Day 23 & 24 : Resting & Akihabara

After the last few days, I was feeling a little fatigued so decided to take it easy for a couple days. Originally, I was actually just going to take it easy for 1 day but then I failed to plan anything for the next day so... oops.

Day 23 : Capsule Machines

Although I decided to take a rest day, I wanted to at least go outside for a little bit. Otherwise, I'd feel like I'd wasted some of my time in Japan, right? I ended up going to Akihabara since it's relatively close to where I am staying and can get there without tranferring lines on the metro.

Akihabara actually felt a bit less busier than usual. It's kind of funny when you look at photos like the following one though, you'd never know that this is less busy. If you're there in person though, you can tell. It just feels like you have more room to breathe or swing your arms around.

I mainly just did a little bit of walking on the back streets. But not too much, I didn't actually want to hit my 10k steps for the day! I did see this giant Miku plush but obviously didn't get it because it was both overpriced (well the small ones were at least, I didn't see the price tag for the big one) and because I didn't have luggage space for it. Heck, I'm pretty sure it's bigger than my actual luggage!

I stopped in at a game center called Tokyo Leisureland to check out the crane games and told myself I'd spend ¥1,000 at most. I actually didn't think I'd win anything and would have probably preferred not to since I'm pretty sure I'm long out of extra luggage space. BUT I did see a machine and thought that it seemed like it was positioned well.

Well, I managed to get a figure on my first ¥100.

I actually felt pressured to spend the rest of the ¥1,000 anyway because one of the employees had like been watching me walk in, walk to the machine, and get it on my first try LOL He even brought a bag to me and congratulated me on winning. I felt like some sort of hacker or something, even though I literally knew I didn't do anything wrong or even really suspicious. So I guess in a way, the figure still cost me ¥1,000.

After that, I headed back towards the station and stopped at a capsule game store to see if they had any cool ones. I did find one of the new ones had Bocchi the Rock keychains that played iconic voice lines from the show!

Image originally from the Gashapon website

I ended up getting 2 of the Bocchi ones and one of the Kita ones. I considered trying to go for the whole set but who knows how much time (or money) that would take since it was random chance for each pull.

I pulled on a few other machines and got various keychains and straps that I don't really need. The other one I really liked was this Miku one that miniature figures as potential prizes. It's not enough to have random prizes in the machines, but you also need multiple rarities of prizes too SMH

Originally from the Magical Mirai website

On my first pull, I got a pin badge. But on my second pull, I got the A-tier prize! Specifically the one on the right!

I would say this was pretty lucky but to be honest I probably spent close to ¥4,000 on random gacha machines haha

Day 24 : Card Games

I hadn't planned what to do today and so I decided I'd go back to Akihabara, but focusing more on card shops. I actually do a bit of collecting for the Weiß Schwarz (I'll just call it Weiss Schwarz or even Weiss going forward). More importantly than that though, I still have room in my luggage if it's just cards lol

I did manage to find one of my collecting grails, but the price was NOT right since it was on sale for over 2k USD.

I think ungraded, these have gone for like 1.3k in the Japanese format in the recent past but the price just keeps going up, so it's probable that I won't ever buy one myself.

A silly decision I made was to buy a signature card gacha at magi in the Radio Kaikan building. The fee was ¥20,000 and you were guaranteed a signature card, with the best items being pretty high value PSA 10 graded cards. For this specific gacha, there were 40 cards and it looked like 7 of them were graded cards.

I went into it expecting to get a cheap $20 card after paying the $130 (how else would they make money?) and what did I get?

At first, I thought I was a scammed since the card I had gotten was just a bulk common card and I had thought that the gacha was guaranteed to be a signature card at least. For a second, I totally thought I had really misunderstood something. However, flipping it over, I saw the item above. I had to use Google translate because I didn't know all of the Kanji, but it looked like it was an exchange voucher! I went back to the register and handed it over, and they handed me the real version of the card!! Nice!

Actually, I already have a different signature card of this character from the English version of the game and it's actually the card I pulled that got me semi-addicted to collecting lol

Looking at last sales on the Japanese Mercari site, it seems like they have been going for in the 250+ range so it seems like I got a deal! I guess if you play enough gacha, you're bound to win a couple!

Before heading home, I made sure to stop at Sushiro to get some dinner. I think if you get a chance, you should try the "salmon, basil, camembert" nigiri. It is so good, and I've definitely been getting a few plates every time I visit. I never would have thought to try salmon with cheese but the food scientists have done it once again

From the Sushiro menu