Konpira-san, Kotohira

At the top of the Konpira-san trail.

At the end of August last year, I still had three days of summer leave to take before the next school term kicked off in September. I'd originally been planning on using this time to pop over to Hong Kong, but it became apparent that I'd left it perhaps a little too late, and that this would no longer be a plausible option by the end of the month.

So, I simply took the last three days of the month off. Again, I thought about spending those days and the weekend doing a little five-day island tour around the Seto inland sea, but decided ultimately that a better way to spend my time was finishing off the edit on a long-standing film project of mine. You can see the fruits of that labour in the form of Fatal Attractions, which you can watch on YouTube here (you can also read about it on my Film Blog here). After two days of solid editing which finished off the film, I decided to treat myself on the Friday by heading off to Kotohira and finally visiting the famous mountain of Konpira-san.

The streets of Kotohira.

Kotohira is only about an hour away on the local train line for me, and had long been on my personal hit-list for staying in Kagawa. It's a small town which contains a famous mountain, which houses Shikoku's most iconic shrine; Konpira-san. The shrine actually houses elements of both Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, but was offiically declared to be a shrine during the Meiji Period. It's dedicated to sailors and seafarers, and is one of the most popular in all of Japan. Many other ALTs had recommended it to me, and I decided to spend a day experiencing it for myself.

Approaching the shrine is a daunting task, said to be one of the most grueling in all of Japan. A total of uphill 1368 steps stand between the traveller and their ultimate destination at the inner Okusha shrine. A daunting challenge in the intense summer heat of Kagawa, but I was very much up for it.

Beginning the climb.

Getting to the shrine in the first place initially seemed tricky, as I wasn't quite sure where to go from the station. A few other pedestrians were heading in the right direction, though, and I quickly stumbled upon arrows and signs leading me along the correct way. I accessed the path by heading through a very deserted (and small) shopping street, and was certain that I was heading the wrong way, but it turned out to be correct as the plentiful numbers of travellers at the exit of the arcade soon confirmed.

The shrine was very busy when I first arrived, and I was surprised to see that the start of the journey was predominantly lined with tourist shops and restaurants near the bottom of the shrine. I stopped at one of the stalls on my ascent to buy a drink from a local vendor, as I was already starting to sweat in the intense heat. I had one heck of a journey ahead of me, and I'd stocked up with two bottles of water, but I wanted to keep them for the climb rather than wasting them when I didn't need to.

Juice break.

The path to the main hall.

I carried on up the path, surrounded by plenty of other people with the same idea. It was quite a crowded ascent, and the steps weren't too steep at this point - the biggest challenge was simply the heat. It wasn't long before I was sipping on the first bottle of water as sweat began to drip down my head. Still, I pushed on.

Steps. So many steps.

After about three quarters of an hour, I arrived at the main hall of the shrine. At first, I thought I'd reached my destination, and suddenly I thought; "Huh, that wasn't so bad." Plenty of other tourists had stopped and were taking photographs, and there was a beautiful ledge to stop and take photographs of the area surrounding Kotohira from. I was feeling rather pleased with myself, thinking that the challenge hadn't been too difficult at all. I hadn't realized, of course, that I had only climbed up the first 785 steps. I had reached the finishing point for a lot of people, but the true peak of the shrine lay another 583 steps ahead of me.

The Main Hall area.

A view of Kotohira.

It wasn't long before I realised my error, and saw the narrow path that was slightly concealed from view at the far side of the main hall. I would guess more than a few people who have turned back here have simply failed to realise that there is more to the journey, and haven't spotted the path continuing on to the far side of the main hall. After stopping to take plenty of photographs and more water, I carried on up the path.

The path continues.

This time, the route was much quieter. There were very few people around, and the steps were much steeper and overrun with vegetation. It was immediately clear that this route was much less well travelled, as the forest on each side of the path swelled and closed in on all sides, with the sky mostly visible by looking directly above rather than through the thick trees. It was also much more scenic and beautiful than the path I had travelled up until now. It was a much more intimate experience, even with the few other travellers who were trickling down around me as they descended from the path.

The walk to the top.

More stairs.

I took a short video from my time climbing this section, and you can see here just how hot I'm feeling from all of the heat (you can also hear quite a few cicadas). I swear that's the genuine sound of my footsteps, and that I didn't force the sound at all.

