Japan is a country renowned for its soft power and one cornerstone of this is video games, renowned the world over. Where we would be now without the likes of Nintendo, Sony, Sega and so on, which for many of us formed an important part of our childhood. As a teenager I had attended a few Eurogamer Expos (now called EGX) but as I don’t play a lot of new games these days I hadn’t thought to attend a gaming convention in a long time. This year’s Tokyo Game Show occurred a little over a week after I arrived in Japan, and at first, I didn’t think much of it. Until I realised one important fact – I now live in Japan.

For a long time, Japan had been something I am interested in, but it was still a distant country far away, and any events that were happening there were simply news items or pixels on a YouTube video. I was no closer to experiencing them than if they occurred on the moon. But a week into arriving, as I was shedding the jetlag, I became more and more aware of what I could now see and do, and it was all on my doorstep. With tickets at ¥3000 (a little more than £15) and cheap public transport I decided to head on over on the final day and it was worth every penny.

It was held at Makuhari Messe, Tokyo’s equivalent of the ExCel centre, which technically is not in Tokyo but in Chiba on the other side of the boundary. Though I can’t say this truly counts as visiting another prefecture. As I’d bought a ticket as an overseas visitor I had to exchange the print-out of my reservation (which required a hasty trip to 7-Eleven that morning) for an actual ticket before joining the enormous queue to get in. Well, it wasn’t exactly a queue, crowds of people were held in blocks that were allowed to approach the entry gates one after the other. Luckily, I was stood next to a couple of American exchange students who I could chat to until we could get in.

The inside was enormous covering eleven exhibition halls and the main event hall. As you can imagine the coverage was extremely broad, but there was one very noticeable absentee, Nintendo. Doing some research online this doesn’t appear to be an outlier, Nintendo has cancelled appearances or decided not to attend several events over the past few years, and sadly this appears to be due in part to threats against employees. Why? I have no idea, I guess some people really want those virtual console re-releases or perhaps they are just plain nuts. Still, there was so much else to see I could hardly be disappointed.

Amusingly I barely played any video games throughout the day, the queues were long and some playthroughs were already maxed out within the first hour of the day. The new Monster Hunter game was a prime example, it’s a huge franchise in Japan in a way we can’t fathom in the West (even though it is popular), and it had a massive presence. But if you didn’t get in early when most people were still queueing to get in you had no hope of being anything more than a spectator. However, there was more than just the biggest AAA titles on display, and I was very pleased to see an entire section of the show dedicated to indie games developers from around the world. Even the German government had its very own stand to show off some of the games being developed in Germany.  

With everything going on it was a great opportunity for photos, and I spent my entire day wandering around, absorbing the exciting atmosphere and snapping away at all the different subjects in front of my lens. This was the moment where I felt like I had really arrived in Japan. This was also my first time seeing cosplay in Japan, with everyone in their elaborate costumes standing outside in designated areas with a queue of photographers lining up to get their shots. It was exactly the same as how I’d seen it portrayed in anime! I didn’t do a lot of cosplay photography this time around, there wasn’t a lot of time given how much of everything else I wanted to see and I was also happy just to observe what everyone was doing. It was also interesting to see what camera gear everyone was using, especially their flash setups. I’d never seen so many Godox AD100 Pros being used at once, though it was definitely ideal for this situation.

Lastly the one thing I was keen on seeing and buying was (a little bit of) merchandise, which is unsurprisingly big business here with many things selling out. The type of person who comes to an event like this is also the type of person who likes having a few geek (or should I say Otaku) related items to take home to put on the mantel piece. With no Nintendo my options were a bit limited, but I did end up buying an acrylic of Sonic the Hedgehog and Mount Fuji. For me it ticked all the boxes.

Given that I live in Tokyo, and it is so easy and cheap to get about I definitely do want to make the most of that and attend more events during my time in Japan. I would also like to do more cosplay photography as it would be a fun way to do portrait work which I haven’t done a lot of in the past. In the biggest city in the world, there’s no shortage of opportunities.

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