a different story. I never even got close to winning.

The first stop of the tour was going to the sound design department. We went into the sound compiling/testing room where we spoke with the head sound designer for Soul Calibur 4. He played the opening to the game for us with the nice speaker set up. It sounded cool. The game has Darth Vader and Yoda in it as extra characters. Someone asked whethere or not Lucas provided the light saber sounds for the game. The guy said that Skywalker sound did send them lightsaber sfx, but they didn't fit with what they needed to match their video and the sound quality wasn't on par with what they had so they ended up making their own lightsaber sfx. They then sent the sound to Lucas and got the okay.

The guy said that Lucas may even think that the sfx they sent were used in the game even though they weren't.

We then headed over to the motion capture studio. They were filming some stuff for a game while we were there. The only thing that I remember was a girl lying on the ground and another girl running over, kneeling down and shaking her shoulders saying 「しかりしろ！」(Hang in there!)

One of the mo-cap guys said that one of the strangest things they had mo-capped was the producer of a panda sim game pretending to be a panda.

The most interesting part of the visit for me was getting to talk with two Americans who were working there. One was in Strategic Planning and the other in Localization management. I told them that I was interested in finding a job doing translation/localization for games or anime in Japan. They told me that it's a hard job to find since most companies outsource the translation to a place outside of Japan and then have it sent back to Japan. As one of those translators you're pretty much in crunch time once you receive the project until it's done. It gets translated, sent back, and then never seen again by the original translator. (Unless he or she buys the game once it's released of course) There's only one gaming company that does in house translation in Japan and that's Square-Enix.

So they said that most of the jobs in gaming/anime for foreigners in Japan lie in localization management. For that they said that you need to be fluent in Japanese, well organized and be able to keep things running smoothly on schedule. There isn't a whole lot of translation in the job but more managerial skills. Another point they made was that it's very important to not lose hold of your understanding of English otherwise a bilingual Japanese person could easily do your job.

Overall though I don't think I'd want to work there as it seemed a little too large and overbearing for me. I know Square-Enix would be similar in size but I feel if they do in house translation there would be more job opportunities for me. Plus their games have much deeper story lines compared to the simpler action and fighting games that namco bandai makes.

ジブリ美術館（Ghibli Museum)

Friday, Dec. 4th

Before going to Microsoft Japan we headed to the Ghibli museum in Mikata. Only so many people are allowed to enter in a day so tickets have to be purchased ahead of time. Tomuro sensei said that our tickets had to be bought about a month ahead. Pictures are only allowed outside the museum and not inside.

My favorite part of the museum was a room which contained a a very large spinning disc. At different distances from the center going around were mini figures placed evenly apart in slightly different poses one after another. Basically like frames or drawings for animation. When spun really fast it would appear as if the characters were moving.

There was a girl riding a unicycle, a girl jumping, mini totoro like rabbits squashing up and down and moving around the outer most part, and bats flying in the air.

The same type of spinning figure animation was done at the Pixar Exhibit I saw in Japan the last time I was here, and I remember now that it said that it was inspired by the one at the Ghibli museum.

I also enjoyed these cut out pieces of art work which were than layered standing up with space between to create a sense of depth inside of a box with a clear glass front. I liked the forest one the best because of the many trees and the way they seemed to recede far into the distance.

There was a mock room setup to look like Miyazaki's drawing room and there were drawings covering the walls. Seemed to be a lot of neat stuff there too but almost too much for me to take in at the time.

The last thing that really hit me was a small animation about the evolution of life. Starting underwater with two organisms competing with each other, growing out from the water and racing each other. One eventually grew wings and tried to snatch the other one, but the second one hides in the water emerges and goes from rat to monkey to human. At the end it kind of turns into a love story as the small boy climbs a mountain and gives a flower to a young girl.

The animation was neat as well with a lot of moving backgrounds. Everytime I see an animation I now I can't help but think about the work that goes into making it.

Halo Wars Marketing Campaign

Microsoft put our team to the task of creating a new marketing campaign for the launch of Halo Wars in both the States and Japan. (Irvin, Dan, Elisha, and me)

First we decided on putting together a set of commercials that would span an over arching story in anime form. This part of the campaign would be launched in both the U.S. and in Japan. Gamers from the states are already used to Halo so even if ads are in a format they aren't used to it shouldn't have a negative impact on sales, but the Japanese are not that familar with Halo yet so having the ad be in a format they enjoy and are used to seeing would help push the franchise into the minds of Japanese gamers.

Next we needed some campaign elements that would only fly in Japan. In Japan character goods are all around and are attached to many different things. We thought of chibi Halo key straps, plush artillery weapons for ufo catchers(claw machines), and giving out items capped onto coffee cans to reach out to a slightly older crowd.

The coffee cans was one of our key components of the domestic campaign. Tommy Lee Jones is a key advertiser for BOSS coffee in Japan, so to add a comical aspect to our strategy we would have Master Chief Vs. Tommy Lee Jones labeled on certain BOSS coffee cans. Inside there would be either Master Chief phone straps or Master Chief figurines.

Note: Money was not an issue.

Needless to say this promising marketing campaign won over the other three teams and our team walked away with the grand prize. Including a game t-shirt that wasn't size XL!
I hope they really do take our marketing campaign idea for the launch of Halo Wars next year.

