Yuji Naka @ the Eurogamer Expo 2010!

This is the reason why I had to run off to the expo after spending a scant few hours at Hyper Japan, although truth be told, I had a good look at all the stalls within that time anyway!

As for the Hyper Japan Loot, One item I bought was the new Yoshiyuki Sadamoto artbook. Had quite a lot of evangelion art as usual but this time there was also art from Gunbuster 2, FLCL and summer wars to name a few

Some of the art was also used as the basis for some recently announced figures, like these 2!

So we've had Moe rice, Moe noodles and moe *insert whatever you can think of here*
so next we have some Moe sake. These bottles were purchased from the JAL store at Hyper Japan. Haven't opened them up yet but the colour on the bottles are due to the glass, not the sake inside!

I guess JAL knows how to market their stuff to certain consumers. FYI, The girls are all named and the blue bottled sake is really smooth to drink. Next to no alcoholic kick to it at all! The pink one had quite a strong one tho.

I wonder how many people know what this is...

Bak to the Eurogamer Expo and Yuji Naka was there to talk about his new game Ivy the Kiwi? for wii and DS. There were plenty of questions about his time at sega and sonic the hedgehog too. We learned that the insipration for ivy the Kiwi? was from him experiencing fatherhood for the first time, the idea behind sonic the hedgehog and the fact that he was initially meant to be a rabbit!

There was also a Q&A session afterwards but the translator was kinda naff. I asked a question about burning rangers, the last sonic team game for the sega saturn. I wanted to know how he felt about the game, if he had some fond memories of it and if the series was something he would be willing to revisit in the future.
Sadly, the translator messed up my question and changed it from "what are your views on a game on the sega saturn" to "what are your views of the saturn"
Maybe I should have just embarrased myself and asked direct in japanese, badly!!
But it wasn't all bad. One cool thing happened at the end

At the end of the session, Yuji Naka challenged the entire room to a game of rock paper scissors. If you lost or drew with him, you were out.
The prize? A signed Ivy The Kiwi? picture book signed by the man himself. Like the one I have here!!!
The artbook also goes into a little bit of spoiler territory as it explains why there's a question mark in the title. I won't spoil it for you but there is a reason.

That was pretty much the coolest thing that happened that weekend. The rest was lost in a blur of Shochu and bad Karaoke singing with friends who went to the Expo... Don't ask!!