The Kingdom of Biscotti

So fast forward 3 months living in Japan, and I’ve finally reached the final plateau.

If it’s Melty, I probably haven’t made much post on it from our transition to the current site (which needs to be updated again), and further more have been a bit absent in my anime updates since I arrived in Japan.  I think that’s terrible because I should be thoroughly recording all my adventures in Japan such that I can remember them easily in the future.  The last two weeks have been full of events I wanted to write about, like the Friday night out at Mikado when I met Korean CL, or the Yokohama gathering with LK and Garu two weeks ago.  Not to mention all the awesome anime endings this season.

Unfortunately, getting bodied by school was a huge concern, but now I can pour every bit of energy into this post!  So, if you haven’t been following the hype, behold my story of the most elite invitational melty blood tournament of the year – the Hydra GP MB 2011 Championships!

So it all started with me(F-Kohaku) exiting the Yamanote Sen and  meeting MB Evo2010 champion, and our old friend Garu (H-Kohaku)   outside of the Hamamatsu City JR station.  It was  my first time in the area and seemed like a huge corporate  district.  It was all very clean with elegant corporate  buildings all around.  Upon meeting up with Garu and  exchanging the normal formalities (we haven’t seen each other in  about 2 weeks) he gave me a mini SD card.  This card contains  all the pictures he took from Evo, so we can recollect what we  lost from people who seemingly disappeared from the melty blood  scene immediately after Evo (I’m looking at you, Riceman.)   After just over a year, as soon as I get a mini-sd card reader,  we’ll have those back.

So while walking to site amongst all the fountains and elegant  buildings I could help but feel like I was walking fight the  Elite 4.  The area might as well of been the Indigo Plataeu.   The music was definitely playing in my mind.  The Exhibition  building was simply amazing.  It was spacious (something I  haven’t been used to lately, being here in Japan), beautiful,  and all those other pretty words I can’t think of because I  haven’t been using much English lately.

The room had around 100 people in it, but it wasn’t even  remotely crowded.  To give you some perspective, this room is  about 2-3x the size of the main room where NEC is held in the  Sheraton Hotel.  When I walked in, there were two large  outstretched tables – one for those discussing participation  with Arcadia/Ecole staff, and another with name tags available  for those who were selected for pre-registration.  I found my  name, amazed I managed to get in (thank you again Dakanya for  helping me translate my entry resume with keigo!).  The first familiar face I saw was Yuzuji (C/H/F-Sacchin – the man responsible for your weekly Mikado  tournaments) who was hard at work behind the table, and making some  important calls on registration and setup.

Let me tell you – Manabe knows how to throw a party!  Not only was the whole event was staffed with Ecole programmers and  directors (both for melty and unib), Arcadia reporters, and  recognized community members, there were plenty of maids and  girls with Touhou Cosplay there to take my registration fee and  show me over to the Melty Exhibit.  Officially Touhou was  present for the Hitousen side tournament, but none the less it  gave you this feeling of “I’m important, and there are Touhou  girls and maids here to serve me.”  It was glorius.  I paid my 500 yen (~6.00$ US), and entered the arena.

Particularly notable was the Archetype Earth cosplayer who was  like a complete piece to the release of Archetype Earth in v1.07  on that day.  On one of Yuzuji’s breaks I noticed him talking  somewhat embarassed to the Archetype Earth, I decided to make a  bro move and acted like a crazy American so they could get a  picture together.

Hime-Sama and Yuzuji

Pretty cute.  Later I did the same thing to Korean CL(C-Ciel),  who mentioned he thought she was pretty looking, just to troll,  but he reversed trolled me by striking the best pose ever next  to her.  Me and Udonge(C-Nero) tried to force Hare into it too  but it couldn’t be helped.  That brings Hare(C/F-Sacchin) into  two consecutive failures with cosplayers, considering the  Sacchin one last year.  I am deeply troubled he may never find true love.

So anyway as we I stepped up to the MB platform I saw 4 shiny  22″ LCD Screens each equipped with 2 titanium cased arcade  boards/setups.  Each person had a dedicated screen, so there  were 2 setups.  Each person actually had access to two different  sticks because they were being run off of 2 player same-side  playing arcade boards, but they wanted to give the players as  much room as possible, so there wound up being 4 double-stick  setups (one to each monitor).  The part quality was amazing.  I  honestly feel like every button and stick was brand new and I  could feel the each click in every stick without a problem.

