After yesterday’s Yuriten, it was time to shift into high gear and go shopping. I don’t have much time left here, so today was a frantic hike around various stores. 

I started at Tokyo Station with a visit to Character Street, where I yet again threw an unreasonable amount of money on Sailor Moon and Utena goods. I forgot to tell you this – many of the goods out now are Outers-focused, and so I’ve been picking up extras for the upcoming set of Lucky Boxes.  The picture on the left is some guy in a Nameko head outside the Nameko store on Character Street doing a “signing.” People were lined up for his autograph and everything.

I went back to Akihabara, primarily because it was Sunday and I have never managed to make Akihabara on Sunday. Lots of people, but nothing else exciting was happening at least while I was there. I got a copy of Wings magazine, in which a new Kase-san chapter debuted, “Yamada to Kase-san.” I’m really glad to be able to get this issue, if for no other reason than to see Yamada’s name in the title. ^_^ The station had one of those Gashapon cities that were popular in every station when I was here last, and I found some fun ones there to throw a few bucks away at. Then it was back to Ueno to pick up something at Yamashiroya at the wife’s request. I had taken the long way around to Tokyo station so as I made my way back on the Yamanote, I’d complete a circuit. Just because. :-)

Back in Ikebukuro, I hit up Book-Off and managed to find not one of the books I was looking for. Do you remember Shitsurakuen? I read the first volume in 2009 (and did not like it one bit), managed to catch pieces of it here and there in the magazine. I know how it ended, but have never had a chance to read it. I also refuse to pay a cent to find out. ^_^ I keep going to Book-Off, hoping they have the end so I can just read the last few pages, but they never have it.  They have increasing numbers of Volume 1, every time I go. (^_^); Oh well. Nor did they have any of the other books on my list, and the series they had, they had the wrong volumes, boo. :-( Its always a crapshoot with Book-Off anyway. It’s just fun to look through the shelves.

Then it was down to the Animate Yuribu once more just to see what was there. The current issue of Dengeki Mao has Nettaigyou ha Yuki ni Kogareru on the cover. Picked up a few more books, of course. ^_^ 

At which point I was fading from hunger, so I headed back to my hotel. But I finally got to check off something from my to-do in Tokyo list – I managed to buy a doughnut from Mister Donut. I’ve never managed to have one before in all my times here. Life goals!

Tomorrow is my last day and it will be more running around. I want to get back to the Yuriten once more, hit up Harajuku and make sure I everything on my list that can be get is gotten. Wish me luck!

Welcome to the Yuri Meguri 2018!

This week is a perfect time to be in Tokyo if you are a Yuri fan! I began my stay with a quick visit to the Ikebukuro Animate, where they are running a first anniversary Yurimate event.

For all the photos of the Yurimate exhibit and the Yuribu layout, take a look on my Yurimate album on Facebook.

The Yuribu is on the first floor as it has been. The shelves include new releases and the 20th anniversary editions of the Maria-sama ga Miteru novels series, which made me smile. I picked up a few Yuriten fliers on the display!

The Yurimate takes up the exhibition portion of the 3rd floor. The walls are adorned with reproductions of current popular manga series from Comic Yuri Hime and Dengeki Daioh. Goods and books are laid out in the middle with some interesting choices for goods – Yagate Kimi ni Naru has a phone case available, for instance. One wall also has a screen playing the Asagao to Kase-san trailer and the Yuriten is selling tickets to the movie.

It’s all quite charming and I’ll be returning later to give it a closer look (and see if I can get more pictures.)

As I walked back to the hotel, I passed the Humax theater where in June Asagao to Kase-san will be screening and I suddenly realized how great a time it was for Yuri fan. I dubbed this trip a Yuri Meguri and decided that I would spend the next few days on a tour of Yuri in Tokyo. ^_^ (All the pictures can be found on the Yuri Meguri Facebook photoset.)

(A meguri is a trip “around” a place hitting up specified locations, btw. Years ago in Tokyo I did a Shichifukujin Meguri to visit shrines for the seven lucky gods and their boat.)

My first full day in town was the day I visited Akihabara. My first stop was the Yuribu I had never been to before, the Shosen Yuribu! I’d never even heard of the Shosen Book Tower until last year when they did an amusing April Fool’s joke about turning the whole thing into the Yuri Book Tower, then launched the Yuribu.

When I arrived, there was clearly marked sign right at the entrance for the Yuribu.

And when I found it, it was also clearly marked.

It wasn’t big, but it was another take on what constitutes “Yuri” from the perspective of the Shosen staff. So there were a bunch of older magazines, like Hirari and some new volumes of manga. 

Then it was on to Gamers, for their Yuribu. While Gamers is still hugely moe-focused, was much less skanky than it used to be. I have no idea if that is mostly due to them changing or me just not seeing it. ^_^; They had a mini-museum to a charming little series I’m reading, so haven’t yet reviewed, Nettaigyou ha Yuki ni Kogareru (熱帯魚は雪に焦がれる). 

