1st Ikebukuro (1)

New year's day! Otakaku shopping day~! Yay~!!

Last time when we were at the Sunshine City building, we made sure it would be opened on the 1st. As many stores didn't, that was where we went. Department store were selling Fukubukuro, a "lucky bag" containing mystery items, but guaranteed to worth much more than the price tag. Personally, I think it's just a gimmick to get rid of unsold merchandise.

First we went to the Otome Road, a one-block area that has a high concentration of otaku stores. (Otome = maiden.) Well, it actually has 2 big stores that specialize in BL doujinshi. Mandarake and K-books. (BL = boys love = homosexual.) BL's target audience is usually female. Get it?

Personally, I'm not a BL fan. But it's the touristy thing to do. So I wouldn't mind visiting the stores. However! Mandarake was closed! Aaaaargh! Oh well, we went to K-books. Since I missed my chance to buy any FMA doujinshi at Comic Market, I wanted to buy one here. But, but!! All the books were bagged! Some of them displayed a photocopy of one page on the back, but that wasn't enough to accurately represent the book. It's like, you have to judge the book by it's cover, and it's difficult. I... couldn't decide. And then suddenly, I saw a book by one of my new friends at the FAM party! Hmm... doesn't seem like BL, but it wasn't cheap either, at almost 1000 yen. ($10.) I hesitated, hesitated, and hesitated. And then times up. We gotta move on. So I ended up buying nothing. Sob sob sob...

Next stop was K-books' toy department, which was in a different building. And then Rashinban. More toys. I had a chance to see some rare items, and picked up some loose capsule toys. At the end of the block was Animate. 7 floors of otaku stuff. Comic, toys, character goods, you name it. I bought a set of etching 1/6 glasses and some Black Jack cough drops for friends' souvenir.

Last but not least, back to the Sunshine City building. I immediately bought a doujin suit case. (^_^) At about $10, it was a good deal. (But was broken before I got home.) After that, Toysr'us. Woooo... Pinky, Sylvanian Families, Microman, Stikfas, plus a mini RC car as a friend's gift. How come my local Toysr'us selection is so small? It sucks! Look at how many stuff the Japanese one has!

My companion bought a Hello Kitty Fukubukuro at Sanrio House. With the other toys she bought at Toysr'us, she ended up buying a doujin suit case too. We both had a pretty satisfying shopping day.