I soon realized that I had run out of water - despite bringing two full bottles with me! It was unfortunate, as I wasn't sure how much more I would still have to climb, but I decided to push on anyway. I was so close to the summit, and despite the heat I wasn't feeling too dehydrated. I carried on, and made it into the highest shrine only about twenty minutes later. All in all, the journey had taken me about an hour and a half.

At the inner shrine.

The "inner" shrine up here was absolutely lovely. It was a very small area, only a few feet across in each direction, with a small area for Shinto practitioners to pray. There was a small shop next to the shrine, where a man sold traditional Shinto trinkets; it wasn't tacky, and the objects on sale were all traditionally Japanese omamori (a kind of charm) and similar items. I picked up a couple of these as gifts, then sat back and just enjoyed the atmosphere.

 
The view from the top.

 The small shop in the shrine.

It was incredibly peaceful up there. Every now and then, a couple or a few people would arrive and pray at the shrine, but mostly it was very quiet save for myself and the shopkeeper. It was a uniquely tranquil place.

A man comes to pray at the shrine and admire the view.

At one point, two local travellers were pointing up at something on the cliff wall above me. I followed their direction and found a couple of small, concealed demon faces in the wall. Yet another subtle feature of this beautiful area, and very easy to miss.

Faces in the wall.

I stayed at the top of the shrine for a while as I got my breath back and enjoyed the atmosphere. However, night was starting to set in, and there was an ALT event back in Takamatsu that evening that I didn't want to be too late for. I stood up and casually made my way back down the mountain. The light stroll in the evening was much more steadily paced than my journey to the top, and I couldn't help but keep stopping repeatedly in order to take photographs of all the newly lit paper lanterns.

Beautiful.

Arriving at the base of the mountain, the once densely populated tourist area was cleared out completely by the time I arrived at the bottom. It felt like a ghost town; an almost eerie sensation, but also quite peaceful. I couldn't believe the contrast from earlier on in the day.

Peace and quiet.

I found a quiet little local restaurant where I popped in for a very traditional Japanese dinner, before jumping on the train back to Takamatsu.

Waku Waku Sonic Patrol Car: Part Three

Note: This post is aimed primarily at fans of obscure, retro Sonic the Hedgehog stuff. If you aren't interested in gaming or Sonic, then definitely skip this one: it'll be of no interest to you whatsoever.

Despite the popularity of my Waku Waku Sonic Patrol Car videos, I was never quite happy with the play-through I did. Partially this is because I looked awfully silly playing it by myself, and also because I talked over most of the game-play. My solution was to go back and record it again, this time with my good friend Rainer Wessels in tow to hold the camera while I focussed on just playing the game.

You can watch the second play-through here:

For the sake of archiving for the Sonic community, I also took a number of photographs of the machine itself and the game in action, and have decided to include a small gameplay breakdown for those interested in how the game actually plays.

Note that the gameplay pics were a little tricky to capture, and are at fairly strange angles. This is because of the movement of the cabinet, and the difficulty of trying to play the game and capture shots at the same time. Apologies for the wobbly-ness!

The Cabinet

The cabinet found was in fairly good condition, although dirt had obviously accumulated and a few scratches were evident. The paintwork and labels were still vibrant, although one of the light-bulbs had gone out. I'm pretty sure most of the cabinets still around today would have the same level of wear and tear.

The Controls

Steering Wheel: Pretty standard stuff. It's very light, though, and feels very loose in relation to the movement on screen.

Indicator: Quite a nice little feature. By moving the indicator up and down, you can indicate which lane of traffic you're planning to move in to, which will show up with the flashing lights in game. Just like a real car! It seems the other cars in the game do respond to this, and will move accordingly.

Accelerator: Press to accelerate the car with your foot. However, the car moves constantly anyway, so this is pretty unnecessary. No brake included (or a clutch - presumably Sonic likes to drive automatic).

"Spin Jump": Basically Sonic's spin attack! I was pretty surprised to see this included in the game. Sonic will jump out of the car and do his trademark move, although it's totally useless until Eggman shows up towards the end of the game. Using the spin attack is the only way to attack Eggman. It works in a similar way to the homing attack in later Sonic games: if close enough, Sonic will automatically move towards and hit Eggman without needing to be directed with the steering wheel.

