Day 17: Shopping in Shibuya & Shinjuku

Yesterday night, I had spent a decent bit of time perusing the internet (mostly this site) in order to figure out what anime collaboration events were going to be happening in Tokyo while I am still here. I found a number of events that I would be interested in going to, both pop-up shops and collab cafes. A few issues stood in my way though. For the majority of the cafes, reservations are required. Since the reservation period for most is quite a bit before the cafe actually happens and I didn't think to look beforehand, I am doubtful that I will be able to get into any for anime I actually like. I will do a bit more research on that in a few days though.

The other is a lot of events are starting the day after I leave. To me, it looks like a lot of these types of things run for half-month cycles starting on the last day of the month or the middle of the month. I have no idea how true that is but that's what it feels like.

Even with those limiting factors, I did manage to write down a few things I would like to do. Mostly pop-up stores, so I guess I'm heading into some retail therapy sessions.

With that exposition dump out of the way, we can begin the day. I had taken the collab list and just filtered it down to the stuff that was still happening today and in Shibuya and Shinjuku, since they are just a few stops apart on the Yamanote Line and I felt I could get to both in a single day.

I decided to head to Shibuya first and work my way back home.

Stepping into Shibuya station, I realized what a fool I had been. What merchandise could possibly be worth being swallowed by the endless sea of bipedal mammals?

In other words, Shibuya was looking as lively as always.

I thought I had planned some sort of high IQ, in and out, precision operation and yet, here I was was, already being jostled by throngs of people, hardly able to turn in the direction I wanted to go. A fish trying to swim away from the school, perhaps.

Hachiko was as popular as ever. Also wow, I never realized how sad his story was.

My first stop was Tsutaya, pictured in the first photograph above, right on the other side of the Shibuya Scramble. My goal was Railgun T merchandise featuring derpy depictions of the characters. Here's the promo material so I don't have to sort through everything I bought:

Image originally from the collab announcement, where you can see all the goods that were for sale

After successfully snagging what I had came for, I browsed a bit longer and snagged an Iruma-kun art book as well.

Also on my list, but not for anything specific was MAGNET by SHIBUYA109, a relatively small shopping mall (it's like the townhouse of malls. 8 floors but like 2k sqft per floor or something). I took a while to look through a few shops and unexpectedly found a Genshin Impact pop up (not adding a link, you've heard of it). I bought a sticker book and a pin and headed on my way.

One of the busiest stores in this building was the One Piece Mugiwara Store.

I don't watch One Piece so I didn't stop by but it seemed pretty popular and the checkout line was long compared to all the other stores in the building.

After spending way too long here and still telling myself I could make it home before rush hour, I headed to my next stop, Shibuya's Mandarake. Since it was a single store unlike in Nakano Broadway, I felt that I could handle it.

Before I could make it there, I got distracted by a crane game shop. Just one, I told myself.

Somehow, I actually did win something. I noticed a weird crane game with a pile of plushies that seemed precariously positioned, like the whole stack could just topple into the prize area. Although I didn't know who these characters were from, and it's not like me to try to win plushies of male characters, I decided to try it out. With my first ¥100 coin, I managed to get one!

But the pile itself hadn't actually fallen in. I had only gotten one to tumble off of the top. I knew another ¥100 would be worth it. Never mind the fact that I still didn't look at the character tag to see who this was or what it was from. None of that mattered now.

With my next ¥100, I thought I did pretty good. This time, I got 2! But like anyone that attains a great deal of power can tell you, the thirst only grows. I knew that there was more to be taken, so take I shall!

Another ¥100.

Move the claw left.

Move the claw forward.

Down it goes. Down to the top of the pile, so preposterously placed. Not only had I grabbed a couple, the pile had finally dislodged and another couple fell in. One for the history books, 4 plushies for ¥100!

After looking at my 7 newly won goods, I actually began to panic. Was this a machine literally meant for children? I looked everywhere and didn't see any indication of the such. Was I going to be labeled a cheater? Well if using your big brain is cheating, then maybe I should be. Either way, I was a bit nervous so I took a good look at the 7 dudes and realized I had duplicates. I decided to keep 1 of each unique one I had so I ended up with these guys.

