Robot Claw

Today was just shopping. That’s it. Hours and hours of it. Most of this happened at the mega-otaku destination of Nakano Broadway Mall, which I’ve blogged about many times before (on previous Japan trips). This was the first time I’d visited alone, and I spent many hours looking in all the weird and wonderful shops.

The extent of the mania in this place is hard to describe. The photo above shows a tiny (about an inch high) rubber figure listed at ¥60000 (about US$550), and this wasn’t even (close to) the most expensive in that shop. And that shop seemed to just sell tiny rubber figurines and Tamagotchis of all things. I doubt it could remain in business anywhere else on Earth.

Nakano is full of similar, highly focused and very weird shops and I spent hours looking in all of them. Often I was mystified by what I was looking at or what the stores specialized in (did one store just sell used tickets?) but I was entranced regardless. Of course there’s also many otaku shops selling anime merchandise, but they’re common in Akihabara and elsewhere so when I visit Nakano I tend to focus on the weirder shops.

I bought stuff of course. Mostly games today, but a few books and toys too. The game shop isn’t quite so astonishing as the ones in Akihabara, but does have a few gems available to those with money to burn. For instance a boxed Japanese version Vectrex for ‘only’ about $1500:

Or if you’re more interested in less electronic gaming – and your pockets are deep indeed – how about a copy of the Japanese edition of this legendary Call of Cthulhu module, a steal at over $500:

I saw so much stuff like this today. Ancient tin robot toys for over $10k, a glass case containing hundreds of (just) doll heads, a shop specializing in horror books, dozens and dozens of tiny stickers pulled from candy packs years ago and now selling for $500+, boxes with thousands of now useless ‘telephone cards’, a cabinet full of Michael Jackson merchandise from the 1980s and so on, and so on. There’s so much strange – and sometimes incredibly expensive – stuff there I sometimes wonder if the place is more museum than shop.

I love it all.

Interspersed throughout the four floors of broadway are hundreds of gashapon machines like those above. I’ve blogged these many times before but it’s interesting to see the evolution of them over the nearly 20 years I’ve been visiting Japan. Once they were just toys for boys: anime-themed stuff, robots, Ultraman and other tokasatsu merchandise, girl figurines etc. But now the gashapon can include just about anything and some of it is very weird indeed. Here’s six examples I saw today:

Little power poles! Who wants to collect those? And what about the weird diorama in the top right? If you get just the chair what do you do with it? The van in the middle is representative of a wave of vehicles now available in these machines, and the tiny Japanese room display in the bottom right is… well who wants it?!?

Now the cyborg arm is pretty cool, but alas it was sold out! As was the miniature raffle machine in the top middle. I’ll keep my eyes peeled for both again since I want to get one of each 🙂

I was at Nakano for many hours and stopped off again at Akihabara (for postcards!) on the way back to the hotel. Dinner was once again gourmet spaghetti (¥630) and it was long after dark before I finally dragged myself back to my room. A long and busy day, but a good one!

I traveled to Tokyo today on the bullet train. I was feeling a bit sick and was very tired so I took very few photos but here’s one of me enjoying the ride:

I was in the ‘green car’ which was the highest level of luxury. And it was great, with big comfy seats that electronically reclined and even were heated (although I didn’t use that). The train was quite full, although almost everyone else was a businessman in a suit that slept the whole way.

After arrival in Tokyo and checking into my hotel I grabbed a gourmet meal (for only ¥600!) and went about bought a suitcase! I know it’s common but I’d never done it before; my luggage was too full and this way I can buy more stuff 🙂

I’ve got a lot planned these next four day but I feel my body rebelling. Let’s hope I don’t crash hard before the return flight!