Oh hi! Tokyo Game Show is coming up at the end of this month, and I’m here in Japan already getting a head start on things.
Usually, when I fly to Japan, I take a couple hours of my flight to watch some new Japanese movie or another. These generally follow a certain formula: Rag-tag group of misfits does not know what it is to ganbaru (persevere) in harmony with other group members, meaning that they do not know how to be Japanese. A plucky young person who does not quite know what they are getting into somehow becomes the de facto leader of this group, and by virtue of pure personal optimism and a musical montage, changes the ne’er-do-wells into geniuses. Everyone cries at the end when the group stages a heartfelt tribute to their beloved sensei.
You can watch a dozen movies with this plot every day for a year. But I may have stumbled on the most patently ridiculous (and thus best) variation on the theme: Oppai Barê, which translates to Boob Volleyball.
In this movie, a group of tragically sex-starved 14-year-old boys convince their middle school volleyball coach to promise to show them her breasts if they can somehow come together and win a match against their rivals DRAGON KING MIDDLE SCHOOL, who are the Cobra-Kai Dojo of middle school volleyball teams right down to the black uniforms and headbands. I won’t spoil the ending any more than the rigid outline given above already does.
Apparently this was pretty popular when it was released earlier this year. My friend’s even read the book.
But enough about that. My goal this week is to answer some serious questions, like what’s up with the Japanese game industry? What crazy stuff is there in the otaku capital of the world, Akihabara, today? And does Aki really have its own kind of curry now? All this and more on this week’s Game|Life.
