Tag: Brian Ashcraft

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Games Meta Tokyo Walking Web

Gawkerless

The news of the sale of Gawker Media and the closure of Gawker.com was a sad one for me. I consider myself very thankful and lucky that early in my writing career I had the opportunity to write for three Gawker sites (Kotaku, Gizmodo, and Gridskipper). These things happened after I had the chance to spend some time with Nick Denton (as well as Joel Johnson) on one of his visits to Tokyo — having lunch and then drinks in various spots around the city. What he was doing with his new media company was incredibly exciting for me — a budding writer — and I felt privileged to be asked to contribute to what he was building.

Considering my love of games, writing for Kotaku was certainly a highlight — and it’s how I met and later became friends with Brian Ashcraft, with whom I was lucky enough to contribute on a book we did together, called Arcade Mania, about Japan’s game centers. The site I contributed to the most though was Gridskipper, a now-defunct urban travel site that saw me contribute Tokyo-related posts (which made sense, as it was similar to the type of content I was covering on my personal blog).

A lot of crazy things have happened to Gawker.com and Gawker Media over the years, and I just want to thank Nick for keeping us entertained all these years, and for the support I got at that point in my life. Can’t wait to see what he’s planning next.

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Books Games Meta Stores TB.Grafico

Kodansha’s Pop Culture Family of Books

I was happy to see that top shelf pictured at the Junkudo book store in Ikebukuro, bringing together that great little collection of Japanese pop culture books from Kodansha International. I remember that when Arcade Mania came out, because we were the first, it was actually challenging for bookstores to place the book, as it wasn’t obvious where it should go. But with the addition of all those other books that ended up using the same format — Matt Alt and Hiroko Yoda’s Yokai Attack and Ninja Attack, Brian’s Japanese Schoolgirl Confidential, and Patrick W. Galbraith’s The Otaku Encyclopedia — it now makes sense to display them together. I think the next step is the creation of a box set — how great a Christmas gift would that be!

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Books

Japanese Schoolgirl Confidential

I just posted something about the new book Japanese Schoolgirl Confidential on SNOW Magazine, but wanted to mention it here too. It’s Brian Ashcraft’s follow-up to Arcade Mania, to which I contributed, and I can assure you that fans of AM will absolutely love Confidential too. It’s done in the same style and was edited by Andrew Lee, who had a hand in all of the recent “pop culture” guides from Kodansha International, including AM, The Otaku Encyclopedia, and Matt Alt‘s Yokai Attack and Ninja Attack.

The book is now out everywhere — here are links to Amazon US and Amazon Japan. Oh, and the contributor of the book, Shoko Ueda? That’s Brian’s wife who, you know, was an actual schoolgirl, so you know it’s legit.

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Books Games

Game Center Dilemma

Matt Alt shares the responses from a 2channel post that asks Japanese gamers what they play when they go to game centers. The last one he highlights is a bit sad (but almost understandable):

Whenever my friends and I go to the game center we basically stand around for a while and leave because there isn’t anything a beginner can just start playing.

I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t mention that for more on the game center scene in Japan, you should definitely pick up a copy of Arcade Mania by Brian Ashcraft and little ol’ me — makes for a great stocking stuffer!