You don’t gotta go home, Mr. Sato, but you can’t wait here.

As loyal SoraNews 24 readers, and really any responsible member of society who keeps themselves about important world events, know, our crack reporter Mr. Sato began camping out on the streets of Tokyo on September 17. His goal? To become the first person in Japan with the latest model of iPhone!

That’s a title that Mr. Sato has enjoyed multiple times in the past, until his motivation was killed when he was soft-banned from the launch-day events held by phone service provider DoCoMo.

▼ Possibly for dressing up like a grotesque Dragon Quest Slime…

▼ …and/or Pikachu., but really, who can say for sure?

This time, though, he was feeling confident. Not only was he dressing like a normal human being, he’d also switched his alliance to DoCoMo rival SoftBank, hoping that the competing companies don’t share blacklist info and he’d be able to claim a factory-fresh iPhone 11 when the model goes on sale September 20. So he’d been all smiles for the first two days of his campaign, killing time by chatting with his recurring line-up buddy Butch, being visited by other members of the SoraNews24 team, and keeping himself nourished with such tried-and-true camp-out cuisine as a 6,000-yen (US$55) caviar sandwich.

But as he was still enjoying the lingering aftertaste of his fancy fare (because where are you supposed to brush your teeth when you’re camping on the sidewalk of Tokyo’s Ginza district?), Mr. Sato’s road to iPhone glory hit a serious speed bump. At about 8 p.m. on the evening of September 19, while seated in his folding chair, Mr. Sato noticed a police officer walking his way, and while he’s sometimes baffled by the attention he gets from Tokyo’s finest, this time he could already imagine why the officer wanted to talk to him.

“Excuse me,” the officer politely began. “This section of the sidewalk can’t be used until 5 a.m. tomorrow morning, so can we please have you remove your belongings and vacate the area?”

Apparently whatever the Ginza SoftBank branch was planning for launch day requires some prep work in front of the store, and so they needed to clear the area during the early hours of the morning the iPhone 11 goes on sale. Mr. Sato was a little steamed that no one from the store had told him this earlier, but then again he hadn’t bothered to tell anyone from the store that he was claiming a section of the sidewalk directly in front of the entrance either, so really half of his steam should be directed inwards, he concluded.

“What do we do now, Butch?” asked Mr. Sato as he and the others who’d formed a line packed up their things. “Totally, bro, what do we do?” asked Butch, equally at a loss at their sudden reversal of fortune.

But the silver lining is that this is Tokyo, a city which goes all night with restaurants, bars, and other places to kill time until the break of dawn, and so Mr. Sato wasn’t going to accept defeat just yet.

Photos ©SoraNews24
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