So I found the line for the v1.07 testing area and hopped on with Garu.  All the monitors seemed to be set to 4:3 aspect  ratio, and after playing I can say it felt completely lagless.   Just about every top player in East Japan was in attendance. Kanna(C-Miyako), SAT(C/F-Nero), Udonge(C-Nero/H-PCL), Ashe(C-PCL), just to name a few)  About half the players tested out stuff with Archetype and the  other half worked on stuff with their old characters.

The system pretty much worked like this, it was very formal.   You sat down and selected your character with the person  currently playing.  You told them what you wanted to do, and  they performed all the actions that you asked them to.  To  maximize your play time you would play until either time out or  you both had no health left to test anything.  You gave  instructions for two rounds, and your opponent gave instruction  for the middle round.  Then your opponent would stand up, and  another player would sit down.  Then it would be reverse – you  do what they tell you to do for 2 rounds and you get one more  round.  Then you lose so the next person can come and select  their character.  Super formal.

I was extremely lucky in randoming Archetype’s Earth stage – I also need to note the stage is fucking beautiful and the music is the most hype thing you’ve ever heard.  In short, it’s Archetype-like.  I think I was the first one to random the stage as a lot of people were watching my test in particular.  At this point I was definitely feeling the honor of playing at Hydra GP.

Here is some of the character specific stuff I noticed while  watching:

• C-Wara now has a chargable 5C, and it wall slams.
• P.Ciel’s loop damage was nerfed by about 2k.  That makes it  about 4.5k on optimum damage now (much more tolerable).
• F-Archetype has a DP and he animations are very ambiguous.
• Miyako might have got a slight damage buff from v1.05 (may be  closer to PS2, this is more hearsay than my own observations).
• Everyone seemed capable of doing their links and pressure, so I  believe hitboxes are largely unmodified, just damage values.   Needless to say, OTG Relaunch remains.

I sat down with Hagi(H-Koha/F-Akiha/H-PCL) who was testing  various things H-PCL.  After that I believe Genri sat down  and asked me to tech out of some various situations.  I think it  was very fortunate I got teamed up with Genri because thanks to  playing Jimmy and wanting to alt F-Arc once, I was able to be of  some use to him despite my limited Japanese.  Hagi also is a  close friend of Garu’s, so he was very patient with me in  helping me test things with Kohaku.  Anyway, I got to go up  twice and the first time I tested F-Koha, the second, F- KohaMech.  F-Koha’s normals seem a teensy bit better than they  were before(but no where near PS2), but her damage seemed the  same.  It was nice to have a couple of links added to my nerf- chains so I got some breathing room from the huge amount of  nerfs in Current Code/v1.05.  Waka(F-Koha, F-Hisui, Nanaya) also  ran over and showed me some of his secret-tech, which I intend  to rape everyone with.  It does still work in v1.07, to our  relief.

I was much more disapppointed with F-KohaMech.  In v1.05 they  made her more interesting by changing her airdash and chargable  5C to a partial charge and wall slam.  They also gave her a  chargeable wall slam j.B.  I tried my hardest to make some sort  of corner loop, but none of the assists moves were given  untechable properties, and recovery is just too high to do  anything serious outside of wall slam and troll with crossbow.   It was pretty annoying.  Garu tried to help me make a command  grab combo to no avail.  She also randomly got a damage nerf,  killing all of my interest in the character completely. Sad  times.

Keep in mind this is just a loke, so some stuff is subject to  change by release.

Standing Left: Niiya, Sitting Right: SAT

After testing I was asked to come a big table with about a dozen  MB Gods.  Players like Niiya (C-Seifuku), Garu, Hare, Hagi, Genri(C/F-Arc),  were all present, and discussing the game the whole time.  They  began asking me really specific questions about F-Kohaku and my  thoughts.  It felt like an honor but also extremely  intimadating.  I rarely hear players talk about the game or  characters in arcade (infact one of the things I like about the  JP scene is how relaxed and dedicated to having fun they are  almost all the time), but this was a side of everyone I didn’t  see at Mikado’s weeklies or even Mikado’s main yearly tournament  a month prior.

