Duly noted. I think it'd be wise to follow your advice particularly given everything he posts is notoriously unreliable and unsubstantiated. I think ultimately because we're rapidly approaching the time frame where real news about the anniversary game/games is going to be coming I'm getting a bit ahead of myself desperate for news regardless of the source. I'll wait until something confirmed and real comes along from a reliable source before posting anything else and then we'll at least have something real and concrete to discuss. At least real news about the anniversary should be close on the horizon now. Excited to see Sonic Team's game.
No it was in a completely different part of Japan, but that's the best explanation I can come up with You could probably find it on street view and cross reference from there - the only information I could find is that it existed in 2009, and it was still quite weathered: p.s. does anyone know why the Japanese can't take photos? Everything I find is always these low quality crappy JPEGs that look as if they've been taken with 15-year-old equipment. I've spent a lot of time looking for crap for Sega Retro, and you get these blogs with sub-640x480 resolution shots of things, auction sites where you can't really see what you're buying, and virtually nothing taken before the year 2005. I get that Google probably isn't the best search engine to use for Japan, but Fujifilm, Sony, Nikon, Canon - these are all Japanese companies that invent cutting-edge photography equipment and yet they never seem to be put to use in their home market. There's a bazillion Sega Worlds and a whole heap of Sega-related things dotted across the country... and yet I can never find photos. Weird, man.
The weathering suggests its been their since the 90s, long before Generations it has nothing to do with that. Tracker stems to think that its in Nabari in the Mie Prefecture. anything SEGA related or was SEGA related around there?
My main guess is there's probably a small Club SEGA in the area or something. The Streetview suggestion is a good idea, I reckon.
Hmm, so it's not 2015-new. Oh well, at least it's still post-90s "neoclassic" Sonic art. I hope they're still keeping around whoever made the designs for those t-shirts, because they looked amazingly cool and on-model.
Or was, the area looks very remote. if their was a club SEGA it may be gone now. Do we have a list of Club SEGA's that have existed and still exist?
Don't know how it is nowadays, but for years, internet quality in Japan was kinda crap, hence the prevalence of text-only sites and all. I'd imagine the habit of small photos keeps from those times.
A quick search on Streetview for roads in Mie prefecture - even limiting it to Nabari - reveal it's something of a needle in a haystack. We're going to need some more info if we've got any chance of finding this. It does look like an Expressway though, here's an example of the E368: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@34.6027703,136.1698894,3a,75y,235.29h,73.45t/ (drag and drop onto it)
Yeah we need to find a road thats commonly used by motorcyclists but its also scenic, he was out there to not only test the endurance of his bike in those mountainous conditions but to do some scenic driving.
Most of that's sensible but I'm not so sure on the avoid-major-roads thing - if you look at a lot of Japanese minor roads they're single track, and the one in the shot plainly isn't. <p> <p> https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CWp_8NJUEAAK2u0.jpg:large> <p> <p>It does look like it's by a valley or large dip, so a road that runs around the edge of one?<p> <p> A very good point there about keeping the location secret if it IS found - I suggest if anyone does somehow luck onto it they PM staff about it rather than post publically, at least until such time as we can figure out what to do with the information.
Apologies if this ends up being complete nonsense, or has already been debunked/laughed at, but this is the first I've heard of it. I'm not sure how solid the evidence is that there's going to actually be a 25th anniversary game (apart from 'quite likely'!), but Johnny Gioeli's official FB page just kinda... Casually mentioned it like it was nothing? He sounds relatively sure that it's going to be a thing at least. No clue how much info really gets to him though. He may just be making assumptions based on what fans may have told him. Either way, some food for thought.
You'd have to be pretty deranged to travel to a relatively remote region of Japan to steal a nearly 20 year old statue for giggles.
and p.s. if it does get damaged... There's plenty more undocumented Sega crap out there. There are many Sega Retro pages to be made: http://segaretro.org/Sega_Retro:Todo/Venues http://segaretro.org/Hi-Tech_Land_Sega http://segaretro.org/Club_Sega http://segaretro.org/Sega_Arena http://segaretro.org/Sega_World_%28Japan%29 As far as Japan goes, I think I'm the only one who's cared up until this point? :v:
Hey it's that thought to be relatively new classic Sonic art that popped up a few pages back. Wonder how old that art actually is?