Here, for your viewing enjoyment, are many more photos of a few different kinds of Japanese curry -- from smaller chain restaurants, cafeterias, and out-of-the-way places.

Above, the standard katsu/cheese combo at Curry Kitchen, abbreviated karekichi. Like Go Go Curry, it uses the ticket system -- you walk into the shop and use a vending machine to buy tickets that have your order printed on them, then hand the tickets over to the staff behind the counter when you sit down.

Combined with the fact that curry takes about five minutes to eat, it's a marvelously effective system: You go in, grab your tickets, sit down, are quickly served your food, then get out of there ten minutes later, max.

This is especially helpful when you consider that there's a Karekichi located right in the middle of Akihabara, making it a perfect quick lunch in the middle of a day full of videogame shopping.

It's a run-of-the-mill Japanese curry: Nothing special, but tasty, convenient, and infinitely customizable (provided you can read Japanese and work the ticket machine, I mean). It would win raves in the U.S., but compared to what's out there in the rest of the country, it's average.

I know what you're thinking: Kohler, does Japan make below-average curry? Of course. Here's an example. This is the katsu curry at Central Cafeteria, the eatery inside the Makuhari Messe convention center. This is where you go to escape the Tokyo Game Show for half an hour and recharge for the next half of the day.

It's not very good. You can tell just by looking at it. The sauce tastes like it came out of a can printed with the image of Chef Boyardee's Japanese uncle. Even the fukujinzuke pickles on the side are bland. The hile-katsu ("filet," as opposed to the fattier rosu that most pork cutlets are made from) are alright.

And really, what you need to know is that nothing in the Messe is very good to eat. That's one of the best things about Japanese curry: If you're faced with a selection of bad food, you can be pretty sure that the curry will be the least bad thing.

There's actually a food court of festival-type food stands on the Tokyo Game Show floor, if you want to eat really truly bad curry.

Here's a more upscale, but still convenient and affordable, curry. You may have heard legends about the basement floors of Japanese department stores, about how they are massive food-malls where delicacies of every concievable type are arrayed before you, where affluent Japanese housewives go to purchase gourmet ingredients for a lavish dinner.

All of these stories are completely true. Tokyo Roux, pictured above, sells to-go curry in the basement of a few different stores (this one is in tony Ebisu), with a variety of totally different sauces: Standard, spicy, flavored heavily with seafood, etc.

I was introduced to Tokyo Roux by the game designer Kenji Eno, and we ate it together in his office. While I did notice a couple of tables set up by Tokyo Roux's stall in the Ebisu department store, you probably would only want to buy this if you had somewhere else to go and eat it. I recommend Kenji Eno's office.

The photos above are from Manten, a little shop in the Jinbocho curry district of Tokyo. Jinbocho is the home of amazing "European curry" restaurants like Bondy, but Manten is more traditional.

The reason I went there a little over a year ago is because it's one of the highest-rated curry shops on Japan's Curry Database web site. Apparently, a friend told me, it's only rated that high because of how much food you get for the money -- not because it tastes very good. He was right. Manten is okay, and the lines out the door during the lunch rush (easily the longest I've ever waited for curry) clearly illustrate that there's an appeal here for the salarymen of Jinbocho, but I wasn't really impressed.

Finally, there's Homemade Curry Time, which will probably also be familiar to Tokyo Game Show travelers as there's one in Akihabara right by the Electric Town exit and one in the Kaihim-Makuhari train station near the show itself.

Much like Curry Kitchen, it's a decent if unspectacular ticket-based curry shop that hits the spot when you need it, but not the sort of place you'd visit if you weren't under pressure to find curry immediately so you can get back to videogames.

Homemade Curry Time also has "spicy black curry," a hot roux that's so deep brown it looks black. Interesting if you're looking to experiment -- or if you've eaten the normal stuff every day and want to change it up a little.

"Popping open the can releases a distinct curry aroma, even if the insides don’t really look like it. Or taste like it: The liquid inside the can is very thin and the faux rice is completely bland. The miscellaneous bits of curry don’t have any distinguishing flavors. The ingredients include chicken, carrots, mushrooms and garlic but each spoonful tasted the same to me: tomato, tomato and tomato."

I don't know if I approve. Is it possible for Japan to create a curry so weird that even I would not eat it? Maybe.

Osaka's Nerd District Offers Curry Rice in Cans [Wired.com]

Is there anything particularly European about it -- more so than regular Japanese curry, I mean, which entered the country through English cuisine? Not that I can see. My experiences with "European curry" have simply been that the ingredients are top-quality and the flavors much more robust. You'll pay a little more -- more like $15-18 for one person versus less than $10 at a typical curry lunch counter -- but for the serious curry aficionado on a trip to Japan, it's more than worth it.

I covered a small lunch place called Mitsuboshi, which bills itself as "French curry," on Wired.com last month.

I'd also recommend Bondy, with locations all around Tokyo.

Tokyo Curry Mania: Mitsuboshi's "French Curry" in Nakano [Wired.com]

Japanese language version: 日本滞在レポート：『ミツボシ』の欧風カレー [Wired Vision]

These days, Kanazawa curry -- known for a sweet brown sauce made with caramel among other unique ingredients -- has been making a name for itself in Akihabara, Tokyo's electronics/otaku district, where three different restaurants are now open within about 100 meters of each other serving different takes on K-curry.