Hard questions like “How do you feel about your strength in  okizeme after airthrow?”  ”Did you notice any new move  attributes, such as things that may be unshieldable?” “Do you  think you will still play your character?” “Can you still  perform your command grab combo?” “Do you feel it’s worth it to  spend your meter on OTG Relaunch?” “Does your 4B still auto hit,  can you EX Cancel it on block?  Do you feel it’s worth the meter  if you’re trying to bait a half-moon bunker?” made it like an  interrogation.  Though I was happy because it gave me real  insight into what top players were thinking about (I was also  extremely concerned with 4B and asked myself similar things  while testing, since while it was a good way to bait bunker and  maintain 4B stagger pressure in PS2, but now sucks because the  cactus disappears if I get hit and doesn’t hit as it comes out since Current Code v1.00).

It was pretty relieving to know I was also thinking about  similar things that other players were concerned about when  considering a matchup with my character.  Waka asked some  questions but I was surprised how indepth some of the players  knew my character without ever really playing her.  I’d be a  little bit frightened to think they knew that much about every  character.  I’ll lie to myself for now and just say it’s because  I play a simple character.

Garu and his Bro

After the “interrogation” I was bestowed with the honor of  sitting at the round table and listen to discussions of the  players watching the v1.07 testing and talking to players who  just finished.  If you remember in DBZ when Gohan and Kurin went  to Namek and met the Namekian Guru, then the Guru places his  hand on Kurin/Gohan’s forehead and bestows an instant-powerup  onto them by unlocking their minds, it was sort’ve like that.

The loketest was an extremely interesting to take part in.  A  lot of the players feel like Ciel and Miyako may be too strong  in the next version of the game; but for the most part v1.07 is  a more tame and balanced/stable version of v1.05.  I should note  for those still wondering about the game from PS2 MBAA that  v1.05 is a completely different beast with a heavily modified  engine.  v1.05 feels like a completely different game, but v1.07  is way better version of v1.05.  Of course, v1.00 (original  Current Code) was just PS2 with slight modifications (mostly  graphic).  So don’t feel like you’re three versions behind, it’s  really only one with some fixes and new graphics.  I think when  the PC Port of v1.07 arrives in December it will be a satisfying  version of the game to have in America.

Hare in the zone.

So after about an hour of testing and Korean CL showed up (he got in pretty late), the tournament began.  There were 3 blocks in total (A,B, and C).  It was really nice to play in a JP tournament and actually have the inputs I want to do really happen (the sticks at game centers just don’t match up, especially Mikado).  In my tournament match I played a C-Ciel player I’ve never met before (I believe it was Maruyama) and unfortunately lost after 2-1 (rounds) in the first match.  I gave the player a little too much credit and was too busy worrying about one of Ciels many wakeup options and played way too cautiously to gain good momentum.  I felt really defeated at first, having my participation ended in under 5 minutes, but Waka, Udonge, Garu, Hagi, and Korean CL all patted my back and told me it was a good match.  Being happy just to play in the event, I got up, stretched a bit, and thanked Maruyama for a good game.

From Left to Right: Waka, Hagi, Nameless Mikado Bro.

I just couldn’t feel down playing with these people or at this event.  I’m pretty guilty of shit talk in my own right, but after experiencing this I intend to change my view a bit.  After this I would like to really put some work into getting America out and playing with more motivation (as I have been in the last month).  Maybe it’s because we bet money on tournaments in America, but I could really feel the love for the game at this event.  I felt like the community had this level of support and love for the game two years ago but it’s gone down as of late in America.  I really hope for that to change!

Anyway, getting back to the story – the tournament format was a little weird.  People have been asking me for “brackets”, but it’s a bit more complicated than that.  Because it was more or less an invitational from the start, there were 3 pools (blocks), but it was single elimination.  However, the winners in A, B, and C block couldn’t decide the entire tournament.

So here’s what happened, the winners of A, B and C block (effectively pools) automatically qualified for Top 8.  From there 5 other people were chosen by Manabe (Ecole’s CEO) to participate.  Hare automatically qualified from being last year’s champion.

From there the other 4 were selected based on their play that day, overall tournament record, and there were Ecole staff present to decide what matches would be interesting from a programming point of view.  So pretty much the remaining 4 were were handpicked by Manabe and Ecole to the best of my knowledge.

The winners of A, B, and C block were, if I remember correctly, Maruyama(C-Ciel), Hagi(H-PCL), and Jin(C-Hisui).  (If you guys were wondering about Garu’s performance, he unfortunately lost to Niiya first round.  Hagi eliminated Niiya, later in the bracket.)

