Playstation 3--Akihabara--11-11-06--Long Narrative PART 2
Link to Part ONE
The line was now a snaking entity that began at the entrance to Yodobashi Akiba and wrapped around the metro entrance to end on the street corner half a block away. My heart sank, but since I had made a decisive move by checking out of the hotel, I figured I would tough it out. I think I should mention here that Tokyo is the safest city I have ever been in, which is really saying something given its enormity. I have seen people plop down for a nap in public areas with little fear of someone swiping their bags. The Police here are good at what they do, but they are a bit like the Maytag Repairman, and spend a great deal of time helping people with directions due to the dearth of real crime in the city.
At any rate, I hopped into line with little hope of coming out of Yodobashi Akiba with a PS3, and almost immediately, a security guard from the store (I thought he was a policeman at first, but then I noticed he had no pistol and the initials S.G. were embroidered above his badge, which was also embroidered on his crisply ironed shirt) began to raise his voice at me in a barrage of incomprehensible Japanese. I understood, "You...this...no! Why...you...here?" As you can see, my Japanese is improving, as I would have understood none of it when I first arrived in Japan. I responded, "pu-re-su-te-shyo-n-su-ri." He replied loudly, "This...no...you...no!" I responded, "Wakarimasen," and turned toward the others in front of me in line. The guard laughed when I said I didn't understand and said, "Wakarimasen! Ha ha ha!" He then began to verbally accost three more gentlemen who had now joined the line behind me. I watched them respond to the guard and did as they did, namely, stare off into space away from the guard and act like you didn't know he was talking to you when he taps you on the shoulder. Luckily for us, about 30 people showed up at the back of the line behind us just as he began to really let this other guy have it. The guard now began haranguing the people behind us. It wasn't long before the orders changed, because he switched from what I found out was "You are not allowed to line up here," to "Please move aside and don't block the sidewalk."
At this point, there were about 10 security guards walking around shouting for people to stand out of the way. I watched traffic go by on the street, and saw people gawking at us. Oh, great, I thought, I am going to have to camp out on this street corner tonight! Strangely enough, I was wrong, because the line began to move, and quickly so. We walked about 20 meters toward the store. I began to feel excited, as I thought perhaps the store had decided to open its doors early. Then I realized that ten more guards had begun to move the line up ahead so that it did not block the metro entrance.
I stood with the three fellows nearest me and tried to strike up a conversation, me in broken Japanese, they in broken English. When you say "Eigo o hanashimasu ka? (do you speak English)" to someone and he responds "Choto, choto, (a little, a little)" be prepared for choto to mean "not at all." So I broke out the Pringles and my dictionary and tried to make some allies in the struggle for a PS3. The guys around me were gemu-otaku (gamer fans). It turned out they were my age, and had been playing video games since way back. For those of you who don't know, Otaku can mean simply, "fanatic" or it can mean "nerd without a life whose only ambition is to be immersed in something inane." There are Anime-otaku all over Akihabara, some of whom dress up as their favorite characters. There are Otaku for every pastime in Japan, and last night, the streets were filled with gemu-otaku.
The line we were in was moved a few more times so that we now faced the street where we started and could sit down. I shot the breeze with the people around me as best I could for an hour or so, when, suddenly, the line began to move. Only it was the back of the line that was moving, and people were now running around to the front entrance of Yodobashi Akiba. My new otaku friends motioned for me to join them, so I grabbed my backpack and tried to haul ass behind the others. We turned right to pass under the railroad tracks and a crowd of about 600 people now met the longest line of bicycles parked on a sidewalk that I have ever seen. Of course, gemu otaku not being athletically inclined, they ran right into them, causing a huge ruckus, and I got to see the beginning of the bicycle domino course they had created. At this point, the crowd turned right and converged in front of the store.
I was pushed and carried through the doorway, security guards screaming at us the whole time. I had to ditch the half-eaten can of Pringles, as my hands were full with the dictionary and water bottle. Once I was carried to the escalator, I was able to put them away. The crowd, now about 800 strong pushed its way up six flights of escalators to where the PS3 display was. Security guards screaming the whole time to get out. Last minute shoppers gasped, gawked and laughed at the tide of 800 people now passing by them. I still don't know why the crowd ran into the store like that, but my guess is that someone started a rumor that it was on sale at that moment.
