I’ve been to Kyoto castle AND Nintendo HQ. Funny story, my ex, who was Japanese, and I were at Nintendo HQ, some lady came out and started asking her questions. Apparently they were ready to let me in because they thought I was some important visitor they were expecting and assumed my ex was just my translator. I was kinda mad at her for not running with it and see how long we could’ve kept the con going.
Instead they just threw us out of the premises.
Honestly, the nerd shit in Japan got old real quick though. It’s like once you’ve seen one store, you’ve pretty much seen all of them. I was able to get my hand on the Japanese version of God Hand, which included the soundtrack. That was pretty neat. Clerk gave me a thumbs up when I bought it too. That motherfucker knew what was up, lemme tell you guys.
I also got called a chicken loving gaijin by some guy on a train apparently. Don’t know what prompted him to say that.
Anyway, I have nothing relevant to add to this topic. Japan is beautiful. After going there just once, if you come back still with the impression that it’s all anime shit, you’d have to be a complete dummy to have missed everything else around you.