You may have noticed that updates here at The Sacred Realm have slowed down over the last couple of months. I apologise that it's been so quiet here lately, it was not my intention, in fact I have a number of things I'm in the middle of working on for the site. However, in early January I took up a work assignment in Japan. I live in an apartment in Tokyo, I get to eat tons of amazing food, I commute every day on the Shinkansen (bullet train) and get to experience the craziness of Japanese culture in general. But before you start getting jealous, I'm also working 16-hour days. And weekends. The work culture in Japan is crazy, and this is the reason why I haven't been able to update the site very often. As my project team hunkers down working such crazy hours trying to meet various requirements such as deadlines and quality, it makes me wonder what it would be like to work on the team at Nintendo of Japan currently developing the next Zelda game.

Despite my time in Japan making it hard for me to work on this site, it has given me a couple of things I can use here! On one of my first weekends here, before work got really crazy, I had time to go out exploring, and I'd like to share with my fellow Zelda and gaming fans a shop that is quite possibly one of the most awesome shops I have ever been into. Imagine walking past a store, and hearing Zelda music being piped over the sound system?

In Tokyo, there is an area called Akihabara which is famous as a shopping precinct for electronics, including computers and video games. One shop there is called Super Potato, a funny name that doesn't really hint at what the store is about - it's a retro gaming paradise. (Okay, I guess the "super" comes from Super Mario, but potato?!?!). The store itself is a little hard to find, you might walk right past it if you didn't know it was there, unless you were close enough to hear the retro video game music it pipes out, and if you're lucky with your timing, that music might just be Zelda music!

I've marked an arrow on the picture above pointing out the entrance, because you actually have to go through this small door and up a set of stairs. But when you arrive, there are three floors of retro gaming goodness. There are of course consoles and games for sale, along with various other merchandise including strategy guides and soundtracks. There are consoles you can actually play, and the entire third level is filled with arcade machines where you can hang out and play. The store plays various game soundtracks, and while I was there I was lucky enough that they put on the Zelda 1 soundtrack. The one downside is that the entire store caters solely for the Japanese gaming market, and so everything is in Japanese. You won't be able to find American or PAL versions of games, and all of the reading material is also in Japanese. My own Japanese language skills are extremely basic, but I still spent a good part of the afternoon in there totally geeking out, and if I could fluently read Japanese, I don't think you'd be able to drag me out of there! (Now, if only work would allow me the time to study Japanese since I'm in the perfect place to learn it!).

Here are a few pictures I took to show you what the store is like:

Poster advertising the original Legend of Zelda:

And a larger version:

The Ocarina of Time screen. I love how they printed out screenshots and artwork from the game and stuck it around for decoration:

There's a huge range of strategy guides. I was lucky that I knew the Japanese characters for The Legend of Zelda (??????), otherwise I might not have found anything since most of the books are displayed spine-outwards.

I adored the store-created artwork used on some of the price labels. The person who drew these should send some fan art into the site!

When you're all shopped-out, head up to the gaming area to play all of your classic favourites (for a price).

Just watch out for Snake!

I bought several guides while I was there, I couldn't resist! It was a bit like mystery shopping, because they're all wrapped up and sealed in plastic. When I unwrapped them, I was amazed at how good a condition they were in. Despite not being able to read Japanese, I wanted them for the artwork, and I plan to scan them in and post them here on the site when I'm back home living in Australia, which is where my scanner is located. That probably won't be for a while, so maybe I'll take some photos of the pages for fun another time!
 

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