Once we were "escorted" out of the store as well as 800 people can be escorted by 20 security guards, we were formed into a line facing the south entrance to the store. At this point, I was separated from my otaku friends and I had to stand next to a Chinese man with horrible breath (who also spoke pretty good English). We were packed into the small corridor and told not to block it, so we were lined up about 6 abreast in the hallway and everybody's ass was up against
someone else's pelvis. We stood there like sardines for about 45 minutes before the guards began to split the lines into two separate queues. At this point, I was pushed into the girl in front of me and had to make my apologies. It turned out hat she spoke English, and we became quick friends. Her name is Cathy, and her boyfriend's name is Takeshi. They were very nice, and we began to share stories, as we figured we would be standing close to each other for quite some time. Here is a picture of the line from where we stood.
After the store closed, the employees came out to help the security guards organize the crowd. They lined up surrounding each of the two masses of people and linked hands so that people would not run back and forth between lines. I still felt as if at any moment they would send most of us home and say that they only had 10 PS3s, so don't bother waiting. At about ten o'clock, things got really serious. The two lines were moved to the front (east) entrance, and then we were marched down into the 4th basement floor of the parking garage. They lined us up 4 abreast and gave each of us a ticket with a number on it. You can imagine how I felt when I got mine:
Seven hundred and fifty fucking six!? There's no way I'm getting this thing!
Next, they changed us from 4 abreast lines to single file lines and corralled us into the parking garage, where we all were relieved for a place to sit. I cracked open a beer, and ate my sushi. Takeshi went to look for food, but they weren't letting anyone leave the garage, so all he could fins was a drink machine. So, I gave him one of my onigiri. After a couple beers, and a 45 minute wait on line to use the bathroom (hey at least they had bathrooms!), I was feeling tired, so I rolled up my sweatshirt for a pillow and tried to catch forty winks on the parking garage floor.
Here's a shot of the inside of the garage:
Sleep was elusive, but I managed to doze for about an hour. I woke up at about 3 am, and watched Cathy and Takeshi play Pokemon on their Nintendo DS for a while.
At about 5:30, the guards and employees told us all to stand up and get back in our original lines by ticket number. Then, I saw two employees come out with bags of another type of card. Finally Cathy heard someone talking, and translated that they would be queuing us up for entry into the store. We were to go around a corner in the garage and exchange our tickets for what she said was a ticket that guaranteed you a chance to buy a PS3. I began to get excited, but my excitement was tempered by the fact that there were 755 people in front of me. The line oozed along, flight upon flight of people rounded the corner in front of us. Then it happened, our line began to move.
I began to smile as I rounded the corner, as I noticed they still had a lot of the new tickets left. The employees handed me a blue bordered ticket and said happily, "Roku-ju giga!" I looked down at the ticket and understood that they were telling me I had access to the 60GB hard drive PS3--the top of the line model. WOW! I was still skeptical about whether I would actually be holding one of those babies in my hands come opening time, but seeing the new ticket brightened my spirits a lot.
It also looked like a bunch of people before us had opted for he 20 GB machine, because I was now number 728! I began to really appreciate how they had run this operation. It started out very chaotic, but by the end I realized that the Japanese had this thing down to a science. The crowd was the most polite and good-natured crowd I had ever found myself in. There was pushing at the beginning, but it wasn't angry pushing. I never feared for my safety. At one point, I thought I was being pick-pocketed, but I looked down and noticed it was just someone's umbrella pushing against my hip. After that, I never felt worried about the type of people I had been thrown in with. At 6:45, the mass of people in front of us began to be moved to the elevators, and the crowd slowly shrank as people were transported to the first floor. I made it to the elevator with Cathy and Takeshi at about 8:00.
I was full of joy when the elevator doors opened, and there were smiling clerks motioning me toward the counter. They signed me up for a Yodobashi points card that gave me a 10% discount, and I approached the next empty cashier's counter. A beautiful black shopping bag full of electronic goodness was placed in front of me,
and they showed me a list of games to choose from. I picked "Ridge Racer," "Gundam," and a Japanese RPG called "Genshu" or something. I paid around 90,000 Yen for everything, and then walked to the exit. It had begun raining, so they gave us all little plastic bags to put on our shopping bags. It was all very efficient, and I am glad I went through it. I walked across the street to Kinko's/FedEx and sent the new Playstation 3 to Kessler. If all goes well, he'll have it in the US about 4 days before its release there.