Yay, more things I don't need or want to fill my luggage

It was actually a little sad leaving these guys in there, but I was hoping someone would see them and get an uplift to their day by getting a free prize.

Well, someone did notice. And unfortunately, it was a worker who decided the correct course of action would be to perch the plush prizes back on top of the princely pyramid. No one would be getting free prizes, sadly. (Actually now in hindsight IDK why I even tried to win them I don't think I would have taken them if they had been free lol). Anyway, after actually reading the tags, it seems they are characters from a skating anime that aired a couple years ago called Skate-Leading☆Stars. It doesn't seem to have had a particularly high rating or viewership, which might explain why they were so freely winnable in this machine.

No, stop! I won those for someone else fair and squareeeeeeeeeeee!!!

Exhausted after that adventure, I finally made it to Mandarake. I spent way too long here too and didn't take photos but I basically ended up buying a Hololive art book, and a bunch of anime episode companion books? I've never heard of this or seen it so not too sure what they are but they appear to be art books that relate to the direction of individual episodes or seasons of anime. I only opened one of them for now and that's what it looked like. Most were only like between ¥200 and ¥800 so I got a few for anime I really like such as Code Geass and Sakura Quest.

I ended up spending like $50 in Mandarake or something, which honestly isn't too bad. The worse part (which I didn't realize yet), was that my bag was heavy. Like 15 pounds or something. I ended up carrying that and everything else I purchased later around all day and it made my hands really sore, almost like they were getting chafed just from having to carry everything around while I walked for hours and hours.

After spending many hours in Shibuya longer than I had planned, I headed to Shinjuku with only about an hour until rush hour started. Maybe there was still a chance that I could get in and out before it got crazy though right? Right?

Although Shinjuku Station itself had felt super busy, outside felt refreshing compared to inside the station or the streets of Shibuya. It wasn't particularly un-busy but more manageable, in my opinion. Kind of like the distinction of being eaten by a shark versus an alligator. Sure one might be worse but the end result is largely the same.

In Shinjuku, my first planned stop was actually just a convenience store. Specifically this Lawson, since they were having an Evangelion collab.

I bought a couple clear files I don't need and then booked it out of there. After being distracted by a crane game store for a couple minutes, I came across Tokyu Kabukicho Tower which had finished construction this year. It has a really distinctive look, which I find really cool.

The tower itself was super popular and very crowded. The first level after going up the escalators was really bright and colorful and reminiscent a shopping district, which makes sense because that's exactly what the area, called "Kabuki Yokocho", is going for.

The tower also had an Evangelion collaboration going on, which I had actually known about but no planned on visiting, since I think it has a lottery system for entry. I'll have to double check that later. Regardless, it wasn't immediately evident how to get to the Evangelion store or cafe from Kabuki Yokocho, but there were a couple of murals to look at, as well as the collab cafe menu, so it must've somewhere relatively close?

By this time, it was already getting late and I still had one more store on my itinerary. It was already into rush hour, so at this point I wasn't trying to leave quickly or anything but my hands were getting pretty sore from carrying my bags all day.

I made my way to Shinjuku Marui Annex. Once I arrived, I was surprised because I recognized the brand/logo (looks like OIOI), but hadn't actually know how to read it. TIL.

There was actually more anime-related stuff in this mall than I had expected so I stumbled onto stuff like this "sexy dudes from Attack on Titan" pop-up (my words not theirs).

Image originally from pop-up collab announcement here. I had taken a photo of the poster but it's just better quality to link the actual asset, like when your grandma sends you a print out of a camera photo of her computer screen or something.

I did see one collaboration that I didn't get a picture of but remember because I found it surprising. There's an Indian film called RRR that's still showing in Japan in some theaters and it's apparently pretty popular. For reference, it's already Japan's highest grossing Indian film and it has seen similar earnings in Japan as in the US, which is crazy to me considering that the Japanese population is like 1/3 of the US's. I don't know if per capita movie consumption is a thing or not but I did find it interesting. The source for those numbers is here, but since that page lists current highest-earning movies, it may have changed by the time you have read this in the distant future.

