Final Fantasy Piano Opera

I've been terrible with updating here, even when I've been to events related to Japan! ごめんね( ﾉД`)

This autumn the composer of Final Fantasy, Nobuo Uematsu, toured together with pianist Hiroyuki Nakayama and fortunatley they made a stop in Stockholm!

This was my first time to see Nobuo acctually, so it felt really special for me since I've admired his work for over 10 years! Just as the title implies the music was just played on piano, so no flashy effect etc. we might be used to in te original scores but I have to say the concert was beyond my expectations! I have a bit of a hard time just listening to piano or only guitar music. I think it's amazing to be able to enjoy a full set of instruments, it creates a completly different dynamic, but they had done an amazing job with re-working the songs, making them into longer scores mixing different songs. While playing the music we, the audience, got to watch various scenes from the games which I think added a good feeling to the experience.

The music which was performed was from Final Fantasy I to IX, I felt a bit sad they didn't include X which is my favorite game but しょうがない...

The most interesting part about this concert was the fact that inbetween the medleys Nobuo came up on stage and talked a bit about the songs and other various stuff. They also asked for special memories connected to Final Fantasy music from fans, and Nobuo picked some of those out and talked about them on stage. The weirdest moment was probably when a guy went down on his knee and proposed to his girlfriend! Afterwards they got to hear Melodies of Life from Final Fantasy IX.

Another fun part was when Hiroyuki got the question how it felt to work with Nobuo and he replied "like meeting God". He told us he'd been a fan of the Final Fantasy games and the music since he was a teenager, and even then he began playing the songs by himself on his piano.

If you bought a more expensive ticket you'd get to stay for a meet and greet with questions to Nobuo. I didn't, I had a Madonna concert 2 nighs afetrwards so I needed to save money. Hopefully I can attend something similaranother time!

Overall it was a very nice evening, I just can't get tired of anything related to Final Fantasy!

I found this poster at my uni!

GAMEX 2015

 For the last couple of years I've attended a swedish gamefair called GAMEX (except for last year since I was in Japan then), unfortunately this year they had it togheter with a comicfair.
Usually you get to try different games, they hold tournaments etc. This year I felt like most of the fair was dedicated to the comics though, I realised today I didn't even see any Nintendo games!! I was acctually very disappointed, leaving the event with only having tried the demo of the new Dragon Quest game.

I mean sure, it's not Tokyo game show but I expect to see a big variation of games...and A LOT of games not a bit less than half of the area with the most popular titles like Mirror's edge... I was acctually hoping to see a demo or at least a commercial for the newest Final Fantasy game.

Overall I did enjoy my visit, but I'm giving my friend credit for that :P

I always enjoy watching people who cosplay though and I found some pretty good Final Fantasy cosplays! (I was drawn like a moth to flames to Vincent Valentine <3) Something that really impresses me is the ability to make weapons... how do you even make that...

Artnia

 
In 2011 on my first visit to Tokyo I got lost in Shinjuku one day, and while cursing over my bad sense of direction I found a Square Enix store! It had a kind of weird location, by the highway between Shinjuku and Harajuku, but I made many visits and spent a lot of money in that store... (among many random stuff, I bought a Sephiroth perfume).

Not only was this store really cool because it had a lot of Final Fantasy items, but it had an innersection which was kind of dark and had a lot of reflective glass. In this section they sold more expensive items, like perfumes and jewelry, and most importantly, they had a realsize Sephiroth lying under glass in the floor! They also had Gackt's outfit from the Redemption PV standing in that section.

When I went back to Japan in 2012 I went back to the Square Enix store of course, this time during the evening and I was just planning what I should buy and then get back another day. When I got back another day the store was closed. Close, closed. I was so angry that I didn't buy what I wanted that evening!

A couple of months ago a friend of mine told me there was a Final Fantasy café in Shinjuku somewhere and that we should go there. After a little google:ing I realised it was the Square Enix store which just changed location, and last saturday we went there to check it out!

I was very excited for this restaurant/bar they opened since they had some Final Fantasy themed stuff on that menu.
The store is located a bit away from the Shinjuku station, but I don't mind walking. Just walk down to the area with Forever21 and MaruiOne etc. The building looks very special, almost like a tiny spacecraft, white and somewhat eggshaped. They had cute decorations outside with Chocobos and Cactuars!

Just like the old store, it had two sections, the first with the café area and regular shopping, then they had a similar "dark" room with jewelry. Unfortunatley Sephiroth was nowhere to be found, instead they had a very impressive rainfall and materia in the middle of the room!

As for the restaurant, since it's so small you have to write your name on a list and wait for a table (unless you're lucky and there's acctually a table available). They have food, like meat and pasta, but the themed food is sweets! There's parfait with a tiny chocolate sword or Yuffie's shuriken! Cocktails called potion or named after aeons, like the awesome looking, blue "Shiva".
I decided to try a cappucino and pancakes! When ordering they acctually ask if you want Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest themed food, so here's what my order looked like!

One of my friends acctually got a tiny chocobo on her pancakes aswell! I wont lie and say it was the best coffee and pancakes I've ever had, but it was fine and most importantly, I went there because I love Final Fantasy and just seeing a chocobo in my coffee made it worth the price!

Of course I made some shopping, this is what I got with me;

Cactuar glas and a clearfile

I really liked the old store, especially because that Sephiroth statue was one of the most awesomest things I've ever seen, but on the other hand I think it was a great idea to have a café/restaurant, I love how there's so many themed cafés in Tokyo! It's totally worth to visit, and to stand in line for almost 1 hour to get a table!

Link: http://www.jp.square-enix.com/artnia/en/

Next up will be livereports from BUCK-TICK's FISHTanker's ONLY live tomorrow and their Tour2014 metaform nights final gig on sunday! (yes...I'm going 2 days in a row...)