Category: Trip

Let’s Talk Characters

June 6, 2013

Japan loves character goods, which are simply merchandise featuring a particular character. Often the characters exist solely to be merchandised; sometimes they originated elsewhere (comics or games usually).

The merchandising of popular characters is at an incredible level, with goods of all shapes and sizes to be found virtually anywhere.

Right now, it seems these are the most popular individual characters:

Rilakkuma

This guy has been around for 10 years now and rules the roost at the moment. Rilakkuma goods seem to be more common even than the venerable Hello Kitty (who I ignore in this article) and run the gamut of stationary, toys, clothes, food, electronics, kitchenware and just about everything else.

Here’s a photo of one single UFO Catcher machine stuffed with Kuma stuffed toys:

It was 4 years ago I was introduced to this guy via buying a pair of socks for SFL. And even then it was only because he is a bear. I’ve grown to like this character a lot 🙂

Nameko

He’s an ugly mushroom! He’s new, unusual, and riding a strong popularity wave. I hate him a bit, but Bernard has warmed to him. Right now his merchandise seems restricted to stationary and toys, but it is certainly abundant. I wonder if he will end up a fad?

Airou

This character is based on sentient cats from the Monster Hunter game series, which automatically earns points in my book. The fact he is cute and a cat only helps.

Although Airou doesn’t seem to have exploded beyond certain genre stores, there is an incredible variety of merchandise available and due to the success of the game the character is very well known. One of my favourite characters to be sure 🙂

In terms of series (as opposed to individual characters), there is no doing that One Piece rules the merchandise roost, with goods even more abundant than established lines such as Gundam or even Tsubaraya (Ultraman, Godzilla etc.). One Piece is the most successful manga series of all time, and undoubtedly the most merchandised!

Crossing Items Off My List

June 5, 2013

There is an origami ‘museum’ not too far from where we are staying. Naturally, since Bernard is an origamist, we visited yesterday.

The museum, which is in the building of a company that makes traditional washi paper, consists of a small gallery, an impressive store, the area where the paper is made and died, and rooms for instruction. It is all very impressive, and the staff were very friendly and helpful.

As we were leaving, a friendly old fellow intercepted us at the lift and told us he would give us a demonstration. This was none other than the chairman, and we were treated to a private demonstration of his skills (and his English!) for the next 20 minutes or so. It was wonderful!

If you’re ever in Japan, this place is worth a look.

The above is a random sketch in one of many sketchbooks in one of many arcades (‘game centers’) in Akihabara, where we spent the rest of the day. I didn’t take a great deal of photos throughout many hours of shopping, eating, UFO Catching and gaming, but I’m quite pleased to say many of the items on my shopping list were found in that several hour period. The rate at which my wallet bled cash was amazing!

Notable pickups included;
– The two DS Wizardry games that were never translated
– Musha Gundam 2
– Vast amounts of monster hunter figurines
– the new Yamashita art book
– certain souvenir items for friends that I was after

The latest and unquestionably greatest of the current crop of UFO figures is a magical girl Kirino from Ore no Imouto. Here’s a picture of an advert for it outside of one of the mega-arcades:

Bernard and I both won one 🙂

The monster hunter cat mascots (‘airou’) are a very big deal here, with vast amount of available merchandise. Twice now KLS has joked (?) about buying one of the big guys seen above!

Game Center highlights included the dozens of classic game posters on display at a Sega arcade, a punching game which nearly broke my hand, and Y200 for what seemed like an hour of darts 🙂

It was another very long and active day, and I fear Bernard may be at the apex of ruination. Even I am in an advanced state of decrepitude, and as I lay here early the next morning writing this the question of how to even rise from the futon is a challenging one!

But I’ll soldier on. As I always say on vacation, I can rest when I get home 😉

We’re Not As Young As We Remember

June 4, 2013

When you live at light speed as I do, you need the right fuel or else you flame out. Yesterday, a source of that fuel was established.

The location was Takao, the mountain to the west of Tokyo. After a pleasant train trip from the city, we started by riding the (fantastic!) chair lift to the half-way point:

The weather was great (about 80F), the views were wonderful and since we were all tired from the previous day we took the walk to the top slowly.

There are many shrines on the mountain, as well as restaurants selling food to the walkers. For us, the more refreshing the better!

The climb was longer and harder than KLS and I remembered, and we were at the apex of ruination before we reached the top. Bernard in particular was unused to the exertion, but he soldiered on like a true man!

That’s a Tanuki apparently, and the photo is taken from a sign illustrating its poop indexed by plants it ate! As with all the other animals allegedly on Takao (monkeys, flying squirrels), we saw none!

The walk done was much easier. At this time, I gave Bernard a rest by carrying his 4763 lb camera myself, taking many exhibition quality photos along the way. I expect he’ll be blogging a few on his blog (see link at right)!

We’d ridden the worlds steepest cable car once before, up the mountain, so yesterday we took it down. Amusingly, the car was packed with school kids, who all screamed excitedly when it fell out of the station at the start.

After a rest (during which I, with all this extra energy from vast quantities of Mt Dew, explored local grocery stores and marveled at overpriced fruit…), we hopped over to Ueno for dinner, toy shopping and (of course!), UFO catching!

That spaghetti was delicious!

Robot Claw