I went to TGS 2026-09-17, Thursday, the first business day of the show. I was a bit worried because I forgot to bring my business cards. This year you were able to add your ticket to Apple Wallet, so I did that, and then the morning when I left I forgot to bring the paper business cards that they ask you to bring. Luckily, I didn’t need them.

I left my place at about 8am, which got me to the line to wait for TGS to open at about 9:30am. That wasn’t too bad, since it opens at 10:00am. If you have the capability, I recommend going on the Business days. The Business days are pretty crowded, but the Public days are insane.

The first place I wanted to go was the Capcom Booth, which is over in Hall 7. You enter into Hall 1. So that is a bit of a walk. I went over that way, not stopping at any booths, though taking a few pictures on the way. I never made it back to Hall 1 (or 2 or 3 for that matter).

I got to the Capcom Booth, and first checked out the playable demo with Arjun, the new character. He seems like a lot of fun – now I’m not very good at Street Fighter, but have taken two characters to Master. I was able to play around with Arjun a bit, and I feel like people smarter than me will figure out some great set play and other stuff for him. I’ll probably mess around with him a bit, I like that he has a command grab, and the pillars are interesting. I’m probably not smart enough to make good use of the white damage mechanic he has. He looks really cool though.

They had a section on the upcoming Street Fighter movie, which looked cool. Later on in the day, I came back and they had a stage show with Nakayama-san (one of the two SF6 directors) on stage talking with some of the voice cast for the Japanese dub of the movie. It comes out in October, I’ll see if I can convince my family to come with me. If not, I’ll definitely be there opening night on my own for sure.

Next to the Capcom Booth was a Blanka’s Suzuki kei-truck, filled to the brim with Blanka-chan cushions. If you “collected” a digital sticker at this exhibit, and one from Juri’s Suzuki motorcycle, you could get one of the plush cushions.

Of course, I checked that out – I have a couple of pictures on this over the years, since it travels to EVO Japan, and Street Fighter League and the like. It is a nice motorcycle – I think it has been at least 25 years since I’ve ridden a motorcycle. It would be fun, but they seem so dangerous to me now. You also got a little towel for taking a picture.

Of course, I got the cushion. Momo loved it. I told her that we will have to share, because it is absolutely my favorite thing from TGS this year. I’m really proud – I didn’t spend any money on merchandise at all. Just 1400 yen on a hamburger.

After the Capcom booth, I went by the Wizardry: Variants Daphne booth. I’m a big fan of the gacha-game (I would prefer it more if it was not a gacha game, but that is how games are making money in the modern world.)

This year they had a Harken setup around a camp fire, which was cool. In the corner they had the bar setup from last year. If I’m not mistaken, Milana is Sameriochan, and Marianne is Satou Erina. The first time I went to the booth, I took a picture and tried the “LED Experience” which was a kind of version of the game where you stand in front of a huge LED screen, with screens on your left and right as well. You make choices (give a potion to a mother in the dungeon, choose to fight monsters to save a girl or a knight, etc.) and fight. It’s pre-scripted, and based on your choices you get a kind of sticker or something. For taking a photo or doing the LED experience you get one chance to pull pieces of paper for a prize from a box. I had amazing luck. I got the 2nd level prize on my first pull, which turned into a Wizardry Variants Daphne folder, and on the second pull I got the 1st prize, for which I selected an acrylic stand of Elmon. Last year I bought a bunch of the character stands, and I still haven’t unpacked them – I don’t have anywhere to stand them up! I really need to clean my office and get rid of some stuff.

Of course, I went back and got a picture when all the cosplayers were there. The full party:

To close out the cosplayers, I believe Shelirionarch is Soutarou, Ringoame is Ophelia, and Ago Ago is Flut.

After Capcom and Wizardry, I headed over to Hall 10, since in my notes I had a few things to check out. I knew that Yuka Kuramoti was supposed to be around the Grapht booth, so I headed that way. I also wanted to see if I could find Mochidzuki Ukaru, who was a mermaid at a booth in Hall 9. I didn’t have any luck finding either of them (though I did see Ukaru-chan on my way out, though I didn’t stop since she was chatting with someone). The only other thing I had planned was going to the Red Bull area for a Marvel Tokon introduction that Betty would MC for.

So I had some time, and went back to the main hall to see what I could find. Before that though, I went out to the food vendor area and had a nice hamburger. Not bad!

Atlus had a big Persona 4 section for their remake of that. I actually recently started playing the Person series – I played Persona 3 on my PS Vita a few years back, and maybe a year or two ago played Persona 4 Golden on my Steam Deck. I really enjoyed them both. Just about when I finished P3 they announced the remake of that, and the same for Persona 4. I have Persona 5 (and the tactical game too) that I haven’t started yet. Hopefully I’ll finish Persona 5 before they remake that, too.

Sega also had a tax cab for Crazy Taxi World Tour. I’m interested in that game too.

I also walked through the Final Fantasy area. I haven’t played any of the Final Fantasy 7 remakes. I would like to, but I am not sure which game to start with. I can’t believe they didn’t just name it Final Fantasy 7 Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

So, a bit before 3pm I went back to the Red Bull area and got a seat for the introduction to Marvel Tokon. The idea is that MameSpider, a well known fighting game player, would tell you in about an hour how to play the game. Betty was the MC, and she and Robin (another fighting game player) listened to MameSpider as he explained things. Dogura was also there, and he was learning for the first time too. He would later play MameSpider who hit him with some of the dirty Spiderman overhead mixups, which got some great reactions out of Dogura. Betty and Robin played, and it was lots of fun. All of the players were much, much better than me at quickly picking up the game. I have it at home, and have been trying to learn a few combos. I just recently did my first every ground combo into launch into air combo. It was very hard for me to learn, and it was like the 2nd combo they teach you. Still, it’s a fun game, and looks amazing!

After that, I headed home at about 4:30pm. The show closes at 5pm, so that timing worked out really well, I was able to beat the rush, and made it home by 6pm.

I had a lot of fun, but my feet were killing me. That venue is so large. I only really got to see about half of the place. I can’t go back tomorrow, I took a day off of work already, so I need to get back to work on Friday. Lots of fun though.