Hello everyone. If you don’t remember me, I am Kai, an animator here at PlatinumGames.

I haven’t blogged here since May, but I recently had the opportunity to check out the 2009 Tokyo Game Show, so I thought I would tell you about my experience.

I was actually at the show for 3 days, from September 24 – 26, but I was really excited for the September 26, when the show was opened to the public. I can’t tell you how much I was looking forward to finally seeing people play our game, especially as we have said time and again how much we want people to try out Bayonetta. I know I am not only speaking for myself when I say that all the PlatinumGames staff who went to the show felt the same way.

The last time I was at the Game Show as in 1995, when video games were presented at the Tokyo Toy Show. I remember being incredibly excited to see a version of Virtua Fighter 2 that was on display for the Sega Saturn. Looking back, the number of people at the show nowadays has really increased, hasn’t it? We lined up with everyone else to get into the show, but even though we got to the show 30 minutes before opening, it still took about an hour to get in.

Here is the Bayonetta booth. We went here right after we got into the show, shortly after 10 AM, and there was already restrictions being placed on those standing in lines. (More than a 2 hour wait to play and SEGA staff would stop allowing people to wait in line.) People weren’t just gathered around the demo stations, they were also gathering in front of a screen at the center of the booth that would show trailers and the new Bayonetta TV commercial. The booth was at a fever pitch!

We also went inside the booth to check it out.

Kamiya-san, Hashimoto-san, and the rest of the staff would stand to the side of the booth and soak in the atmosphere. What made us happiest was that the lines never died out, and that emotional experience continued, as we were able to see lots of excited people playing the game to the very end of the day. At around 3 PM, they shut down the line for Bayonetta, so there may have been some people there who didn’t get a chance to play. We truly apologize for this.

Kamiya-san was quite popular, and often had fans come up to him and say hello. He was happy to oblige their requests.

Shimako was also very popular.

Bayonetta was also featured in the Microsoft and Sony booths to a very warm reception, and we were lucky enough to be selected as one of the recipients of the Game Future Awards from the 2009 Japan Game Awards. They say that this award is given to those titles shown at Tokyo Game Show that have garnered the most amount of attention. Thank you so much to everyone who has supported us this far, and to all those who voted for us at Tokyo Game Show! Also, if you are in Japan, keep an eye on the official Bayonetta home page for information about our in-store events, the downloadable demo, and other hot news as we take the wraps off the latest information. Make sure you don’t miss anything.

One of my personal favorite things to do is camp out in a game store and watch people buying our game on the day it is released. I can’t wait to meet many of you when you are picking up Bayonetta.

A little bonus:

Kamiya-san was a guest at Capcom’s booth for their Ghost Trick talk show.

Kamiya-san wore a “Wicked Witch”　(Majo Saiban) printed t-shirt with a picture of Bayonetta on it. (Shimako and I were in charge of this bit of nefariousness.) Once he wrapped up with the event, he tossed the shirt out into the crowd.