New York

Recently I made the trip to New York to meet a friend in person for the first time, against everything I was taught about Internet safety and stranger danger, I decided to take the shot and ask if he wanted to link up after he told me he was gonna be in the area for a vacation, I like putting in the effort to hang with friends. His trek to New York was a long flight while mine was just a stones throw away via train ride so It couldn't hurt, At worse, I could just take the train back home early and that'd be that. Thankfully that wasn't the case, and I had a Lovely time in NY with [Pyu]

I had the reins to this trip, so that meant doing alot of Nerd Stuff, and going to Chinatown and/or Flushing, probably my 2 favorite cities to be in, though we were only really able to go to Flushing, We kind of crammed what would be 3 day trips into 1 day, So It Goes!

We went to Nintendo NYC after I arrived since he had never been, we played Mario Kart World for the first time, I actually thought It was kind of lame. I bought a plush of Wormadam, and Louie from Pikmin.

I feel like my interest in Nintendo games wanes the older I get which makes me pretty sad, though It still feels magical to be here kinda.

Book-Off was our next destination, and maybe the one we spent the most time in somehow, a big japanese thrift store chain with locations sparsely scattered around the states, though there are 4 in NY state alone.

Huge store, full of books/manga/dvd/games/figures/junk, I assume alot of their (non english/rare) stock is from their branches overseas? This was by far the store we spent the most time at funnily enough, gawking at scantily clad anime figures, talking about shows we like, and rummaging through an endless stream of Idolmaster CD's

"That's the name of my new Ska Band, Eureka Seven."

I have an unfortunate penchant for collecting Anime Figures/DVDs/CDs/etc, I think their cool though! I torrent all of the anime/music I like, but I getting DVD/CDs out in the wild because of the "discovery" aspect of It. Getting the first DVD of a series and watching it as a "sampler" before downloading the rest, and maybe trying to complete that DVD set later on. Plus, I still think It's cool to own physical media.

My case for figurines is alot simpler, I like having cute girls/cool guys on my self :)

"[...] Yeah, these seem like something you'd like."

"Damn, really?"

"It's the eyes that give It away"

He was right for the record and I did end up buying this DVD/CD + a Doujin CD not pictured. I felt weirdly, flattered by this assumption though, I guess after a year or so of chatting and viewing my website updates he could surmise that I like weird moe stuff, maybe I'm more obvious about it than I think, or maybe I'm exuding a weird self-image through my site, Oh well. Expect the review of Puni Puni Poemy to be a riveting one.

This would be our intermission for the trip.

It was nice to have a chat at a cafe-esque place afterwards, I guess this one of those fantasies alot of people our age idealize about. It's fun to blurt about eachothers lives in a relaxing enough setting, though instead of a fancy pastry and a coffee, It was Onigiri and a Coke.

Still, I'm grateful for the chat we had here, It really did put me as ease about life, Thank alot.

I'm also had alot of fun on the subway ride to Flushing, the hour passed by really quick just talking about Simpsons episodes, lol.

I really love going to Flushing, Queens in NY, I make it an annual tradition to do my "Hot Summer trip to Flushing with friends" and In my head I was fulfilling that with [Pyu], I'm grateful that I got to go here (and Chinatown) alot growing up, being in a place with so many other Asian people makes me happy about my identity.

... Anyways, I brought [Pyu] to one of the many malls within the Flushing area and kind of booked it to the arcade inside, It rocked, lots of Rhythm Games in a cool environment, It's always fun to see cosplayers play MaiMai.

We played one of the King of Fighter games on those weird Pandora Box arcade cabs, I got my ass kicked, I'm not too good at KoF, but also the gate was weird, sorry.

I played Project Diva for the first time, I never really bothered with these games since I'm not really into Vocaloid, but I obliged since [Pyu] offered me a play from his credits.

PoPiPo is like the only Vocaloid song I really know, lol.

This was the first time I played the newest release, Luminous. I didn't get to play like any of the new songs though, I missed the previous version of Chunithm sorely, It had alot of Licensed songs I liked.

"S-Rank, Let's goooooo!"

Intermission 2

We didn't spend much time in Flushing after the arcade unfortunately, Went to a few anime stores, they didn't have any Ojamajo Doremi stickers for sale like they did last year which made me sorely upset.

Thanks for showing me your funny little doodles and your ideas for comics, It was nice of you to let me spill my guts about my own ideas and stories aswell, I really need to draw/write more aswell, and use Venus around my site. I need to fix my mindset when it comes to Art.

Our last stop was in Brooklyn, Specifically to visit 2 arcades, though given the time we were only able to visit 1, Brooklyn Arcade & Games, thanks for being a gentleman and paying for my hour of free play.

Place was awesome, the moment you enter you see tons of Astro/Blast/Aero/Versus city arcade cabs lined up, but the best part was the dingy basement where most the people at that hour resided. Modded console setups, guitar hero, gaming PC, and some SNK cabs + MVC2 cab lined up at the back. Not to mention the loud Latin music music and people drinking.

[Pyu] kicked my ass again at SF3, I've been having alot of fun playing it with him online, I still cannot get used to the gates used on these cabs, I couldn't do my qcf's and supers for shit, GGs, I need to be less anime-fighter brained probably.

Owner was super chill, and we bought these sick-ass SF3 art prints from him, [Pyu] got one based of Azumanga Daioh so I thought It be fitting to get the one based off Yotsuba&!, though I nitially wanted the one based of Jojo's cause Remy looked sick as hell in that one, in hindsight, I have no idea why I didn't just buy both, I'm kind of stupid.

The artist of these prints only sells them at this arcade, and the proceed goes to keeping the place up and running, hell yeah.

That pretty much marked the end of our trip, somber train ride back and stress regarding my train back to my state not withstanding. It was kind of sweaty as hell at night.

"Thanks alot for meeting up with me man, I had alot of fun, Hanging out with you was a weird sort of boost that I needed, I'm glad I meshed well with you in person, and also that you didn't murder me. Hopefully next time your in the city, I can bring you to the rest of the places I like going to, oh yeah, and take care of that Gift I gave you, the answer lies within the heart of battle, or something."

"Oh, and that photo you took of me at Book-Off with your old camcorder came out so fuckin' good man, I Love It. Thanks for the great summer memory... and thanks for indulging me with all those anime media stores."
- V

"nah frrr the camcorder is peak"

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