And along with Hare the following were selected to participate, Ashe(C-PCL), Kanna “God” (C-Miyako), Korean CL(C-Ciel), and Hekuto(H-Miyako).

So that makes the total count, 2 Miyakos(C/H), 2 Ciels(C/C), 2 PCL’s(C/H), 1 Hisui(C), and 1 Sacchin(C-F). Disgusting.

Between top 8 and the brackets the players all gathered around to decide the match order while the Hitousen side tournament went on.  At this time I approached Manabe with Korean CL and he gave us two minutes of his time.  I gave him the portfolio report successfully, and we decided it would be better to have a long discussion about Ecole’s international goals after the tournament.  Completely satisfied with that (and you guys should all thank Korean CL, he conducted most of this and the later conversation very well with all our goals in mind.  He speaks Japanese very well.) I decided to hit up the casual setups available for free play.

It was at this time I challenged Korean CL to a match in front of Hare and the other top players.  At this point I sort’ve expected LK to be here, but he got out of DCC late and couldn’t make it.  You’ll be happy to know I represented America well and defeated the Korean champion in this match!  I got a nice little ovation from the players watching this first major clash between foreign nations in Japan.  I think Manabe winked at me.  Felt good man.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

Having completed my two goals for the day of defeating Korean CL and delivering the report I was feeling pretty good.  He’s a really smart player, helped us out enormously with the Melty Blood international relations, and did his best in Top 8.  I suggest you all hit up the Melty Bread donation thread so we can see him again for Final Round and bring him out.  All of my reccomendations.  So, after the Hitousen tournament Manabe talked about Melty Blood a bit and brought out who I believe is the UniB director for an interview.  It was pretty hard to understand, but I’ll get the information from the meeting to you guy in due time, trust me.  I don’t want Arcadia breathing down my neck.

Anyway, After the top 8 was selected and preparations were ready they did a round robin of sorts for the championship.  I recorded all of A block, but unfortunately my cellphone died during finals (and the entire video of the first round!)  I feel pretty bad about this, since it was the hypest thing in existence.  Never have I seen so much energy from the players for this game.  I consider NECX and Evo to be some of the best weekends of my life, but I without the slightest hesitation write that NECX and EVO were a mere spec of dust of hype compared to the Super Nova that was the finals of Hydra GP between Ashe and Hare.  The top 3 resulted as follows:

• 1. Hare (C-Satsuki)
• 2. Ashe (C-P.Ciel)
• 3. Hagi (H-P.Ciel)
• 3. Kanna “God” (C-Miyako)

And I swear the Award’s ceremony was more grand than the end of Episode 4 of Star Wars.  I’ll regret not having footage of that for my entire life.

So thus the tournament ended with Hare’s victory – later decided (due to his short stature) by Kanna he was Melty Blood’s Tsundere Loli champion, after much drinking.

But before I get to the details of the celebration, I wanted to post the extremely serious details regarding the release of PC Current Code that I’ve already leaked some information about.  I wanted to confirm with Korean CL in English before public posting this.

Me and Korean CL went into this discussion with Manabe with the same idea – we want to bring Melty to a larger scale outside of Japan, and have Ecole considering more institutions for melty that stronger fighting games have in the world today (along the lines of popularity that Street Fighter and Blaz Blue have).

1. First we expressed our reluctance about the PC release of Current Code v1.07, positive that the piracy would not be good for the game.  We wanted to see a release for the game on console, and ask what plans Ecole had for something like that in the future.
2. I expressed to Manabe that America even had the bigger of issue of being a huge country where lag would be a huge problem.
3. I told him directly about how Evo was a huge chance for advertisement and promote the game, how hard we struggled to get it there, and that there is a real English market who wants to buy this game if those options were considered.
4. Korean CL also brought up how difficult the tournament scene was for PC releases, how people would show up to tournaments and not know how to use arcade sticks (they have cabs in Korea), and how the tournament scene for this game is suffering outside of Japan.
5. We both affirmed that a PS3 release, even if not in English, would be better because PS3 is not region locked the way that PS2 is.  I explained to him the difficult process of accessing the game in America because of the need for Japanese PS2′s (of course I didn’t mention we usually mod our stuff).  It was a little bumpy but I think we got all our major points across to him.
6. We also asked about the possibilities of net play for MBAACCPC.

