I thought that I'd post about my experiences in Japan almost every day, but truth be told from the minute I got off the plane I realized that was less likely than I'd assumed. I landed in Osaka on March 21st at Kansai International Airport, and wandered around the bookstores, restaurants, and clothing stores in search of something to ground myself. I found that in a pair of wrestling magazines, one the country's major publication (cover depicting Naito) and the other something like an indie publication with a picture of Shinsuke Nakamura celebrating his arrival in Florida. Here it was, a country with pro wrestling magazines just waiting to be examined, sitting on a shelf in a common airport bookstore! Then I looked left, and saw it, the gaudy reminder that in fact I was so far from home: a vast array of nudie mags, ranging from busty mature women to waifish Europeans.
You probably know a bit about the Japanese smut industry if you've ever looked at a porn streaming service. The naughty bits are almost always censored (if I'm not mistaken, anything with Japanese stars that isn't censored was shot outside the country) and the starlets myriad. I won't go too deep into the cultural underpinnings of Japanese sexuality here, because there will probably be a better time and place for it, but needless to say racks and racks (pun intended) of porno mags at chest level was unexpected even for me. It's not just the explicitly pornographic magazines, either. Lots of the manga weeklies feature bikini models on the covers and advertisements for...sex hotlines, maybe(?), in the back. Anyhow, I haven't actually looked at any of the more adult magazines myself (yet) as the porno mags come bound from prying eyes. Reading in the aisles is something of a national pastime here, as I discovered soon after leaving the airport.
Having collected my bags, exchanged some of my dollars for moonbucks, and shuffled off to the train station, I was soon confronted with the reality that I'd have to buy a train ticket. Fortunately every train station in the country has translation options including Chinese and English, so once I understood where I was going I confusedly put my ticket through the machine, recollected it, and avoided getting batted in the legs when I reached my destination. I got lost leaving the station and a nice policeman excitedly ran up to me to practice his English and direct me towards my hotel. It was a hilariously tiny hotel room, though it was comfy enough and I did fit into my bed, so I considered it a mild victory. The shower was tiny and weird, and used the same water source as the sink with a nozzle to toggle between the two. An alarm clock was built into the bed and worked quite nicely. One morning I could see the room shaking from a very weak earthquake, and after moving to my apartment I experienced a pretty strong one that rattled all my items across my desk.
Though my lovely girlfriend would dispute this observation, I find that Osaka is quite a wonderful city. I was lucky enough to have Joe Ledesma accompany me around town for my first day in the country, and while he knows only a modest bit more Japanese than I do he knows the must-visit arcades of Osaka quite well. Joe is an awesome dude, an autodidact with a high competitive drive and a very good approach to self-improvement. He's really fun to talk to and I have never gotten to spend as much time with him as I'd like, so it was cool to see a new world with him as my guide. We mostly went to arcades, but he also showed me electronics stores, restaurants, and shopping districts. The bookstores in major cities are crazy, packed wall to wall with people reading manga and light novels. They also frequently sell games, movies, and music, and some even have large varieties of strange used games (like the copy of Diablo 1 for Japanese PSX that I saw in Tokyo).
The Japanese arcade as you might imagine it: old, musty, and littered with Super Turbo cabs and pudgy otaku slaving away at their Guiles and Ryus, is largely dead. Instead you see lots of Round 1s and Sega Arcades and Taito Game Stations, shiny and loaded with UFO Catchers and trendy new rhythm games. Entire walls of MaiMai are common, and there are possibly more One Piece figurines in a single Round 1 than an entire United State, any United State. Don't be mistaken, there are plenty of fighting game cabinets, but there are plenty more machines that require a large collection of cards to fuel a naval army, an old-school military battle, or a soccer team. These places are loud but fortunately most come equipped with headphones to play otherwise inaudible Pop`n or JuBeat cabinets. I wish we had one anywhere near my hometown.
I had an excellent time going around town with Joe on my first day, and I was sad to see him go. I retired to my hotel and got ready for my first day of training. I took a suit out of my bag, shaved down to a clean look, set about thirty alarms, and listened to some music as I fell asleep. I was in a new country for the first time in a long time, and not just as some transient visitor but a newly minted resident. My first real day of work, ever, was on the horizon. Suffice it to say, the nerves I had felt on August 1st, 2015 paled in comparison.