The line was now a snaking entity that began at the entrance to Yodobashi Akiba and wrapped around the metro entrance to end on the street corner half a block away. My heart sank, but since I had made a decisive move by checking out of the hotel, I figured I would tough it out. I think I should mention here that Tokyo is the safest city I have ever been in, which is really saying something given its enormity. I have seen people plop down for a nap in public areas with little fear of someone swiping their bags. The Police here are good at what they do, but they are a bit like the Maytag Repairman, and spend a great deal of time helping people with directions due to the dearth of real crime in the city.
At any rate, I hopped into line with little hope of coming out of Yodobashi Akiba with a PS3, and almost immediately, a security guard from the store (I thought he was a policeman at first, but then I noticed he had no pistol and the initials S.G. were embroidered above his badge, which was also embroidered on his crisply ironed shirt) began to raise his voice at me in a barrage of incomprehensible Japanese. I understood, "You...this...no! Why...you...here?" As you can see, my Japanese is improving, as I would have understood none of it when I first arrived in Japan. I responded, "pu-re-su-te-shyo-n-su-ri." He replied loudly, "This...no...you...no!" I responded, "Wakarimasen," and turned toward the others in front of me in line. The guard laughed when I said I didn't understand and said, "Wakarimasen! Ha ha ha!" He then began to verbally accost three more gentlemen who had now joined the line behind me. I watched them respond to the guard and did as they did, namely, stare off into space away from the guard and act like you didn't know he was talking to you when he taps you on the shoulder. Luckily for us, about 30 people showed up at the back of the line behind us just as he began to really let this other guy have it. The guard now began haranguing the people behind us. It wasn't long before the orders changed, because he switched from what I found out was "You are not allowed to line up here," to "Please move aside and don't block the sidewalk."
At this point, there were about 10 security guards walking around shouting for people to stand out of the way. I watched traffic go by on the street, and saw people gawking at us. Oh, great, I thought, I am going to have to camp out on this street corner tonight! Strangely enough, I was wrong, because the line began to move, and quickly so. We walked about 20 meters toward the store. I began to feel excited, as I thought perhaps the store had decided to open its doors early. Then I realized that ten more guards had begun to move the line up ahead so that it did not block the metro entrance.
I stood with the three fellows nearest me and tried to strike up a conversation, me in broken Japanese, they in broken English. When you say "Eigo o hanashimasu ka? (do you speak English)" to someone and he responds "Choto, choto, (a little, a little)" be prepared for choto to mean "not at all." So I broke out the Pringles and my dictionary and tried to make some allies in the struggle for a PS3. The guys around me were gemu-otaku (gamer fans). It turned out they were my age, and had been playing video games since way back. For those of you who don't know, Otaku can mean simply, "fanatic" or it can mean "nerd without a life whose only ambition is to be immersed in something inane." There are Anime-otaku all over Akihabara, some of whom dress up as their favorite characters. There are Otaku for every pastime in Japan, and last night, the streets were filled with gemu-otaku.
The line we were in was moved a few more times so that we now faced the street where we started and could sit down. I shot the breeze with the people around me as best I could for an hour or so, when, suddenly, the line began to move. Only it was the back of the line that was moving, and people were now running around to the front entrance of Yodobashi Akiba. My new otaku friends motioned for me to join them, so I grabbed my backpack and tried to haul ass behind the others. We turned right to pass under the railroad tracks and a crowd of about 600 people now met the longest line of bicycles parked on a sidewalk that I have ever seen. Of course, gemu otaku not being athletically inclined, they ran right into them, causing a huge ruckus, and I got to see the beginning of the bicycle domino course they had created. At this point, the crowd turned right and converged in front of the store.I was pushed and carried through the doorway, security guards screaming at us the whole time. I had to ditch the half-eaten can of Pringles, as my hands were full with the dictionary and water bottle. Once I was carried to the escalator, I was able to put them away. The crowd, now about 800 strong pushed its way up six flights of escalators to where the PS3 display was. Security guards screaming the whole time to get out. Last minute shoppers gasped, gawked and laughed at the tide of 800 people now passing by them. I still don't know why the crowd ran into the store like that, but my guess is that someone started a rumor that it was on sale at that moment.