3 more Company Visits

Grasshopper Manufacture, the creator of titles such as Killer 7, Contact, No More Heroes and Fatal Frame 4. Suda 51, the head of the studio, is cool. No more questions.

On the way to Telecom Animation we stopped for a quick 15 minute lunch. Most people went to Mc D's but I decided to check out the ampm konbini and found they had a boss coffee with a mario kart toy capped on top. Waaaaaluigi. I also found out later that it's a pull back and go car.

Telecom Animation was really cool. We met with the head director of the company and pictures were okay anywhere in the studio. We started off by seeing some story boards and then moved on to see the key animators working. Currently they are working on a home video release of a Green Lantern movie for Warner Bros. They said they only work on one production at a time.

They key animation is done all by hand but the inbetweens are done about half computer half paper and pencil. The inbetweens are also partially outsourced. The inbetweening process was also being done very similarly to Toei.

Unlike Toei though all of the backgrounds are done in Photoshop on the computer. FX work done in After Effects along with compositing of character and bg art. Then it's edited using Final Cut.

Interestingly the studio has worked on some episodes of Spongebob but found those to be difficult because they didn't fully understand the jokes, so it was hard to know where to place emphasis in the animation.

Back during the Tiny Toons era everything was done by hand and the work began after receiving storyboards from Warner Bros. So all layout and key animation and beyond was done at Telecom.

After getting off the train in the area of Production IG, we went down to the super market on b1 of a department store. The sink in the bathroom was pretty cool because there was automatic soap, water, and a powerful hand dryer all inside the sink bowl.

At Production IG we were brought into a tiny room where a lady who worked on the administrative side of the company spoke with us about the history of the company and answered any questions we had. The best parts of the visit were seeing some of the character model sheets and bg art for 図書館戦争（Library Wars)　and the video she played for us which showed the production process of the cel animation era. The layering one by one of the cels and seeing how the layers stacked up upon each other was great.

We did get to see the animators working a little bit and saw the coloring artists working on kureiyon shinchan next. Overall though it wasn't nearly as good as the other visits since the company seemed to be very secretive and really didn't show or talk as freely with us as Toei or Telecom.

For dinner I ate at Mos burger and ordered the gobo burger which was sandwiched between two rice patties. It was really good.

Back to Toei.

Character coloring at the studio seemed to be pretty fun yet at the same time I could see how it might get a little monotonous. One of the ladies who was demonstrating the process had a short segment open of Luffy, Chopper and Usopp dancing. So when coloring Chopper she would have an already colored character model sheet open on the computer and eye drop the color and then fill it in. There are three layers: regular, highlight and shadow. Also to make sure segments are completely filled in she would mask the entire character in black and look for white dots. If there were white dots she would zoom in and fix the problem.

Special Fx work is done over the drawings once they are all colored in and composited with the backgrounds. Fx is done for every separate drawing and after seeing many comparisions with and without One Piece just wouldn't be the same without it.

I never knew how much work went into the fx of One Piece and how much of an impact it had on the final look of the piece. Also I used to think that since One Piece was an anime and done in a limited animation style that the process of making it might not be as complex as other pieces of animation. I already had great appreciation for the show, but after seeing all that went into making each episode I have an even greater one now.

Some examples of effects are the smoke animation from Crocodiles cigar, smeared makeup on BonClay's face, blood wounds on Chopper and the glowing shine from a blade.

東英アニメーション（Toei Animation)

The building is not very modern with tight and winding passageways.

Inside the screening room we watched two 3 minute short episodes of a new 3d Animated anime called Robodz. It was a mix of samurai culture and robots. The backgrounds all looked to be shot in live action giving it a nice sense of reality.

Can Anime translate into 3d? The answer is yes. The show still maintained a sense of limited animation, to the point where it felt like any other 2d anime in Japan. I never thought that would be possible especially from one of Toei Animation's very first all 3d animations made for TV.

Next they also screened the new opening for One Piece which they said still had not been aired in Japan. I thought it was just okay as the song was a remix of the song from the very first season "We are." The visuals going along with it were just okay as well, but it was fun to see on the bigger screen and hear it with the nice sound system.

Pictures in the studio were okay anywhere except the screening room.

We then moved on to see some of the original bg artwork which are done by hand with pastels. For me they were a lot more beautiful and interesting than a lot of the art shown to me during the history portions of art classes.

Next stop was talking with one of the key animators on One Piece. He was sitting at his computer with two screens and a tablet to draw on. The sample animation he showed was luffy in a close up turning and waving "Come on, let's go!" The program he was using was called Stylos HD.

He explained that they draw all the key frames and then in between each one. The in between process was simplified a lot with the use of the computer. Basically he would draw a path between the two keys then mark the middle. After that he would move the two drawings together onto that point and rotating them just right to get the right arc. Then because it would be hard to tell which line is which he changed one line work to red and one to blue. Next it's just a matter of drawing in between the two colored lines. He showed us that even if the line isn't perfectly straight when you draw it there is a tool that will easily smooth out the line.
I couldn't believe how much easier this process was than what I had to do by hand with paper and pencil for my animation in the fall.

All of the in betweens are done in the Philippines and there are approx. 8 drawings for every second that's four less than what I am used to doing. He also showed us a storyboard sheet for an episode. It takes about 3-4 months an episode. More on Toei later.......