Anyway, all that to say I saw an RRR collaboration cafe (I'm pretty sure)! Crazy.

Next door to that collaboration was one for Hololive, which I am familiar with. Specifically a collaboration for their 6th generation of vtubers, the "HoloX Cafe -Shinjuku-". Outside were a bunch of cut outs of the characters to grab your attention. On the stand by the entrance, where you'd usually write your name to secure a place in line, was just a note that basically seemed to say that only online reservations would be accepted at this time.

Unfortunately, it wasn't in the cards tonight for me to try this burger with a flag in it. Bummer.

Plus you get a little peice of paper with the character on it!

After exploring the rest of the floors, I decided enough was enough and it was time to head home. I decided to stop by Lumine on top of Shinjuku station, even though I explicitly stated before that I don't recommend going there due to how busy it is. The reason, and this is going to sound silly, is that I had actually bought too much stuff on my trip in it's entirety to take back home in my current set of luggage, even though I had come will less than half of my checked bag being full. To be fair though, I hadn't brought a carry-on at all.

But nothing is without its drama. Somehow I got lost at Shinjuku station and ended up in the wrong Lumine. If you ever visit, keep in mind there are actually three Lumine buildings, Lumine 0, 1, and 2. So check which one the store you want to go to is in unless you're explicitly just browsing for whatever. They actually aren't even directly connected so once I discovered Lumine 0 wasn't, in fact, where I wanted to be, it took me like 10 more minutes to actually get where I was going.

I eventually made it to Lumine 2 to buy a carry-on and did manage to find a 36L bag I liked, although it was a bit more expensive than I would have hoped. It was from Muji though so at least I know the quality is good, I guess. LOL don't mind me, I'm just coping with my decision-making here. Anyway, the main reason I had to buy this now, rather than another day, was because my arms were really tired by this point and I didn't want to have to carry anything for another 30+ minutes on the train.

So I solved the problem with money I guess.

With my new carry-on gliding gleefully across the ground, I happily headed home.

As you can imagine, by the time I got back I was very hungry because I hadn't even anticipated on being out more than 3 hours but had been gone more like 7. I hadn't eaten at all yet and still needed to get to work so I decided to just grab something quick near me. I had been wanting to try a chain called Matsunoya which specializes in pork cutlet (and is confusingly ran by the similarly-named Matsuya beef bowl restaurant chain lol).

Ordering was really easy. Once you walk in, there is a standing order terminal (kind of like you see at some McDonalds in the US) and you can change the language to English. You enter your order and then pay right there and it will print out meal tickets for each thing you ordered (not sure why it doesn't just print one but whatever). When your order is ready, your order number just shows up on the screen and you can exchange your tickets for the tray of food. Water and tea are both self serve and you just return the tray to dish-washer's window when you're done eating.

I decided to order the Katsu Curry. At this point I'm wondering if it's up there in my favorite foods because I eat it pretty often, even in the States.

It was pretty good. Especially considering I think it was only like ¥580 or something for the curry and ¥70 for the cabbage. Very affordable.

On a kind-of unrelated note, I find not having to tip in Japan really nice. I can't remember if I wrote about it before or not. You literally just know what you are going to pay upfront and don't have to like scrutinize the meal and staff to do some random mental arithmetic to choose. Service here is good in the first place so I guess I would always end up tipping on the higher end but I'm happy that I don't have to deal with it. Just bake the extra cost into the actual price of the meal like it's done here! lol Anyway, it makes eating out here feel cheaper than it already is with the favorable dollar-to-yen ratio right now.

Speaking of the dollar-to-yen ratio, I got a decent amount of stuff today. Too bad there's no way to know how much money I spent! LOL This is everything I got today include the carry-on. If I need to, I'll give away those skater plushies to fit other stuff in my luggage.

Fiscal policy aside, it was a pretty good day even if somewhat lengthier than expected.

The google map view wasn't cooperating since Shinjuku and Shibuya are north/south from each other and the Google Maps timeline wouldn't let me rotate so it was going to be hard for me to get it to look like I wanted it. Sorry, please so just the Fitbit data for today!