Hyper Japan

Hyper Japan was on over the weekend if you didn't know, at Earls Court centre. For those not in the know this is a celebration of Japanese culture and otaku pursuits, think manga, anime, gaming and Japanese and you'd be right.  I decided to have a look after mum saw the address on an ad on the tube and wrote it down for us.  So this is my rather poor round up on the whole thing.

Paying my £15 on the door to get in and its a little overwhelming as its the whole ground floor dedicated to everything.  Big stand out stalls are Namco Bandai with a bank of PS3's dedicated to showcasing Tales of Xillia 2 and some One Piece game.  Tales turned out to be OK with the demo having you explore the basement of some bastard hydroponic centre for an imprisoned goddess or something, to be honest who judges an RPG on 10 minutes of play.  Across the way Nintendo had some stalls out promoting Wii U and Tomodachi Life and Yoshi's Woolly World and actually had a go on a new Harvest Moon spin off which I believe was called Hometown Story* (didn't think much of that).

Apart from games there were about a billion more stalls ranging from weapons (no really actual Katana) to a celebration of Sake.  They had a small area for people flogging dojinshi, homely Tumblrettes with self published books and manga of varying quality, from dull western (Manglo I call it, think rubbish like Totally Spies that try too hard to look Japanese but never capture the spirit) to the real deal in all its myriad styles.

There were a load of cosplayers too, and for every bloke in shorts with hairy legs and Sailor Moon with a nose ring (no really), there were several who looked boss.  Everyone deserved a medal as it was murderously hot out, especially the furry guy.
My favourite bits were a small arcade section with a Donkey Kong, PacMan and Ikaruga.  I never got a chance to play Ikaruga as there was some old dude content to freeplay his way to the end, never switching colours, and just continuing over and over when he died (which was often).  I've probably forgotten plenty of stuff (I came home with a Disgaea Artbook and a wobbly weedle cat) more including a table flogging Godzilla toys and Hentai Manga which was awesome.

I decided to make my way down to the end of street and look around Brompton Street Cemetery, which is marvellously overgrown, and was full of bathing crows and Gothic grave architecture, this must look stunning when the weather is cold and grey.
I decided to take the train home and popped out at Woolwich to see some people wanting Biafra to be a proper state, it sounded like they were banging a saucepan and yelling about jesus which sounds about right for Woolwich.

Goldeneye and SFII on portable hell yeah.

Pac n Pal.

It was O.K. I suppose.

A excerpt from the absolutely barking wall of manga.

Carue from One Piece according to Google.

From Brompton Road Cemetery, not the newscaster.

*edit it turned out to be Fantasy Life instead, possibly another that will warrant an extended play. Also a Gamecentral reader posted his version of a trip there too, he got to play a lot more Nintendo stuff then me.