And across from that, there was a display to Love to Lie Angle. Along the  wall was a small, but shockingly not-creepy Yuri section.

I then wandered over to Toranoana, which still had their Yuri Corner set up and – as I have come to expect – some series I have never before heard of! (It’s also next to some storage, which gives it a real “back corner” feel. There was a poster for Kase-san, and  surprising display of the members of Cham-Jam from Hirao Auri’s  Oshi ga Budokan Ittekuretara Shinu, Volume 1（推しが武道館いってくれたら死ぬ）. 

Then it was over to Animate, but as you remember, there is no Yuri club there, because it’s in the Ikebukuro store. ^_^ Then I popped over to Comic Zin, where I picked up some Yuri doujinshi, including a collection of office romance that I was glad to find.

Last time, I didn’t get a good picture, but I managed to show you this time. This section is on your right as you walk in to the second floor and very easy to see. 

The next day I went out to Ueno area to meet up with Kat Callahan, who wrote those excellent reviews of NTR for the now-defunct Anime Now website.

We made our way to the Yayoi-Yumei museum for an exhibit of sailor-style school uniforms, featuring art by Nakamura Yusuke whose art I adore and Takeuchi Naoko, with some images from Sailor Moon and a Q&A about her designs. There were mannequins with different uniform and tie styles and and photos of historical Japanese school uniforms and how they changed over time. 

We then wandered through the rest of the museum, enjoying Yumeji Takehisa’s art (which I found fascinating, as it was very nostalgic, but none of it was my nostalgia) and loads of pleasant Taisho and Showa girls’ magazine art, including a number of pieces by Nakahara Junichi, another very influential artist for the girls’ magazine aesthetic. You’ve probably seen his work.

Kat and I had a fascinating discussion that ranged around gender, sexuality, obsessive fandom and school uniforms. It was absolutely delightful and I learned a lot! That you so much, Kat, for joining me!

We walked over to Yamashiroya, where I found a bunch of really awesome Haruka x Michiru goods for the Lucky Boxes. ^_^

And now, as I sign off, I am getting ready for the opening of the Yuriten! I’ll be back with a report. 

Our last full day had arrived in Tokyo and we knew exactly where we were spending it. Sunshine-dori is a busy pedestrian-only street that runs along a shopping district full of clothing, shoes, pharmacies, general goods stores, restaurants, pachinko parlors and game arcades, and includes stores like Uniqlo and Tokyu Hands along the path. It terminates in Sunshine City, which is like 2 different malls attached underground, one, with performance space and exhibit space,and restaurants and a bazillion boutiques. This particular Tokyu Hands ends up getting a lot of our money, since there’s always interesting stuff there. This year we bought New Year’s postcards featuring the Egyptian god Anubis because we could. (Jackals are like a dog, right?)

We also stopped here. Or, I should say, my wife did, while I played Pokemon Go and watched people go by.

We gave Tokyu Hands a farewell walk around and noted fittingly that Bruce would not have been able to buy his Euglena (his favorite single-cell creature) bars there anyway, as they were no longer carrying them.

They did have a ramped up crafts section, with these wonderful creations to inspire you.

We then went down to Otome Road and visited most of the stores, looking at whole floors of goods dedicated to fictitious boy singer groups. It was fascinating. And then we saw something that appealed to both of us. Hell had come to Otome Road. Specifically, a themed cafe for Hozuki no Reitetsu, the second season of which is airing on Japanese TV now, in which we are treated to a comedic look at the Buddhist Hell and its bureaucracy, run by the competent, always annoyed demon Houzuki.

It was a blast. We ordered character-themed drinks.

You could take these little cutouts from the shelf and pose them with your food and drinks.

Wifey ordered the curry, I had the rice balls, pickles and soup.

We agreed that, for what essentially was microwaved food, it was pretty tasty. We received special coasters for every item, and there were goods for sale (of course!), which were displayed along with little character-themed dioramas.

Even dessert was yummy. We shared a cake set and an anmitsu.

Last, but not least, we went to the flagship Animate store which has, you may recall, the “Yuribu.” 

This signs says that there are 22 Yuribu store locations; the display has some featured manga – both old and some slightly more “classic”, includes novels and manga and is immediately inside the front door of the store right by the wall of magazines. A wall, which I will note had, in every location of every manga store we went into, a tidy little Yuri section once more, consisting of Comic Yuri Hime and Galette. It was especially nice to see Yuri magazines with what I consider to be “good” art. May our tribe increase.

By virtue of imprints clustering books, there were still little communities of Yuri on the shelves, as always. It was nice to see some friendly faces being advertised as being part of the “Yurimate” event.