Once we were "escorted" out of the store as well as 800 people can be escorted by 20 security guards, we were formed into a line facing the south entrance to the store. At this point, I was separated from my otaku friends and I had to stand next to a Chinese man with horrible breath (who also spoke pretty good English). We were packed into the small corridor and told not to block it, so we were lined up about 6 abreast in the hallway and everybody's ass was up against
someone else's pelvis. We stood there like sardines for about 45 minutes before the guards began to split the lines into two separate queues. At this point, I was pushed into the girl in front of me and had to make my apologies. It turned out hat she spoke English, and we became quick friends. Her name is Cathy, and her boyfriend's name is Takeshi. They were very nice, and we began to share stories, as we figured we would be standing close to each other for quite some time. Here is a picture of the line from where we stood.After the store closed, the employees came out to help the security guards organize the crowd. They lined up surrounding each of the two masses of people and linked hands so that people would not run back and forth between lines. I still felt as if at any moment they would send most of us home and say that they only had 10 PS3s, so don't bother waiting. At about ten o'clock, things got really serious. The two lines were moved to the front (east) entrance, and then we were marched down into the 4th basement floor of the parking garage. They lined us up 4 abreast and gave each of us a ticket with a number on it. You can imagine how I felt when I got mine:
Seven hundred and fifty fucking six!? There's no way I'm getting this thing!Next, they changed us from 4 abreast lines to single file lines and corralled us into the parking garage, where we all were relieved for a place to sit. I cracked open a beer, and ate my sushi. Takeshi went to look for food, but they weren't letting anyone leave the garage, so all he could fins was a drink machine. So, I gave him one of my onigiri. After a couple beers, and a 45 minute wait on line to use the bathroom (hey at least they had bathrooms!), I was feeling tired, so I rolled up my sweatshirt for a pillow and tried to catch forty winks on the parking garage floor.
Here's a shot of the inside of the garage:
Sleep was elusive, but I managed to doze for about an hour. I woke up at about 3 am, and watched Cathy and Takeshi play Pokemon on their Nintendo DS for a while.
At about 5:30, the guards and employees told us all to stand up and get back in our original lines by ticket number. Then, I saw two employees come out with bags of another type of card. Finally Cathy heard someone talking, and translated that they would be queuing us up for entry into the store. We were to go around a corner in the garage and exchange our tickets for what she said was a ticket that guaranteed you a chance to buy a PS3. I began to get excited, but my excitement was tempered by the fact that there were 755 people in front of me. The line oozed along, flight upon flight of people rounded the corner in front of us. Then it happened, our line began to move.
I began to smile as I rounded the corner, as I noticed they still had a lot of the new tickets left. The employees handed me a blue bordered ticket and said happily, "Roku-ju giga!" I looked down at the ticket and understood that they were telling me I had access to the 60GB hard drive PS3--the top of the line model. WOW! I was still skeptical about whether I would actually be holding one of those babies in my hands come opening time, but seeing the new ticket brightened my spirits a lot.
It also looked like a bunch of people before us had opted for he 20 GB machine, because I was now number 728! I began to really appreciate how they had run this operation. It started out very chaotic, but by the end I realized that the Japanese had this thing down to a science. The crowd was the most polite and good-natured crowd I had ever found myself in. There was pushing at the beginning, but it wasn't angry pushing. I never feared for my safety. At one point, I thought I was being pick-pocketed, but I looked down and noticed it was just someone's umbrella pushing against my hip. After that, I never felt worried about the type of people I had been thrown in with. At 6:45, the mass of people in front of us began to be moved to the elevators, and the crowd slowly shrank as people were transported to the first floor. I made it to the elevator with Cathy and Takeshi at about 8:00.
I was full of joy when the elevator doors opened, and there were smiling clerks motioning me toward the counter. They signed me up for a Yodobashi points card that gave me a 10% discount, and I approached the next empty cashier's counter. A beautiful black shopping bag full of electronic goodness was placed in front of me,
and they showed me a list of games to choose from. I picked "Ridge Racer," "Gundam," and a Japanese RPG called "Genshu" or something. I paid around 90,000 Yen for everything, and then walked to the exit. It had begun raining, so they gave us all little plastic bags to put on our shopping bags. It was all very efficient, and I am glad I went through it. I walked across the street to Kinko's/FedEx and sent the new Playstation 3 to Kessler. If all goes well, he'll have it in the US about 4 days before its release there. UPDATE--Kessler has received the PS3, and is setting it up in his house as I am writing this.
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