Alright! Hope you all having a Merry Xmas with the time honored Japanese family tradition of a bucket of KFC.

In the meantime, our pal Taro has been busy earning money for tyre glue by battling the forces of darkness in Kowloon Walled City.

Here, he even faced off against the devil himself.

Thankfully even the prince of darkness was no match for Taro and his compatriots, and was banished back to the netherworld where he belongs.

And Taro and team were awarded for their troubles, with a fetching black leotard that should help us in future battles.

And, summarising the end result of a significant amount of time clearing several floors - we leave Kowloon with another million yen. Just the amount we need to buy this VHT stuff.

Now, let's head back to meet that dodgy mechanic at the 'Guernica' workshop, who apparently has a penchant for mid century modernist surrealist art.

He gives us the same spiel as before about paying a million dollars for the tyre glue. This time however, we can afford it..

: That's it.

: Here you go, a million.

: Well, I'll just go to the back and get it.

Huh. He disappeared.

…

This is taking awhile….

….

: Hey, what are you doing? Hey, are you there yet?

: Yes yes, is there anything I can help you with?

: Is that what you need? Hurry up and bring the VHT. I just paid 1 million.

: What do you mean? VHT costs 200,000 yen.

: What? 200,000? You took 1 million from me!

: This customer is rude.

: Do you have proof that you paid 1 million yen?

: You can call the police if you want.

I think we’ve just been Fidel Castro’d.

: Grrrrr…

: Hey Yasu, what are you doing?

Hey, it’s that bandana and sunglasses guy again, the guy who’s #1 in the rankings. I suppose we should give him a name since he’s the main rival.

The game calls him ‘Champ’ but that’s really confusing, because the game also calls Hiro ‘Champ’ - because this guy apparently took the title when Hiro disappeared to America.

I’m going to call him Derek. He looks like a Derek.

Fuckin’ Dereks.

: Ah, owner.

Wait, Derek is the owner of the shop?

…That explains a lot.

: In fact, this customer. They start finding strange accusations.

: You...You were the owner of this place?

: Oh, that's right. My store is the only one in Japan that sells VHT. I won't sell to anyone I don't like.

: You... you're dirty. You don't let people who seem faster than you use VHT.

: That's why you've been able to be the best up until now!

: Say whatever you want.

: However. Not for someone like you.

: There's no need to do that.

: I'd even sell it to you if you wanted.

: 10 million yen

10 million yen!? You got to be joking. It just took a whole lot of time and save-scumming to earn a single million…

: I don't think it's possible for a poor guy like you.

: Damn it

: I’ll remember this!