We dragged our purchases back to the hotel and overfilled our luggage tremendously. ^_^

Here’s the unpacking of most of what I got. All the Sailor Moon stuff was in different bags. This includes stuff I got as gifts for a few friends. You see the white t-shirt?I hate white t-shirts, but how could pass that up? The back has Nobue and Miu dressed as the devils. The pink shirt amazed me, because while I think Chika and Miu are an obvious couple, I thought I was alone in that. I really dislike pink, too, but had to get the shirt. The tote is an omake from the Galette calendar set., which has prompted me to cull some of my many, many, many random tote bags. The coolest ones are going to go in this year’s Lucky Boxes.

And here are a couple of fun purchases I made. Funky Utena calendar.

New phone case.

At last, the reveal on those foil packages from the other day! 

These are the pins from the Asagao-to Kase-san booth at the Animate Girls Festival a few weeks ago,

This New Year’s Lucky Boxes are gonna be awesome. In fact, I think we’ll do a “Premium” Lucky Box that will have some of the items we bought specifically this time for a Lucky Box (with the limited edition harder to get stuff,) and then usual assortment of boxes full off random fun crap. 

And with that, another Tokyo Journal comes to an end (at least until the credit card bills drop. ^_^;) Many many thanks to everyone we saw and ate food with!

It was a beautiful Sunday in Tokyo, so we decided to enjoy the crowds in Harajuku. First stop, we hit up Kiddyland, where character goods are plentiful and the bathrooms are clean. (Stores “for women” in Japan always have clean, spacious bathrooms, with changing tables for children.) Kiddyland had some familiar banners hanging overhead.

We then made our way over to the La Foret building to see spend money at the Sailor Moon store. Which we did. My wife was >this< close to buying a $400 purse, while I mused about losing enough weight to fit a Japanese women’s Medium to get a hoodie.  Instead we bought stuff.

Including, I might add, stuff for you, dear readers. This year’s New Year Lucky Boxes are going to be lit.

We saw a poster for the upcoming Sailor Moon classical concert and while we won’t be here for it, we did grab a bunch of these awesome promo posters.

We stopped on Takeshitadori and had a cute waffle dessert with our lunch, that we yet again forgot to take pictures of. We also ate it like it was our last meal. ^_^;

For dinner, we crashed the TCAF get-together at a lovely izakaya near our hotel. Caught up with translator extraordinaire Simona Stanzani,, met and had a lovely conversation with indie game developer Christine Love, comic artist John L. Gehron, and bunches of folks who were here with the TCAF crowd, and eat good food (some of which I *finally* remembered to take a picture of!)

The duck sukiyaki below was brilliant. I will totally eat at this place again for this dish.

Today was Akihabara day. Traditionally, I begin this day with a statement that I won’t be buying much. As is traditional, I then follow this up by buying too much. Today I kept with tradition.  BUT…and this is a big BUT, things were not the same at all. It is much easier to find Yuri in Akihabara than it has ever been.

Toronoana still has a multi-publisher “Yuri Corner” clearly labeled, with all sorts of creator art and advertising on the walls.

And a lovely ad for the Kase-san series.

I picked up a few things I hadn’t heard of or known about, which is always the best. Exactly why Yuri sections are so important, in fact.

The Animate doujinshi section also had a separate “Yuri Corner” with some reasonable inclusions. 

Comic Zin featured both prominent Yuri artists doujinshi on the second floor as you walked in and a section labeled Yuri. I thought I got a picture of this, but apparently took it from the wrong angle, so you can’t see the labels, duh. No large banner, but the shelves were clearly marked and they were right in the front as you walked in. I picked up some doujinshi by Hakamada Mera and Morinaga Milk.

Gamers also has a multi-publisher “Yuribu” section, clearly marked and, surprisingly, nicely varied. I’m going to admit that I was expecting skank world there. The last time I visited Gamers, it was all creepy all the time. Not at all true of  the Yuri section, although it favored the moe.

They also had a special exhibit in honor of the release of the 8th volume of Ichigo Mashimaro. There were goods, bags, t-shirts of which I bought two, one each in my least favorite colors, white and pink, because the designs were brilliant and coolest, actual original pages by Barasui.

I’m always surprised and pleased at these new “Yuri” sections, because they will change the way people can shop for Yuri. Up until now, people had to know what to look for, where. These new “Yuri” sections, that are multi-publisher and in some cases, multi-format, with novels and manga together signal the continued legitimacy of our growing genre.  

Even more exciting, the Animate store in Akihabara does not have a Yuribu because, of course, you remember that they chose to locate it in the “girl’s” store in Ikebukuro. In my opinion, this is a major success, separating “Yuri” from being the purview of men, and laying it in our laps and yes, that was meant to be a pleasantly salacious analogy. ^_^

 Tomorrow is our last full day and we intend to spend it and all the rest of our money locally in the girl’s Yuribu. ^_^