"Turbo": Unleashes a turbo boost for the car, complete with fire / smoke coming from the exhaust. However, there's no reason to use it other than for fun, as it has no practical application within the game.

"Siren Switch": Pressing this button causes the police car to flash it's siren, which occurs both in game and on the lights of the cabinet unit. Again, there doesn't seem to be any practical in-game use, but maybe I just haven't discovered it.

Title Screen

Fading in from black, Sonic drives his car in from the right of the screen and jumps to the centre. After addressing the player, he jumps back into the car and spins around a sign which rises in the middle, asking for 100 yen to play.

After a cycle, Sonic drives his car off to the right of the screen, which fades to black again.

Gameplay

Sonic begins the game by jumping out of the doorway of police headquarters. 

Sonic jumps into his police car, and away we go. This sequence can't be skipped.

Sonic moves out into the traffic. The aim is simply to move among the cars and avoid crashing into them.

If you hit the side of the screen, Sonic will spin out of control (with a forward momentum), and the player will lose control of the car temporarily.

Sonic automatically slows down at a crossing, while animals from the first Sonic game walk across the road. Again, this can't be skipped (and you can't chase after the animals GTA-style).

When the lights go green, the player can move again.

After another small journey forward, Eggman shows up for a boss fight. He knocks all the other cars off the road, before trash-talking Sonic.

Eggman throws bombs at Sonic which must be avoided. If they hit, the car will spin out of control.

The fight can be won fairly easily, just by hitting him with the spin attack / homing attack at least once. The car must be relatively near Eggman to hit him, at which point Sonic will automatically move towards Eggman for a direct hit. If Sonic is positioned too far away, he will simply do a spin attack directly forward and miss.

After a set period of time, the fight ends. If Sonic has managed to hit Eggman, then Eggman's car will explode and he'll run away on foot. However, if no hits have landed, then Eggman's car will simply drive away intact.

Sonic turns left into what appears to be the same police station he started from (although how the geography on that works out is anyone's guess). He drives his car in and stops at the entrance, giving a thumbs up to the player. As the music fades, he clearly says "Thank you!" to the player.

Ranking Screen

Following the game, players are given a ranking on their performance in a star system. I've only ever managed to achieve three stars, but there appears to be room for five. I'm not sure what additional qualifications would be required to get more than three, as I've been able to play the game without any traffic collisions or notable mistakes.

Following this, it's back to the title screen.

Verdict

Well, it's meant for kids. And very young ones, at that. I'm in no way the target demographic for this (and I certainly felt pretty self-conscious giving it a go).

It's a very easy game, and - given that it's rigged so that it's impossible to lose - there isn't much challenge involved, other than trying to avoid the other cars on the road. It definitely would do it's intended job for young children well enough, as I'm sure they'd love this style of simple gameplay.

Despite the strange brand fusion (Sonic the Hedgehog and... highway patrol?), it's surprising how well the Sonic franchise is utilised. In addition to using Sonic and Eggman (as well as cameoing the cast of animals seen in the first game), the use of iconic music from the original Mega Drive/Genesis game sets off all kinds of happy childhood memories. It raises a smile for nostalgia's sake, and for that, I can't help but be fond of it.

Farewell

The cabinet was situated in this second hand book store at Aeon Takamatsu, Kozai, in Takamatsu City, Kagawa prefecture, Japan.

Sadly, at time of writing, this store has now been converted into a furniture and home-ware store, and the Waku Waku machine inside is no where to be found. Whatever happened to it is unknown. Unless it was sold, its either sitting in a warehouse somewhere, or perhaps in a scrap heap. Who knows.

Still, it was fun to be able to have stumbled upon this little bit of hidden and obscure Sonic the Hedgehog history. If anyone finds any more of these machines I'd be curious to hear about them, as they appear to have been all-but forgotten about by SEGA. Maybe one day they'll show up on a Sonic anthology collection, but that's probably unlikely. It's by no means a challenging game (or even that enjoyable, really), but it's one of the earliest attempts of expanding Sonic as a franchise back in the early 90s, and I think its notable for that reason.

Who knows how many more of these cabinets are still scattered around Japan? Certainly not me, but if you do happen to find one, give it a go for 100 yen. It's a fun little step back in time to the early 90s, right at the beginning of the popularity of one of gaming's most revered and iconic characters.