So I was incredibly fortunate to not only preview the new game, Shooting Love 10th Anniversary for the XBOX 360, but also to interview and go out to dinner with the creator, Toshiaki Fujino, head of Triangle Service. It was a great day, to say the least.
I should have gone to a closer train station, but I shopped my way to the event locale and ended up buying a fair few items. They got heavier as the evening went on, but it was all worth it!
The promotional event started at 1 pm, and apparently a number of people were actually gathered waiting at that time. I finally got there just before 4 pm, and it was just me. Perfect timing! Mr. Fujino was quite gracious and I enjoyed meeting him very much. And I am definitely looking forward to receiving my copies of the game! (I bought a second, standard edition copy as well just because I wanted to show my support.)
After we said our goodbyes, I met another foreigner and encouraged him to go try out the event. His name is David and he is from Quebec. Later I went back to apologize once again to Mr. Fujino, in typical Japanese style, just in case I had in any way made a bad impression. He said all was well, so I invited him to join David and myself for a few beers. He agreed! Yay! We ended up going to a restaurant to eat "Kushikatsu", which is essentially "Deep-fried stuff on a stick with dipping sauce", because it is well-known in the area, and because the draft beer is good, cold, and cheap. On the way to the restaurant we met the crazy cosplay people from the previous video, and then had drinks on the street (because that's cool in Japan) while waiting for a table.
Once inside, we talked a lot about games, and a lot about life and relationships, but none of that made it into the video. Suffice to say that Mr. Fujino is every bit as easy-going and nice as he seems in the video, and I have made it my new personal mission as a gamer, and more specifically as a shooting fan, to support his efforts, as he was so kind to me. It doesn't hurt that I really like his games, either!
Having said that, I am honest to a fault, if you didn't already know that, so while I will do what I can to support him, I will tell him, and you, what I really think, should I be afforded more opportunities to try out his stuff. In the meantime I hope he will do well and I hope lots of people will buy his games!
PS Making subtitles for 30-minute videos is painful. That is all.
PPS I am going to re-commit to practicing POLITE Japanese. That is all again.
Here's a link to the video, in case you haven't seen it yet:
Shooting Love Triangle
