Welcome back everyone… Today we’re going to continue the coverage from our visit to Tactical Art in Osaka, Japan. When we last left off, I had just about finished taking a tour around the shop and taking photos of everything that caught my eye. We were set to take off to dinner soon so I headed upstairs to their showroom to check  out what everyone was up to. The rain had started to come down pretty hard so the shop area was pretty cold. The showroom would provide some relief from the cold and I could also take a moment to take a seat and rest my bad back. Having to drag around my broken luggage everywhere from train to train had really done a number on my back and the cold was definitely not helping, especially since I was constantly moving around. It was also good to finally be able to spend some time with the Tactical Art guys since I don’t get to see them very often….

Everything important that pertained to our visit as well as the back story on the relationship between Tactical Art and The Chronicles was detailed in Part 9, so please be sure to check that out if you missed it. All the details shots of their current projects were also documented there. The second half of the Tactical Art coverage you’re seeing right now shows more of the personal side of things along with our dinner with them at a Japanese BBQ spot. There was a ton of reading in the previous post so I’ll spare you guys the long paragraphs today. There are actually only two parts that remain in our 12-part Japan Trip coverage and I’m honestly a little bummed that it is over. Going through all these photos now and writing about them is helping me relive the entire trip. I think once it is all done I’ll finally come to the realization that my trip is actually over. Though we were able to spend a week in Japan, I really wish I had more time over there. There was just so much more left to be seen and I’m really aiming for another vacation out there…

As I said, there are just two parts that remain after today’s post. Below are the previous nine…

The Chronicles 2013 Japan Trip…Part 1: Intro and TAS 2013 Coverage…
The Chronicles 2013 Japan Trip…Part 2: TAS 2013 Coverage…
The Chronicles 2013 Japan Trip…Part 3: More TAS 2013 Day 1 Coverage…
The Chronicles 2013 Japan Trip…Part 4: Dinner With USDM FREAX and Day 2 of TAS ’13…
The Chronicles 2013 Japan Trip…Part 5: The Last of TAS ’13 Coverage and Dinner With USDM Magazine…
The Chronicles 2013 Japan Trip…Part 6: Twin Ring Motegi and The Honda Collection Hall…
The Chronicles 2013 Japan Trip…Part 7: More Honda Collection Hall and Trackside At Twin Ring Motegi…
The Chronicles 2013 Japan Trip…Part 8: The Meal After Motegi and We Begin Our Journey To Osaka…
The Chronicles 2013 Japan Trip…Part 9: Our Visit To Tactical Art…

And here is the rest of our visit to Tactical Art…

One more of Kawashima’s Ferio and Atuki’s EG6… I’m excited to see how these will look when they are in a completed state. Yasutaka actually sent me a ton of build photos that I have yet to go through. I think once we finally get through all this Japan footage I’ll finally have the time to go over them. I glanced at them real quick a week ago and there will probably be posts dedicated to their builds in the near future whenever I get more content from them….

Kawashima’s Civic Ferio was an unexpected surprise and I’d like to see where they go with it aesthetically. The engine bay is coming along nicely so I’m sure they have a good game plan moving forward with the rest of the build…

One car that you did not see in yesterday’s post was this silver DB8 Integra on CCW Classics. Takemoto, the owner, was hanging out at the shop when we first arrived but he had come in his Honda motorcycle. He actually left and came back in his Integra just to show us. I walked out to take a look and he even asked me to personally put a Chronicles decal on his windshield…

Beeyan Hamada’s custom Toyota Wish minivan…

The rain was pretty consistent so I took two more shots of the outside of their shop before finally heading upstairs to the showroom…

While there was plenty going on downstairs with multiple builds in the midst of being assembled, the showroom area was considerably more organized. Being that I had only seen the shop in photos prior to my visit, I had no idea they had this showroom area. May came down earlier when I was still taking photos downstairs and told me how nice it was but I was still pleasantly surprised…

All the tables that you saw in the previous photos along with all the shelving were all custom made by the owner Atuki. He’s a fabricator so I guess it shouldn’t come as that much of a surprise that he knows how to create all sorts of different things…

Rear glass and carbon fiber hatch from one of their EGs…

Carbon fiber door for an EG that will be installed soon…

Hiding under one of the shelves was Yasutaka’s new Work Meister S1 wheels. He had gold Rotiform wheels prior if you remember…

