February 17th, 2005

AND! After picking up some cream soda, graham crackers and 50-yen Campbell's soup the 13-minute walk from Okachimachi station to Akihabara station was puctuacted four people screaming in the common manner they are paid to when they are announcing new sales and things you can blow your food budget on. Unlike hundreds of other employees and vendors at hundreds of other shops and stores on "The Strip", these four people weren't selling anything.

Not directly, at least. Rumble Roses was released today. I know this because they yelled it in my ear over and over. And, yes, they needed megaphones to do so.

"Come get a poster and autograph!"
"Have your game signed by Akari Uchida!"
"Stand in line to see him!"
"Rumble Roses is now on sale!"

So people were in line, quietly aquired copies of Rumble Roses in hand, awaiting the devine gold signature to grace their copies of RR and/or a poster and/or maybe a body part (use your imagination).

"This guy is getting a windbreaker signed!"
"He is signing the windbreaker! Wow!"
"Come get a poster and autograph!"
"Get your game autographed!"

And I watched as Uchida signed the blue windbreaker with the same gold marker he would use on my free poster next. It read 'Rumble Roses now on sale!'. Immediately after, the guy put it on, flashed a thumbs-up, and he went on to live his life with an autographed windbreaker. Even for a gaijin, that's a tough act to follow.

I asked for a poster. Uchida asked what I wanted from him. Embarrased and scared, I pointed to the white chick and requested only his autograph. He looked me in the eye then went about his job. Uncapping the gold marker was second nature to him. Seconds later the assistant lightly folded it over once and warned me that the ink needed a few seconds to dry. I too it and a protective plastic sleeve and went on with my life.

"That was too easy..." I thought, elipses and all. Matt was off in a near-by alley smoking. He glanced to his watch then me, knowing not joys of getting Japanese producers to sign posters of semi-naked CGI women.

By some strange twist of fate, the event wound down a few minutes after I left the line, poster hanging loosely in my two hands so as the ink dry out. By the time I had it rolled up and in the protective sleeve, Uchida had stood up and was talking to the cameraguy and his friend. The signing event was over.

I waited around, determined to say hi and drop a line about insertcredit and FUCKING Konami Week. But I wasn't alone. I mean, there were people standing around, sort of waiting for something to happen. Perhaps Uchida would rip of his clothes then explode like a Contra boss. Who knows? Not Matt, that's for sure. I got all side-tracked with Akari Uchida and his wacky booth of hijinks and passive generosity. My bad? Matt insisted we leave, tossing his cigarette in the gutter. The stores all close early on weekdays, and there's still some more things to get. Looking back to the table, the assistants were gathering up the unsigned posters and Uchida was now talking to a camera crew.

DM: "Let's wait for the interview to end. I want to talk to him."
Matt: "You kidding? C'mon, let's go."
DM: "Chill out, I only need a second with him."
Matt: "The interview might last two minutes or ten. Hell..."
DM: "Dude. I'm talking to him. Wait."
Matt: "What's the deal? It's only..."

"FUCK YOU, NONBElieVER!!" I screamed as I jabbed my elbow in his eye. That shut him up good. Earlier, he was kinda sick and his throat was swollen with "the flu". I think I was still mad that he didn't stand in line and get a free poster. I'm not such a violent guy, normally. I glared at him until he looked down at his shoes with his good eye. An awkward four minutes later, the camera was turned off and they crew bowed their polite goodbyes to Uchida. I approached before anyone else could, or before he could say something like "I'm leaving, peons."

(translated from Japanese)
DM: "Please, can we speak a little?"
AU: "Sure." *he smiled*
DM: "I'm happy now. Thank you. On my favorite website, we are talking about Konami a lot. Many discussions with all games. One whole week. It's Konami fesitval."

Panic tightened its firm grip on my brain. My sentances were falling apart. Sloppy. Vague. I should start hanging out at bars more, I thought. Wait. WAIT! Did I just say "Konami festival" to this guy???

AU: "That's nice" he humored. "Which site?"
DM: "Here." *wild, swooping gestures where I pointed at a crumpled scrap of paper in left hand*

I handed him some note paper with "INSERTCREDIT.COM" and below it in lower-case letters "http://www.insertcredit.com/forums/". I handed it too him and he nodded and said he would check it out. I felt like I just mumbled some vague passages from the Hebrew translation of the Koran. Is that normal?

Oh well. We said our goodbyes and here I am now. In bed, typing this up after being awake for 25 hours straight. 'night!

(a better picture will come when I buy some AAA's)

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This indie originally appeared on the forums I "frequent" over at Insert Credit. There was a week-long tradinional Konami love-fest called "FUCKING Konami Week". I know this isn't an excuse to swear or act (or write) in the way I have above. If you a young child, do not repeat the bad words unless in front of a parent or teacher. They might get pissed at you. Child and adult alike, if this indie offended you in any way, I appologize. Sorry. I'll never, NEVER allow apostraphes in an indies ever again.

ALSO! A few notes. I edited some small mistakes (grammar, spelling, punctuation) out of it and threw in another 500 or so words. Even though this indie is being moved/uploaded almost a month after I wrote the original piece, I have yet to snap a better picture of the poster. Instead, I decided to just send one to Westacular. Sorry for letting you down.

PEACE!!