Robot Claw – Page 17 – “Life In The So-Called Space Age”

Gacha Time!

June 11, 2025

I’m waiting for my Shinkansen to Tokyo, so bows a good time for a blog post!

As always gacha machines are everywhere. The only notable change to the last trip is that the average price continues to creep up, with even ¥300 machines rare now (especially in Tokyo). While the ‘premium’ ¥500 machines used to have their own small section, they’re now mixed in with others and hardly identified as special.

The contents continue to be as varied as ever, from anime toys/merch to miniatures of things you’d never imagine anyone would want (an x-ray light?!?) to even stranger things like used tickets (!) or foreign coins. There so many different ‘prizes’ now: the top photo showing banks of machines (taken in Tokyo and Sendai) are only a subset of what each location had and all the machines were unique.

About a week ago I watched a documentary on a company that designs gacha prizes. They specialized in ones with gimmicks – like light or sound – and their current most popular one was a stop button like you’d see on a bus that makes the same sound when pushed. Now I want to buy one but I’ve not (yet) seen them in a machine.

The documentary also revealed that the small company it profiled tried to have a few new product series available each week. I just did a Google search and read that there are hundreds (one estimate is 500+) new series released into machines every month, or over 10 a day! No wonder that every six months I visit all the prizes are new 🙂

One of the weirdest I’ve seen this trip is this full face mask. There are four options, which are described as ‘nice guy’, ‘blonde beauty’, ‘zombie’ and ‘alien’. As a rule I don’t open gacha prizes until I get home, but I made an exception for the sake of research:

What do you think?

Hakodate Life

June 11, 2025

I’ve been here so long I’m now acknowledged as a local, and therefore it was only natural for me to join a bunch of other locals for a 9 am screening of the new Mission Impossible film.

The girl that sold me the ticket was insistent about trying out her (frankly poor) English on me. I’ve seen lots of Asian tourists here (Chinese and Korean) but no westerners, and speaking English to an old western dude seems to have the novelty here that it once did in Tokyo. Yesterday in a Saizeriya restaurant the waitress even came and chatted with me (in broken english), which was so unexpected I can still barely believe it occurred!

The ticket was cheap (about $6.50) the drink was cheap (about $2) and the much-better-than-expected cinnamon churro was very cheap (about $1.40). Plus they even gave me a free sticker sheet promoting another film entirely:

Mission Impossible was… well it was trash, but I still enjoyed the experience. The seat was comfy, the screen very sharp and the sound system incredible. It was also notable that not a single person spoke in the cinema, including in the pre show when all they played were adverts. It was so quiet in there I was surprised when I glanced around and saw a majority of the seats were occupied.

Afterwards I had a soak in the onsen (thirteen times over the last five days if you’re keeping track), had a delicious sliced candy apple, and headed for a ferry museum docked not far from the station.

I’m the sort of guy who usually reads all the text on the displays in a museum, but this one had no English! My phone reception is poor here and the translator didn’t work, so I only got a portion of the boats full story.

It was a ferry that used to transport trains from the north of Honshu to Hakodate. It ran for about 30 years until the undersea tunnel was opened on 1985 at which point the ferry was retired and became a museum. I’d never heard of a ferry that transported entire trains, and there were detailed illustrations and photos showing how the ferry coupled with tracks on land to allow the trains on board. Fascinating stuff!

Afterwards I headed to the ‘Red Brick Warehouse’ which is a tourist shopping district in old converted warehouses once used for storage. There were a few very interesting stores inside, but my luggage is waiting for me in Tokyo so I tried not to be distracted into buying anything. I made an exception for more stamps though, if only since the post-office was so tiny (about as big as a toilet).

It rained in the afternoon and I was tired so I had a well-needed soak and a rest. I’m packing up now for an early train to Tokyo tomorrow, and trying to summon energy for 3 days of shopping before it’s time to go home. I’m looking forward to a few crazy days 🙂

Melonpan!

June 10, 2025

‘Melon bread’ is a sweet bread popular in Japan. It’s a soft roll covered with a very thin coat of icing, and is a staple at bakeries and convenience stores (konbini). An Australian equivalent would be a finger bun, although melonpan have less icing. I’ve tried versions from konbini chains and here’s my opinions in reverse order of quality.

The New Days version of melon bread was disappointing. Not only is it weirdly yellow and unattractive, the bread itself was very dry and hard, and the icing layer almost tasteless. This konbini is operated by the rail company JR East, and they should be ashamed of their weak melonpan!

This one is from the Hokkaido konbini called Seicomart. Again, I was disappointed. It’s more visually appealing than the previous one, but the bread was again too dry and the icing layer was weirdly powdery. I was hot and tired when I bought this one, and even with a drink in my other hand could barely stuff it down.

This is the 7-11 version, and certainly had the most extreme appearance. It resembles a grenade more than a melon to me! This one conflicted me since the bread was fluffy and delicious but the icing was lacking because it wasn’t sweet enough. I feel the icing is the most important part of melonpan so regardless of the high bread quality this ultimately disappointed.

Family Mart delivered with their version. The bread was soft and fluffy and had a hint of butter taste (like a croissant) and the icing was just crisp enough without being overpowering. This was a fantastic product and could have easily taken the top spot!

But ultimately my favourite of the five was this Lawson version. It’s everything the Family Mart one was only very slightly better, and what gave it the win in my eye was the deliciously sweet taste of the icing, and the fact it had just the right level of crispness despite being so thin as to be almost invisible! If you’re going to buy only one melonpan, I’d suggest the Lawson version.

I’ll add that the melonpan from the ‘big three’ konbini (7-11, Family Mart and Lawson) are all good, so don’t be afraid to try any next time you’re in Japan.