AA LEGION: JAPAN

OKINAWA DREAMING

AS STEWBACCA WILL BE IN JAPAN ATTENDING THE KRYTAC OWNERS MEET FOR AIRSOFT ACTION, WE’RE DELIGHTED TO ONCE AGAIN BRING YOU A STORY FROM OUR GOOD FRIEND AND LEGION ASSOCIATE MARCK! NOW A SOLID PART OF THE LAYLAX CREW, HIS CONTINUING ADVENTURES IN AND AROUND JAPAN ARE ABLY DOCUMENTED ONLINE BUT HE’S BEEN KIND ENOUGH TO GO INTO A LITTLE MORE DEPTH ESPECIALLY FOR US AS HE VISITS OKINAWA TO CHECK OUT AIRSOFT THERE!

For those unfamiliar, airsoft as we know it was born on the island nation of Japan and over the years it’s made its way far and wide, even into South Park! With that in mind, I hope this article can serve as a follow up to my first article where I talked about my thoughts on Airsoft in Japan after moving here.

Over the weekend of October 22nd and 23rd 2022, the team and I made our way down to the tropical island paradise of Okinawa. If you are a history buff, you might find the name of this island familiar and you would be right because it was featured heavily during WWII. With that traumatic event in the past, Okinawa now serves not only as a Japanese Prefecture but also the home of several United States military bases.

Being one of the most important locations for to the United States Pacific Command it’s to no one’s surprise that you will get a lot of crossover and cultural mixing between the Japanese population and the population of American servicemen and their families. Keeping this in mind, it’s easy to see why playing in Okinawa felt very different than playing on Mainland Japan!

To start, the first thing we noticed when we got to the field Okinawa Airsoft Group Legion (OAG Legion) or Legion was that the rules were all both English and Japanese. The second thing that stood out was the operators there that helped run the field were exceptionally fluent in English and Japanese (of course). Not to the fault of the Japanese people, the rest of the country while generally is bilingual, airsoft fields are sadly not. I often find myself sitting in on a briefing about the field and rules completely oblivious to what’s being said. Though things are getting better, I went from understanding 0 to about 5%. It was very refreshing to understand the game rules, field rules, and all the associated information in a language I could quickly understand without needing a translator!

DIFFERENT, BUT THE SAME!

Outside of what I previously mentioned, the biggest standout was who the players were and how they played. There were far more foreigners, mainly Americans, that came to play. There were military service members, contractors, and families. It felt quite confusing as this was the first time while living here that there were more foreigners than Japanese locals; it almost felt like I was back in the US! This also transferred into the playing experience as well as the play-style was quite different from how airsoft is play here on the mainland.

On mainland Japan, players are usually more careful when they play. They peek-shoot and like to be more cautious and precise with their shots or they like to generally rush while combining peek shooting. Playing with the community down there in Okinawa, they didn’t do much of that if any at all. The only people who played in this cautious, peek shooting style were the locals. The Marines that we played with were all just moving as they would during training and it was surprisingly refreshing! It was fun to be able to play in a style or way that I was familiar with and the other team members with me were just the same. The flow of the game and movement between team mates were very natural and made for an extremely fun experience.

BUT! There was one more thing that added extra fun to the whole dynamic and that was having to play within the same Japanese rules and

regulations. Playing within the Japanese rules and regulations and how it applies to your airsoft guns really adds a small wrinkle to how you experience airsoft. What this means is you have to move more because at longer ranges, lower powered guns just have less velocity, thus making them harder to reach out and hit further targets. With that said, hiding doesn’t do you too much good, so while rolling with the Marines was fun, the Japanese players were more than able to hold their own!

WEST MEETS EAST

All in all, if I had to sum up how it felt like playing airsoft in Okinawa, it would be “a melting pot”. At times, it felt like I was overseas. However, given how many foreigners we were playing there you never forgot you were in Japan. You can see how some of the foreigners living in Japan have adapted their playing style to match Japanese fields and the same can be said about lots of the Japanese people adapting their styles to work better with foreigners. The community down there is much like the island itself; it’s a joyous mixture of both the West and Japan. While they don’t always mix perfectly all the time, the times that they do come together it makes for a uniquely “Okinawa” experience that you cannot get anywhere else!

For anyone travelling to Okinawa and needing an airsoft fix, you can reach out to the local community via the Okinawa Airsoft Group page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/OAG2010/) or check out their adventures on their own YouTube Channel (OAG)! AA