### Ep. 253 - From Tokyo with Brandon Sheffield, Part I
Full moon, hot cars, cool games, good records. Brandon Sheffield is in Japan for Tokyo Game Show 2022, and has lots to share from the trip, including a Nintendo HQ visit, Maidreamin', highway driving and street racing spots with Chibi-Tech, and record store finds with Kenan Alpay. Hosted by Brandon Sheffield, with [Chibi-tech](https://twitter.com/chibitech/) and [Kenan Alpay](https://twitter.com/KTallguy). Edited by Esper Quinn, original music by Kurt Feldman.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW4KX1info4
Support on [Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/insertcredit)
Subscribe: [RSS](https://insertcredit.com/show/rss), [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/insert-credit-show/id1509363651), [Google Podcasts](https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9pbnNlcnRjcmVkaXQuY29tL3Nob3cvcnNzLw), [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/6CwWZE5p7vazIV1jrV9hln), and more!
guess i gotta finish the ep and have some time for something more nuanced but i've long been a proponent of the bonus credits and just generally stuff like this, esp when created by a misophonic (even if we got different triggers). in short, i enjoy these and will listen to however many ya make
shit, lol i hadn‘t even gotten to the record section yet, not many podcasts i’m gonna get to hear someone talk about jun togawa.
it kinda makes me understand the genZ utubs or streamer argument of it being like "hanging out with your friends" or whatever, like, you're gonna talk about Preludes *and* city pop scores? idk, just reminds me of the excitement i got when kenny omega got scanned for yakuza 8 and i could think of no one person in my circle that that information would hold 100% meaning.
it's the non-participatory version of these herr forums (for me) and i still say yes
I was a bit confused about the Friends discussion. I always thought that it had two floors: one with 16-bit and older, and one with everything else. Did they not have that in the early-00s, and have they just consolidated everything on the first or second floor? I haven‘t been in about a decade, so it’s interesting to hear how things have changed. I still regret not buying the backlit Game Boy they had the last time I was there.
Also, the not being able to withdraw enough money in one day problem was very relatable to me, but in my case the problem was explaining to my landlord why I couldn't give him 100% of my advanced rent payment that same day...
@BarLemonHassy it's possible I made up that they had one floor before? I really thought they did though! I talked to the lady about it and she said “yes” when I was talking about them having one floor in the distant past, but she also may have just been speeding the conversation along, ha ha
Just finished the ep. This is good stuff! Having not travelled much lately I‘ve been interested in updates about the trip and we got so many. I especially enjoyed the car talk, glad all the audio didn’t get scrapped!
Thank you for the audio log, I had a good time listening to it. Similarly to what Brandon was talking about, I guess I find it interesting to hear the travel impressions of another foreigner who also knows Japan as a real place, but is here on a trip. I can imagine myself in that situation 10 years from now, if I have moved back home in the mean-time.
In a bit of a coincidence, I was also in Tokyo last week (Sunday to Thursday). Not for TGS, but the JPS (Japanese Physical Society) autumn meeting. Haven’t been in Tokyo since moving to Osaka. It is somewhat less exciting to go there than when I lived in Okinawa as the contrast is smaller, but overall it was fun. The JPS meeting was exhausting, I ended up having the quintessential Japanese experience of going for nomikai until relatively late 3 days in a row, while also getting up to go to the conference at 9 in the morning. To be clear, it was my own choice and I had a good time at those nomikais, so not complaining. I am impressed by the ability of some of my Japanese colleagues to get very drunk in the evening and yet participate with sharp and well-thought out questions at the conference the next day...
The majority of the talks at the JPS are in Japanese and the effort required to understand both the Japanese and the physics burned out my concentration quite quickly to be honest. So work-wise it was not the most efficient use of my time, but I did get to meet a bunch of people.
One thing I thought about while listening to Brandon talk about the vegetarian woes and remembering Tim and him talking about it at some other point is that it is difficult for me to imagine how I would relate to Japan if I didn’t also love the food here. Delicious food is such a big part of the way I think about Japan and what I like here that I feel I would like the place a lot less if I didn’t like the food. I do know some vegetarians and vegans in Japan (mostly Indians), so it is not completely outside my frame of reference, but still. Things have gotten somewhat better over time I think, with vegetarian options becoming slightly more common in recent years, but it is still difficult. I still vividly remember someone asking a vegetarian acquaintance if chicken was vegetarian...
There‘s a lot of people pacing around my office and talking and it’s giving me some serious “guy flipping through vinyl aggressively” vibes and I don't like it!
a shame brandon didn‘t get to check out the DIGGIN’ (?) CD'S show he mentioned - this compilation “from the CD age” was one of my favorite releases last year.
Yeaaaahhh, that‘s the stuff. Was listening to this yesterday while working and was really enjoying the quiet bits of just background noise, also enjoyed the hard rain sounds. The Chibitech car stuff was a lot of fun, and I’ll have to check out that indie space the next time I‘m in Japan. Gotta check out that, and a coffee shop in Jimbocho I was made aware of a week or two ago. Can’t wait to hear more! The sound quality never bothered me much.
There is a lot of CD-only stuff in Japan especially, they switched over pretty hardcore in the 90s to where there are very few vinyl records from that period, and nobody sells tapes anywhere there anymore (the cassette boom has not really returned for japan). It‘s tough to browse though because most of what you find is the same 10 artists. some day I’m gonna have more time and really browse, but I focused on records this time round since it felt like the last time I could really do that as the market explodes. Last time to buy an album with Takeuchi Mariya‘s plastic love on it for under $50 lol (among other, massively better albums, like Ra Mu’s Thanksgiving)
Ahh thanks for the car stuff brings me back. I'm going to have to pull up some of my Daikoku Futo pictures that are probably 15 years old by now maybe share some here
Also your 3-cylinder engine discussion was very timely because we just had a bunch of news stories here about the new GR Carolla which will have a turbo 3!
Heya everyone! This is chibi-tech from this episode. Thank you again @exodus for letting me hang out with you during your Japan trip!
I'm really happy you guys enjoyed the car chat btw, even with the wind blowing out the audio especially while we were speeding thru the tunnels on Wangan route (which was totally my fault btw, I got super-excited having Brandon ride with me and decided to take my car's rolltop roof off and stow it in the frunk just for the full-on airy experience, neglecting to realize that we'd be traveling highway speeds on the Shutoko while carrying a conversation, lol). I love talking about cars (even if my technical knowledge about them is just hobbyist-level IMO), and as Brandon mentioned I take a lot of pics at Daikoku parking area every weekend or so (amongst other vehicular hijinx and their locations) and often post them on my twitter.
The Toyota Starlet we saw at Daikoku PA was definitely no joke indeed, btw. Easily the most interesting car we saw that night. I forgot to take pics of the interior with the homemade fuel tank that the owner installed, but I did get a shot of the car's engine bay (which apparently has a 4AGE engine swap off of an AE86).
