A small resort town, an inn, and a Virtual On Center in the middle of nowhere

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shamanic_beat
Virtual-On Positive
Posts: 457
Joined: 21 Jun 2009, 22:40

A small resort town, an inn, and a Virtual On Center in the middle of nowhere

Post by shamanic_beat »

I usually keep an eye out for the Japanese twittersphere regarding VO things, and something weirder than usual has popped up recently. Sometime around last week, I started seeing tweets about a Mokuba Virtual On Center/Mokuba School/Forest camp school. We talked about it on the discord channel, but I am sure everyone has missed it as no one would (nor should) dig through Porcupine and my off-topic ramblings. Therefore I have decided to make a brief post about it here.

WHAT in God’s name am I even talking about?
Someone in Japan has set up a Virtual On Center in a small inn named Ryokan Mokuzin. A ryokan, for those unfamiliar with the ways of Japan, is a sort of inn/resort where people can go to the middle of nowhere and just get away from life and relax. They typically serve gourmet meals prepared using seasonal ingredients and some are even equipped with hot springs.

This ryokan in particular offers no hot spring, but instead a Virtual On Center with many Virtual On model kits, multiple 360s and monitors, vacuum tube amplifier, custom speakers, and a 140 inch projector setup as their center piece.

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WHERE exactly is this place?
Hakuba, Japan. Hakuba is a ski resort town in the Alps, north of Nagoya. You can get there via train or bus. A night’s stay cost about $100 a night. If you want more information feel free to google Ryokan Mokuzin, there are various booking sites in English waiting to serve you.
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WHEN did this happen?
The Virtual On Centre was officially established on 11/11, aka Pocky Day/Twinstick Day in Japan. The Inn was destroyed in an earthquake back in 2014. They had to take it apart and rebuild it from the ground up. I supposed they decided to turn it into a Virtual On Center as they rebuild the place, as to why someone is insane enough to do this is a question I cannot answer.
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WHO did this?
柏原周平(Kashiwabara Shuhei in romaji?) is the man who runs the inn. He goes by the nickname BackYenNew(the name shares the pronunciation with 爆炎乳/Explosive Flaming Breast in Japanese). He is a Virtual-On fan and a garage kit maker. To say he is a strange character would be to flirt recklessly with understatement. The director of the Force department (pictured below) are quite interesting individuals as well.


WHY would you care?
It is always nice to see someone trying to keep Virtual On alive. They hosted the first Mokuzin Cup tournament just last week which may be of interest to some of you. I am personally fascinated by the fact that a bunch of folks negotiated through miles of countryside just to do an offline meet up and play some Virtual On. Here is the list of players and the results.
From Up to Down, Left to Right:

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(01)Cassy AT/Moteen ??? (02?) Buru-ri/??? (17)Aoruka DOR (09) Jag RAI (12) Silber(silver?) SPE (20) Bita FEI (29) sumal24u RAI (04) YOO ST (05) Hyugajin CYP (28) Yamada ST twinstick (21) Core RAI twinstick (13) Nakane CYP (16) Riding The Blade??? RAI twinsticks (24) Tesoga (25) Dokufu TEM (08) SOYOHANE (Soyoka) CYP

(07) Kaieda TEM (26) Kabune CYP (23) [illegible]DOR (15) Bon-chan or Pon-chan BT (14) Hio FEI DOR(22) Joe AG DOR (27) Ki-ru GRY twinsticks (26) The Emissary From North America DOR pad
(03) NRO BT twinstick (30) AZY Type R RAI BT (19) Ghost RAI (11) E Panterid S twinstick (10) Miwamiwa fei TWINSTICK (18) Zera-chan DOR (31) Osen BAL (02) Momo TEM

1st Place sumal24u
2nd Place AZR
3rd Place Soyoka
4th Place Joe

Recordings of the fight courtesy of Moteen.
https://www.twitch.tv/moteen/v/100563212
https://www.twitch.tv/moteen/v/100565080


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It's like they went in trying to build a VO shrine and accidentally put an inn around it.

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The cup.

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An impressive display of Virtual On kits. Note the lit up Raiden.

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Their family treasure: a pair of twinsticks signed by Watari and Yasuhiro Mori

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Upon enter you will be greeted by this lady with giraffe legs. She is apparently a character from various VO side material.

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A tangram fishcake.

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Sticks.


LINKS
The manager's twitter
https://twitter.com/backyennew

A very normal looking Facebook page of the inn with no Virtual On stuff
https://www.facebook.com/mokuzinyado/about/
Last edited by shamanic_beat on 21 Nov 2016, 18:50, edited 3 times in total.
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Porcupine
Virtual-On Positive
Posts: 593
Joined: 19 Jul 2012, 19:07

Re: A small resort town, an inn, and a Virtual On Center in the middle of nowhere

Post by Porcupine »

Oh, I think that anikingVOOT was eliminated in the first round by Kirl51, a Grys-Vok player. That was a winnable match, I've been able to beat him since years ago. He would have had to face JoeVC next, an Angelan (not Dordray) player. He had a winnable bracket.

Winner of the tournament was sumal24u Raiden, someone I started playing Ranked matches with over the last year.

If there is no hot spring I guess they should have a swimming pool. There is not much girls but dokufu is there and maybe there is another girl as there is a Temjin named momo. Temjin is the second most popular VR for girls.
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