Xboxen weighing as much as they do, I was unable to bring my 360 with me to Japan. Even though a brand spanking new PS3 was one of my first purchases upon landing, the last few months have been tough from a gaming point of view.

While Resistance proved to be rather excellent,  other big name titles like Minna No Golf 5 and Motorstorm left me completely cold. That the 360 was playing host to triple-A titles like Bioshock and, more recently, Halo 3 compounded my woe.

Anyway, last week I attended the Tokyo Game Show - press pass in hand, due to my work with gamestoaster. The event offered a glimpse into the direction the various industry players are heading.

Microsoft are still trying valiantly to win over the Japanese gamer, with big Japanese franchises like Winning Eleven, Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden and Virtua Fighter all appearing on the 360, as well as cult shooters Rez and Ikaruga. That Rez is coming to Xbox Live Arcade in hi-def bells & whistles form makes me all kinds of jealous.

It was Sony, though, that really impressed me. As well as having the undoubted game of the show on their console in Metal Gear Solid 4, they had such an array of titles on display that crossed every genre and demograph. Whereas currently their line-up consists of banal RPGs and racing games, over the next year that line-up will expand to include  big budget titles like Singstar, The Eye of Judgement, Killzone, Metal Gear Online, Time Crisis 4, beautiful indie titles like Echochrome and fl0wer, as well as some visually arresting, if not truly innovative, RPGs and racers like Valkyrie of the Battlefield and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, respectively. Playstation Home was kept under wraps, while the mysterious Afrika remains little more than a title and beautiful screenshots at the moment.

Add multi-platform titles like Assassin’s Creed, Guitar Hero III, Resident Evil 5 and Devil May Cry 4 to the list, and the next 12 month is looking good.

Until these games start to hit store shelves (Christmas is mercifully fast approaching, so the yearly deluge of games is about to begin), I’ll have to entertain myself with the Japanese-only 20th Anniversary box set of the Metal Gear games.

I had the pleasure to see Takashi Miike’s latest film - Sukiyaki Western Django - last night.

The film is Takashi Miike’s attempt at creating a Japanese-style Western - mixing six-shooters, whorehouses and cowboy hats with samurai swords, temple gates and kimono. Its title is an obvious nod to the ’spaghetti western’ genre.

True to form, it is a very strange film.

And ultimately, this is where the film both fails and succeeds. The unique setting is spectacularly realised, it’s a great credit to the production team that the old-west blends perfectly with old Japan. Had we been closer to Oscar season, I’d say Django would be a shoe-in for costume design.

It is this well-realised uniqueness that at times carries the film through slower moments. The plot of the film is a patchwork of well-trodden Western plots, and were it not for the Japanese twist, it would undoubtedly feel overly familiar.

And yet, being a Miike film, sometimes it gets a little too weird - for no discernible reason. There are a few scenes in the film which will leave you open-mouthed, scratching your head or wide-eyed, trying to process the events on screen. These don’t really add anything to the film, save to heighten its unique flavour (which isn’t particularly necessary, given the sword wielding cowboys and so on).

So, that is Sukiyaki Western Django. In terms of plot and characterisation, it’s as familiar as it comes. In terms of execution, it’s another one-of-a-kind from Miike.

I’m into my third week of teaching English classes at my Japanese high-school, and so first impressions are beginning to solidify into actual opinions. Here are a few:

Japanese students are painfully shy. This has its advantages, as they don’t need to be ruled with an iron fist, as many of my secondary school classes were, but it also has its disadvantages. Getting students to contribute to a class is like pulling teeth. From a stone.

Japanese high-school girls are not the playful sex kittens that they are so often portrayed as. Nor, as it turns out, are they proficient in medieval weaponry (a la Kill Bill), hand to hand combat (a la Battle Royale), and nor do they sell their used undies from vending machines (a la every article you’ve read about Japanese school girls/vending machines/Japan). However, they do, on occasion, like to play table tennis and softball.

Japanese high-school boys are like girls. They congregate in groups, giggle and blush. They boast ridiculously styled hair, designer belts and man-bags, and wouldn’t say boo to a ghost.

On a final, non-school related note:

Japanese banks are like Irish banks. OK, their ATMs close (yes, they close) at 6pm, and they seem to have ten staff milling about their branches for every customer, but in many ways, they’re the same.

I’m currently waiting for AIB to sort out my loan restructuring, which was applied for, signed for and approved by everybody a good 2 months ago. I’m also waiting, and have been for the last week, for my Japanese bank to send me out a new ATM card because they spelt my name wrong. If I’m lucky, I may receive it by next Monday. Which would be nice, because they’ve frozen my account until I do receive it, and with Pay Day being last Friday, I am none too happy. I don’t mind being ‘Breidan’ if they’ll let me use my own fucking bank account.