We’re in Japan now. Yesterday was spent hunting down aquarium stores, visiting Junie Moon and debating if I’ll finally get a Blythe doll (conclusion: maybe) and shopping in Shibuya. While in Shibuya (the epicenter of youth and shopping and creepy nationalist demonstrations), we had to check out a couple of game centers. One of which inexplicably smelled like poop, but overall they get a B+.
To recap my obsession with crane games in Japan, I love them because their toys are actually really good, their toys reflect the current popular characters, and depending on the game center, the employees may open up the game and move the toys around so that they’re easier to win.
We were happy to see that Rirakkuma is still a favorite offering in these games of luck and skill.
These little Rirakkumas are each bearing chicks that have different birthdays printed on their stomachs.
And yesterday we were introduced to Kapibara-san, the new guinea pig character from Try Works, which is like San-x, except with a guinea pig character.
We were especially impressed by the animation on this slick TV monitor in a seemingly completely unsupervised and un-security-guarded center:
We tried our darndest (about 1,000 yen worth) to grab one of these little guys, but in the end, we had to give up and purchase the very same toy at the Loft department store for 800 yen.
Crane game: 1
Us: 0
I love love love those guinea pigs!! Ok I love everything that you showed. I hope you’re having a great time in the land of the cute!
Also, what are those things that look like babies in chicken drumsticks?
Hi Jenna! The creepy doll things are Kewpie Dolls – in Japan, there is a brand of mayonnaise that has the Kewpie Doll as its logo, and I think the red things are supposed to be tubes of mayonnaise. I think.
Hope all is well in Australia!
Correction: the red things are tubes of tarako sauce, made of fish eggs. Yum?
The guinea pig is the cutest! I think if I ever have the pleasure of going to Japan I am going to spend a lot of yen on these crane games!
Hi there! I was browsing past entries of your blog. A capybara is not a guinea pig — it is much bigger and you can see them in zoos.
Here’s some photos and a description on Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capybara