Carbon hood seated against the wall… The wood box above it is their electrical box that was also created by Atuki…

Kazuya’s daughter reluctantly meeting Ryan for the first time…

Masashi Kameoka and Beeyan Hamada chillin’ in their Chronicles hoodies that they picked up during my Year.IV event…

Ryan Basseri and Nick Caster…

The often quiet and reserved Atuki Tubouti was all smiles…

Yasutaka Shimomukai and Ryan Der throwing up the “A” in ATS Garage for another camera…

I thought the little girl’s reaction to Der was absolutely priceless, haha…

The Kawashima family wanted to get a photo with me so I kindly obliged…

Mr. and Mrs. Der….

After we all took some more group photos, it was time to get ready for dinner. They wanted to take us out for some Yakiniku and I’m always done for some Japanese BBQ. First they had to lock-up the shop and move some cars inside…

We weren’t going to see Taku until later at dinner so they moved his EK back into the shop….

As you can see here, the rain didn’t let up at all…

One more of Takemoto’s Honda Integra sedan…

Though weather conditions weren’t ideal, it didn’t stop the guys from taking their cars out for dinner. Being that winter weather was usually like this in Osaka, they were probably used to it…

While they got into their respective rides, we all hopped into the Toyota Alphard van. Not gonna lie, it was pretty cool to have a whole fleet of their vehicles roll in front of us to dinner while we followed closely behind…

Beeyan’s Oni-camber was a crazy sight to see rolling…

Ryan and Beeyan in his Toyota Wish…

Masashi’s beautiful Toyota Mark X…

Takemoto’s DB8 Integra cruising with Atuki’s USDM RSX-converted DC5 Integra Type R in the distance…

Really liked how this photo came out… I like the lighting and how it captures the essence of cruising on the streets of Osaka…

We arrive at the JBBQ/Yakiniku restaurant…

I’ve had plenty of Korean BBQ over here in the states, but the only Japanese-style BBQ I had experienced before this was at Gyu-Kaku, a chain of JBBQ restaurants that also exists in Japan… Of course, I forget the name of this place. All you need to know is that it was fucking delicious…

The charcoal grill that we’d be cooking our meats on…

Yasutaka…

I don’t remember the name of this alcoholic beverage but it was a popular choice among the Tactical Art guys…

We continued our Kirin binge…

Grillin’ meats…

Taku arrived just in time to break bread with us…

Yasutaka not only fed us and drove us around all day, he also manned the grill at night and cooked our meats for us…

Taku pulling out his dSLR for some photos of us…

Nick became fond of our waitress and wanted to take a picture with her…I swear to you, after this photo, she never came back and another waitress took her place, haha. Maybe she was intimidated by Nick’s freakish non-Japanese appearance…

Kusugami got bored and tried to burn his face on the grill…Not really of course but it made for some cool shots from the angle that I was sitting at…

The guys had a good laugh over it…

Beeyan is definitely a character…Dude is always cracking jokes and his English is really good…

After we finished eating, Taku asked our alternate waitress to get a group shot of us with his camera…The photo above was the final result. Thanks to Taku for supplying the photo…

Dinner was amazing. It was still kind of early in the evening after we had finished our meals so the Tactical Art guys took us out to a local bar by our hotel. Eddie from Mackin Industries wasn’t too far away from us so he also came along for the ride. I didn’t take any photos after dinner so all I can show you are photos from the others…

Walking through the streets of Osaka we had parked nearby…

The bar we ended up at was pretty random. It was a hole-in-the-wall spot where they played American hip-hop and R&B. Drinks were good and the company we were with was great so we had an awesome time. It was dark inside, so again, I didn’t pull out the camera. Nothing out of the ordinary happened so you didn’t miss out on anything….

One of the more interesting developments that night however, was when I realized how much Taku Kusugami looked like Anh from ATS Garage. These guys looked like they were separated at birth or something, haha. I even pulled up a photo of Anh and showed it to Taku and even he had a good laugh about it…

That pretty much summed up our first night in Osaka with the Tactical Art family. We spent a couple hours at the bar and shot the shit, took some shots, and drank more beer. Yasutaka gave us a ride back to the hotel after that and we called it a night. The following day was an entirely new adventure. Thanks for looking and stay tuned for Part 11 of 12…