Darlo's World

It took a little bit of thinking about how I’d word this blog entry to avoid it being chopped up by Cyber Patrol, Net Nanny and various other blockers … not to mention possible knocks on the door from the police. So here we go, wish me luck.

A couple of days ago a friend and I decided to buy PSPs. After spotting a few of the “2000 model” (why they add three zeros instead of making it the “2 model” is beyond me) at a bargain price we also did a little hunting for some cheap games and UMD films to accompany them. From one shop I spotted (and bought) 2 UMDs at 350 yen each (£2.43) which looked to be very crappy films (I didn’t try and read the descriptions, I just saw cheap and crappy).

From Here To Reality starring Risa Goto is a 55 minute tease-fest in which she walks, swims and dawdles around in various outfits (the swimming is topless), but the viewer doesn’t get to “see anything”. Definately one of those “get what you pay for moments”, and was good for a quick giggle, but not really good enough for a laugh. I’d just like to point out that in 2005, when this was made, Risa was 21 years old. Which brings me onto the next one.

Those familiar with dating sims will know that the objective is to follow a string of tasks, quests, questions or whatever, with the eventual aim of getting with a girl (depending on the age rating of the game this aim could just be going steady with her, or something more series). Likewise games have been made with different genders in mind. Well as it turns out that’s just what Sweet Paradise was.

You take one of three young girls out for a date somewhere in beautiful Bali. When I say young, the first couple of goes of it I thought that they were still above that “barely legal” age limit, but it turns out I was wrong. After nosing google it happens to be that the 2006 game/video stars 14 year old Runa (now 17), 12 year old Saaya (now 15) and also 12 year old Jessica (also now 15). From the couple of goes I had it seems the dates end in one of two ways; you either agree what good friends you are or you fall face first into a swimming pool (there way have been more endings but to be honest I really didn’t want to have to sit through it again and again, especially as it’s date scenes are unskippable).

So this brings us up to today. Obviously I didn’t particularly want these two UMDs, and there was absolutely no way in hell I was going to try and bring them through customs, so I had to get rid of them. I didn’t particularly care on getting my money back on them, so I just took them to the first second hand game shop I visited … well, second actually. I go in the first one too often to have them forever know me as “that perverted git-bag”. Going that extra step to avoid future face to face contact with the shop I was selling to, I ended up visiting a shop in 桃山台 (Momoyamadai), a good hour north of Umeda (not just for this, I was also visiting a mate) getting 100 yen (69p) for each of the games. I was going to just think of it as me renting them at that kind of price that I ended up parting with, but then I just remembered it cost 680 yen (£4.71) to get there and back.

What a load of bollocks.

Warning, this post may not be appropriate for young’uns.

So I’d briefly mentioned about Love Hotels in my Kinky in Kinki post back in January, and definately wanted to see inside one at some point out of general curiosity. Being told various things like “the rooms have karaoke and game consoles in them” definately added to my curiosity. After finding a friend who was also curious about the goings on, we decided to check out one of them in Umeda.

For those that don’t know, in a nutshell a Love Hotel is a hotel designed for couples to enjoy some quiet alone time, and can be paid for by the hour or overnight.

I’d just like to take this moment to say that we did not do anything of an adult nature at the hotel. ಠ_ಠ

Before meeting up at Umeda Station, I had a nose around Umeda’s Love Hotel area looking at prices by the hour. Prices really varied depending on the grandeur of the hotel, and at times the rooms had different charges dependant on theme or popularity. The cheapest I’d found was 2,000 yen (£13.38) and most expensive over 8,000 yen (£53.51), with the common price being around the 3,000 yen mark (£20.06). Ironically the least expensive hotel appeared to be one of the less dodgy, but as I’ve seen many times in Japan appearances can be deceptive.

After having a bit of food we headed over to the cheapest establishment. We must have been there at a relatively busy time as we saw one couple leaving (satisfied smiles on faces), and another couple heading in (excited smiles on faces). Apparently the 2,000 yen room had been taken so we opted for the next cheapest room at 2,500 yen (£16.73). At this particular hotel (might be different in others), when you walk in there’s a large wall with pictures of the different rooms and buttons to make your selection (pretty much like a vending machine). It then prints you out a ticket and you head to your room; there’s a little flashing light above your door. When your time is up you pay at a window which is partially obscured to protect privacy, however the security cameras kind of make it directly inadequate. Perhaps it’s to give the customer peace of mind that they don’t have to look in the eye of the cashier.

We headed to our room, conveniently on the bottom floor, and after taking off our shoes we slid the door open to reveal a quaint Japanese style tatami room. Off to the left was the rather nice looking bathroom, complete with washlet and various accessories standard of normal hotels; shampoo etc. Through another door was a large bath and shower area (plenty of room for 2 ^_~), which had a window giving a view of the main bedroom and vice-versa. By flicking a certain light switch, the whole room went red. Romantic for some, this just seemed to remind me of many blood stricken horror films.

And then the main bedroom. A huge futon bed taking up the majority of the space that I could easily have just stayed in all day. Perhaps it’s because my dorm bed isn’t wanderful, but this bed felt great. The only thing that marred it for me was the knowledge of “I know what people have done in this bed” >_<. After flicking on the TV and getting a screen full of boobs and pixels (in Japan certain aspects of pornography are illegal, so those aspects are generally pixelated or blurred) using a series of complex remote controls we managed to flick through some of the other channels, trying to find the karaoke and games. Yes, we did have karaoke, and yes there was a game system; not a PS3 like I'd been led to believe, but perhaps that's in one of the more expensive rooms.

Generally the room itself was really nice, and had it not been for the condoms at the head of the bed instead of the customary chocolate mints, I'd have been none the wiser. But it was time to get to action and do what we'd set out to do by coming to this Love Hotel. I opened my bag, and pulled out my copy of Kanji in Context and cracked on with some revision. What? Did you forget I have an important exam on Friday? My friend also had some work she needed to do so we both got on with it for a bit.

Finishing the hour with a little karaoke we left the room; the room itself was probably very dissapointed with us.

Love Hotels are something I’ve only really seen or heard about in Japan. When I spoke to some people at home about them they instantly got the wrong idea, thinking of brothels or a hotel where people just did it any old where. To be honest I probably won’t visit another one during my remaining couple of weeks, and it’s doubtful I’ll ever go to another one. However, we were really curious about what the more upscale rooms or hotels would be like.

In other news, today is Children’s Day.