Whee! A Wii I Can Call My Own

You’d think Japan would be giving them away. You’d walk into any old toy store or dry cleaners and they’d simply give you a Wii on the way out – sort of a thank you for favoring them with your presence. You know, kind of like how shopkeepers will chase you down the street with free mikan. The Wii has caused a splash in the gaming market – and even though I haven’t been privy to the advertising (was there much?) due to my lack of comprehensive television I managed to hype myself up. All. By. My. Self.

I spent the first week of January scouring Kyoto only to have shopkeepers look at me with a mixture of pity and incredulity. Some merely laughed. “You want a Wii, do you? Are you mad? Well you’re out of luck. Check back in four to five years when they’re obsolete and no one wants one anymore.” Store after store greeted me with handwritten signs taped to the Wii boxes. Through a multitude of complicated, boxy Chinese characters I was able to translate the most important part: “Sucker.”

The infuriating aspect of the Kyoto excursion was the fact that I saw a couple Wiis lying around the city, taunting me. Among the mess of food stalls at the very many temples scattered throughout Kyoto there would be a video game stall sitting there like a little oasis of slothful entertainment. One could find delicious yakisoba, chewy, slimy octopus balls, okonomiyaki with complimentary extra mayo and then stock up on Nintendo products not a foot away. They had Wiis. But were they legitimate Wiis? It’s a valid question. Are there charlatan monks out there who would permit the selling of bogus Wiis on their sacred temple grounds? I don’t know. Part of me thought that if I purchased one there I’d be happily pleased with the new technology – My, how light this new system is! Only to come home and find that my new Wii was, in fact, a sexy looking, yet very empty white plastic box whose only function was lighting up when the AC adapter was plugged in.

Things always come when you’re least looking for them. While a major city like Kyoto was all sold out, I managed to unexpectedly find one in my very own prefecture completely by accident.

The Wii makes me wonder how I ever played without a motion sensor before. I have only just started Twilight Princess but am enthralled with how I can order Link to pull out his twig of a sword with a simple wrist flick. Shit. That was awesome. AGAIN. AGAIN. Whilst my over-developed thumb muscles are thanking me for giving them a bit of a rest, my right shoulder is wailing from all the sports I have recently started playing. A few good hours playing tennis, boxing, golf and baseball and I suddenly feel like a jock. While I call these “sports,” perhaps I should qualify them as “Sports For Nerds.” I do indeed think that my right latissimus dorsi feels a bit more toned.

I view my new purchase not so much as an entertainment gadget, but as an investment into my lingual enlightenment. Zelda is entirely in Japanese with all the kanji pronunciations written out in miniscule furigana which will cause me to lose my eyesight completely. I will surely pick up helpful words like “slingshot,” “fairy,” “Pool-Of-Everlasting-Life-And-Euphoria” and “Hero’s-Sword-Forged-By-Blind-Gorgon.” I have already spent some time sitting on my tatami floor, glaring at the screen, waving the nunchuck controllers around in a frenzy, cursing the sassy town children who refuse to give me instructions in English as to what the devil they want me to do.

I am illiterate Link.

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Published:
1.25.07 / 6pm
Category:
what i call life, unschoolish