Here is what we got back from him.

• Every copy of MBAACCPC will come with a key issued to each copy of the game in order to install the game. This is to prevent pirating.  - Ecole is aware of the netplay situation and what happened with MBAC.
• They strongly intend to implement MBAACCPC with netplay. It will either be directly available at launch, or be patched into the game later.  They will have a central server to find matches, but are still considering options like a ranking system.  Those also may be implemented in later patches.  You *will* need aforementioned key to access these functions.  He told us this directly, and firmly.  For those of you who remember the no-jump doujin fighter Gleam of Force (also by French Bread), I believe the netplay will be coded similarly since it also used a serial key and match system.  Since there is a central server planned, we asked him to implement a direct play available as well to ease the lag for foreigners (French Bread was planning the exact opposite of this.)
• There is a lot of corporate politics around Melty Blood.  Frenchbread (which is a small developer and as they stated in their last NicoNico Douga cast, not considering the foreign market), Ecole (which doesn’t have a significant amount of funds to promote internationally), and TypeMoon (which is not convinced that it’s influence extends internationally) are all very hesistant at this time to put out an English release or PS3 release at this time. Those are all very resource heavy and very costly, and it would be a do-or-die risk for them as a business to make a release that big at this point in time.
• However, it is *not* impossible. He said while looking at the report and hearing about Evo he was *very* surprised at the support abroad for Melty Blood.  Manabe said he would want to consider further options for a foreign or console release after UniB is released (it is scheduled for Spring) so they are running more franchises.  This way it would be less of a risk for them to release a game should they take a potential loss.  Furthermore, America is a very hard market to break into politically (copyright laws and such).

So essentially what they want from their foreign customers is to support UniB and the PC release; and come up with more amazing tournaments/events a’la Evo and get more skilled players out to get the domestic buzz going to convince FrenchBread/TypeMoon that there is a real market available.  To quote Rayza, we have a loud community – not a big one.  We’re going to have to work extra hard at promoting Current Code online with the netplay, really promoting the game, and making huge events to ease the higher up’s hesitation.  Nothing we didn’t know already on this end.

As for the netplay thing, I already mentioned it to mauve and he followed up with his own response to what Manabe said.

Basically, netplay for MBAC was a welcomed response but they’ll be going in themselves this time.  *You’ll pretty much have to buy the game if you want to netplay*.  Because of this, I expect it to be released seperate from Carnival Phantasm later, but I have no official source to back that up.  Remember, if we want support from the company, we have to support them too.  Poverty or not, there’s no way around that.  Since you’ll all be spending probably a zillion hours playing the game anyway, the money will be well spent.

As for any immediate results, the next day French Bread (who is the most hesistant out of the three companies behind melty blood) began following a bunch of American players on Twitter – so I think now is your guys chance!  Keep talking about melty blood, now that we have a chance and their ear.  I can’t express how important it is just to have the buzz going.  You don’t have to talk to them, just talk about the game and stay hype.  Just keep going and let’s pull ourselves out of this pessimistic rut and view of the future for this game we’ve had.  They’re listening NOW, and we shouldn’t be waiting for Current Code to show them we want to BUY their game.  That’s what a company wants the most.

The discussion was pretty difficult all in all.  Me and CL were hit by a lot of realtalk and also really surprised that Mr. Manabe was so open to tell us the details about PC current code.  An interruption from Kanna to invite us to Nomihoudai (all-the-alcohol-you-can-drink) didn’t help either.  It was pretty funny, he just strolled over and manabe just gave him this look and said “Please, just give us a moment.”  Man, Kanna did the most Japanese apology you’ve ever said, bowing, and backed up right out of there.

So the biggest pieces of news for you guys is about the netplay which I mentioned, but also the CD key.  As I mentioned in the Hydra GP thread, I will take orders at comiket for Carnival Phantasm’s Melty Blood edition release, but I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to buy more than one, so hold off the messages about that (I’ve already gotten a few).

So with the awards ceremony, Melty Blood International’s talk with Manabe, and of course the conclusion of the whole event as I said we all exited to get a big group picture (only about 20 of us were around).  Following that, everyone was ready to celebrate at a local bar!