One of them is Go Go Curry, naturally.

I wrote about this development for Wired.com on a recent trip to Japan. Check it out!

Tokyo Curry Mania: Kanazawa Curry Takes Over Akihabara [Wired.com]

Japanese language version: 日本滞在レポート:「金沢カレー」の探究　[Wired Vision]

I never did try it, but the concept doesn't sound so strange when you're a curry junkie. Okay, maybe the name sounds a bit too much like the "Good Morning Burger" from The Simpsons, but look: Eggs! Vegetables! Really, how else would you start off your day but with curry?

Karen and I have, of course, had curry for breakfast before, but not at a restaurant. Just leftover curry from the night before, which tastes even better because all the flavors have had eight hours to hang out and get to know each other.

Going back to Tokyo next week. Maybe I'll pass by this again. Maybe this time I'll do it.

I saved it entirely because of this picture, which I think pretty much encapsulates our feelings about curry.

(The photo, by the way, is advertising CoCoIchi's "low allergy curry," which has only spices that don't affect people with food allergies. Hence the tiny child's rapturous expression: Now she, too, can eat curry. わーい。)

For readers of Americurry, it is not enough to take as given Ōtisu's First Axiom ("Curry is the best of all possible foods.") Our stomachs might be full and content, but our heads will be dull and empty. No, to find true curry happiness, we must look beyond the perfection of Japanese curry, past even the glory of the Threefold Toppings¹, to that oft-overlooked foundation stone of the curry plate: the starches.

Far more than the mere "glue" holding the curry together on your spoon, the right rice or bread can make or break a curry dish. One only has to visualize Japanese curry over a long-grained basmati or Uncle Ben's Instant to realize how much rice can add or detract from the enjoyment of curry. For the curry aficionado willing to venture slightly further afield, the popular Curry House restaurant chain offers two unique presentations.

The first, Grilled-Stone Curry (pictured top), takes its name from the searingly hot stone bowl in which it's served. A bed of rice is covered in various vegetables: corn, green beans, mushrooms, carrots, and sprouts, plus your choice of pork katsu, eel, seafood, or rib eye steak. Once the stone bowl is brought to your table, the curry sauce is poured on and the contents mixed. After a few minutes of cooking right there at your table, it's ready to enjoy.

Given the just-in-time grilling, Grilled-Stone Curry is incredibly hot -- and incredibly delicious. When lukewarm rice and tepid curry mar so many American curry plates, it's great to experience a piping hot platter. Even better is the way the stone bowl chars the bottom layer of rice, creating a crispy, crunchy shell that perfectly offsets the curry's sweet spiciness.

So what's the downside? Curry House's somewhat stingy rice-to-curry ratio can result in a dish that resembles a curried rice pilaf than, well, curry rice. Upsize your curry and maximize your enjoyment.

Another delicious option is Curry-Pan: curry-filled bread. It's a staple in Japanese school lunchrooms, and this is an excellent example. The bread has a crispy, fried exterior and doughy, spongy inside: thick enough to support the curry inside, but not so thick that all you get is a mouthful of bread. The curry filling is actual curry, a major step up from the paste-like "astronaut curry" most often used as filling. A bit more filling would be perfection, but then again, what empty space wouldn't be improved by filling it with curry?

Curry-Pan takes 20 minutes to make, so order as soon as you arrive.

Are either of these dishes superior to traditional curry? Probably not. But with two more ways to enjoy this best of all possible foods, why not stop by a nearby Curry House and judge for yourself?

¹Pork katsu, sausage, and cheese.

A friend of Americurry has passed along these pics from a branch of Curry House CoCo Ichibanya located in Thailand, and it doesn't seem like there's that much difference between this and what you'd get in Japan.

An Americurry reader just disparagingly referred to CoCoIchi as "the McDonald's of Japanese curry." This is not a bad comparison, all things considered -- it's certainly higher quality food than McDonald's, but it's also just as ubiquitous. If you're looking for curry in Japan, chances are that the first thing you'll come across is CoCo Ichibanya's bright yellow-and-brown signs.

They're known for their absurd variety of toppings, which the Thailand branch pictured here also features. At top, we have curry with mixed veggies, hamburger, and pork katsu. Below, there's katsu and chicken karaage, small pieces of fried chicken. And yes, of course there is cheese.

CoCoIchi's customization options don't just stop with the toppings, though. You can order as much rice as you want, in increments of 50 grams. During my time as a CoCoIchi devotee in Japan, I never ate more than 400 grams of rice in one sitting. Our friend, not knowing this, ordered 450 and couldn't do it. (CoCo used to run a contest whereby you could eat for free if you polished off 1,300 grams of rice in 20 minutes.)

And to top it all off, you can make your curry as spicy as you damn well please.

CoCoIchi also has branches in China, Taiwan, Korea, and Hawaii. Perhaps the continental U.S. is next? One can only dream.

Americurry readers! Do you have pictures of Japanese curry that you've eaten recently? Anything you want to share with the world? Let us know on the Contact Page!