Japanese Champion (Hare) and Korean Champion (CL)

The 20 of us somehow wracked up a ~700.00$ bar tab.  I had the opportunity to meet Rei, Jin, and a handful of other players.  We started off with a drinking match.  Japan selected Waka-Aniki as their competitor, so he, myself, and Korean CL battled.  15 shots later those guys were done, and I stood victorious.

Another victory for America!

After some more heavy drinking I felt it necessary to tell Niiya about my anime family.  I explained how I wanted to start an eroge company, and Jin came to me seeking advice for which eroge he should play next, considering how much he loved Sensei characters.  And so it began – Komidol’s Eroge Soudansuru!  I asked them which kind of character’s they like and reccomended to about 8 players a new eroge to play.  I now have a personal knowledge of each top melty player’s fetishes, but in accordance with all consultant agencies, I can’t release that information.

After that I was able to finally sit down with Leo and have a realtalk with him.  We needed to get this man off F-Ryougi and back onto Warcueid.  It was time to correct this wrong in the world.  I told him how famous of a player he was since MBAC, and how much he was loved as the best Warc player in the world.  I told him he should know that in truth, every melty player finds true love with their main.  By switching to Ryougi Shiki, a male character, he became incredibly homosexual.  No one knows the name Leo anymore.  Leo is the best Warc player in the world.  Leo took pleasure in those moe shark teeth and kept Warc happy with every j.2C.  But, he is not even here.  The only thing infront of me is a blatant homosexual Ryougi player.

At that point Rei came over to me and demanded I apologize to him, shouting instantly.  He even shouted APOLOGIZE, APOLOGIZE NOW in English, so I knew shit was about to get serious.  I told him that I was sorry, and Ryougi was indeed female but only because he loved her from Kara no Kyoukai.  I just explained I only hate her in the game, and he totally understood that.  We were totally cool after that.  After calming him down, I looked at Leo, who’s face was down on the table, almost crying, whining he’ll switch back to Warc in v1.07.

Another mission accomplished.

So after everything settled down I decided it was time to troll Ashe for all the times he trolled me on Twitter.  I complained to Genri about how mean Ashe is, and how he hates me, always ignoring me and beating me up.
Now, this definitely stirred up Ashe’s mind.  You see, Ashe is the model type.  He wants people to love him like an idol. After drinking a lot he must of gotten confused, sat back in his chair, thinking about how bad he made me feel.  Genri(sitting between me and Ashe) lit up a cigarrete, listened to my story, and after a wink caught on.

Genri told Ashe he should be ashamed as a representative of the JP community, and should figure out a good way to apologize.  I will forever engrave Ashe’s face into my mind from that day, as he sat back in his stool, a look of defeat that said “someone doesn’t love me?”.  After I told him I was trolling him, me and Genri had a good laugh.  Total fucking bro.
Hare gave the cheers for our final drinks and Kanna asked me over to the CHAMPIONS table, where the top 4 were sitting.  He asked me what I think about our little oompa-loompa Hare winning the championship.  I caught his drift real quick,

Komidol> “He’s pretty short, huh!”
Kanna> “He’s like a loli!  How do you think he would look in Buruma?”
Komidol> “Is he Tsundere?”
Hare> “What kind of conversation is this…”
Kanna> “Tsundere loli champion?”
Komidol> “We can make serious money off this.  My eroge company will be behind this.  We’ll start with a line of figures!”
Kanna> “We gotta put him in a VN first!”
Hare> “GNYAH! WHAT IT IS WITH YOU PEOPLE!”
Komidol> “Alright, you got a deal Kanna.”
Kanna> “We’re going to make a lot of money off this!”

Some white guy and a Korean in Japan.

Around this time Korean CL just stood up at another table and just started pounding his chest with his fists shouting like a Gorilla.  Drunk as I was, I jumped over and joined him claiming it to be our foreigner call, letting out a low roar.

Shortly after, Hagi joined us.

Yes, Hagi, the shyest, most shiny rare pokemon top player out of everyone, somehow got enough alcohol in him to stand up and shout at the top of his lungs.  It was at that time we decided, after three hours of hard drinking, that we were all

totally

completely

Done.

Stumbling across Tokyo with 20 other JP melty players was an interesting experience I would of loved to remember in detail the next day.  The only memory I have is SAT doing random Ryu-style Shoryu’s all the way to the station.

Definitely in the running for one of the best days of my life, without a doubt.