Random Japan

As I was writing a blog update for this month, where I was going to cap off my coverage of Japan, I decided that I had enough to make one more post. It's not a lot, just two more things to mention. One is a store at an Aeon Mall in Asahikawa where I walked around a place called Village/Vanguard. The small store squeezed in a wide variety of things, like toys, clothing, manga, and candy. One of the photos I took is of Monchhichi toys. If you are a kid of the '80s, you'll probably remember Monchhichis. The toys first released in Japan in 1974 by the Sekiguchi Corporation, and then Mattel brought them to the U.S. in 1980, and in 1983 we got a Monchhichi cartoon. According to Wikipedia, there are still some stores selling them in North America and they continue to be popular in Europe, and I'd have to assume Japan too.

I showed some Pokémon photos in the A Few Things From Japan post, and I have a few more. As I wandered around Hokkaido, I took photos of six Pokémon manhole covers. These can be found throughout the whole country and there are many more in Hokkaido than the six I photographed. I also noticed that Vulpix appears on all of the manhole covers I saw. That's the same pocket monster that was on the ANA airplane I flew on, as well as a vending machine I found next to one of the manhole covers.

That puts a wrap on my trip to Japan. Sorry if I wrote too much about it. I hope some of you enjoyed the posts!

[YouTube] A Few Things From Japan

https://youtu.be/GjDOUDNF5jU

My previous post, which was more than a month ago, mentioned that the article I scanned was fitting for the time without giving a reason. Well, that article was about Japanese toys, and a week after I posted that, I was in Japan! Like many other geeks and gamers, I'd wanted to visit Japan for a long time, at least 25 years. Despite the way things have been the past year and half, which, to say the least, haven't been great, I decided to go anyway. In early August I turned 50 and this was a gift to myself. It was my first time outside of North America as driving to Ontario, Canada had been the extent of my international travels up until now. While most people go to Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka, I visited the northern island of Hokkaido. However, I did miss a connection flight at Haneda Airport on the way there and got stuck in Ota City the first night. In any case, this isn't a travel blog, so I'm not going to write too much about the trip, but I will have a few posts after this one related to toys and games.

Gundam store at New Chitose Airport

Aside from snacks, I actually didn't bring back too much. I'd hoped to find some cool Sega collectibles, but I didn't come across any. In fact, I saw almost nothing Sega-related. All I recall seeing is some Sonic the Hedgehog socks at a Mega Don Quijote store in Kushiro. There was probably other Sonic stuff around that I didn't notice, however, I was not looking for Sonic things. As far as non-food items, I bought a few gifts for others, one Tomica car for myself, collected a Star Wars capsule toy from a gacha machine, purchased an exclusive Gundam keychain at an airport, and picked up a couple packs of baseball cards.

Tomica

From what I gather, TakaraTomy die-cast cars are separate from the Tomica line. The TakaraTomy cars are packaged in red and white boxes, while the Tomica vehicles are in black boxes and cost a bit more. I try not to buy toys anymore, but I couldn't resist the Toyota AE86 Sprinter Trueno from Initial D, which is one of my favorite animé series. Tomica makes other Initial D cars too, and I did consider getting the yellow Mazda RX-7, but resisted. I thought the price was too high at about $9, and that was before I opened it to find the car wasn't any bigger than the 1/64 scale cars, despite the packaging being twice the size of those for the standard Tomica products.

Mobile Suit Gundam Keychain

Another animé I enjoy is the original Mobile Suit Gundam. On my way home I passed through New Chitose Airport, the site of a Gundam store with a couple exclusive items. The keychain I purchased features the original Gundam with a map of Hokkaido behind it. I didn't get the other exclusive, which was a t-shirt with the same image.

Demon Slayer

Here's another manga/animé item, but not a comic book/show I'm familiar with. Japan Rail (JR) had Demon Slayer character stamps set up at stations across Hokkaido. I only found two of them and I'm guessing each box in the free booklet represents a specific character, but I didn't know which was which so I stamped them anywhere. I also used the blank page for some other location stamps since I didn't have a proper stamp book. There were JR trains with Demon Slayer art as well. The display and train photos were taken at Asahikawa Station.

Gacha Capsule Toy

I'll likely write a little more about the gacha machines that I saw just about everywhere I went in another post. I decided I'd try it once for the experience, so I found a Star Wars machine and got a Stormtrooper. 

Mario Stickers/Candy

These are gifts so I'm not going to open them to see what's inside. There were a variety of items on racks packed like these stickers for 100 yen each. They weren't all stickers, just other inexpensive things with a popular license attached. The tiny piece of chocolate was maybe 15 yen. 

Pokémon

When it comes to licensing, Pokémon was what I saw the most of. I flew on All Nippon Airways' (ANA) Vulpix Pokémon plane where they use colored cups to serve water, and even on the non-Pokémon planes there is some branding on the seats, a safety video with the characters, and less colorful cups. Of course, I kept the cups, though I think most passengers tossed them. Also, I attended a baseball game in Sapporo which happened to be a special night. Captain Pikachu was in attendance and I received a 9" long image of Captain Pikachu.

Baseball Cards

Speaking of baseball, I'd wanted to get some baseball cards while I was in Japan and they turned out to be surprisingly difficult to find. I thought they'd be sold at convenience stores, but they aren't and the only place I eventually found them were at a couple toy stores. The first place I came across them was at a strip mall in Kitami so I bought a pack of Bowman and a pack of Topps. They're from two years ago, though I didn't care about that. There were some other brands there that I wasn't familiar with, and the images on those packs made me think they might be minor league cards, though I have no idea if that was the case. On the last day of my trip I visited a Toys "R" Us and there were a bunch of 2025 packs, but I decided not to get anymore. I was just curious to see some, I didn't want to spend too much on them. 

I also came across a couple snack food items with cards attached. One is a bag of chips from Calbee and the other is a rice snack from Bandai Namco.

KitKat

A favorite candy bar in the U.S., KitKat is a hit in Japan as well. Although there isn't much variety here in North America, Japan is known for its numerous KitKat flavors. Long before I visited Japan, I once purchased some green tea KitKats online, but I didn't like them too much, so I passed on trying them again, though it was one of the six flavors I came across during my trip. The flavor I wanted to get was Yubari Melon, which is exclusive to Hokkaido. Unfortunately, despite visiting many stores, I never saw them. I ended up getting strawberry, chocolate orange, milk tea, and chocolate mint ice cream flavors.

Pringles

Another popular American snack is Pringles potato chips, and in Hokkaido they have an exclusive scallop, butter, and soy flavor. It's packaged in a shiny box that includes three small cans. I'm not someone who likes to try new foods and this doesn't sound appealing to myself, so I can't tell you how they taste. I only bought them to use as gifts for friends and family.

UPDATE 9/28/25: This may not be of much interest, but I opened the Bandai Namco baseball snack that Google Translate said is a rice cracker. It was crunchy with a mild spiciness, leaving a bit of a burning aftertaste.

Year 5: February Update

Last month's blog update image turned out to be an unintentional preview for my latest "almost-a-toy video." McDonald's stuff isn't exactly about toys but a few of the items qualify as such so I grouped it with the toy posts. Of course, I decided to do that because of the recent Pokémon trading card craze at the fast food chain. Pokémon is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year and just today three new video games in the franchise were announced for the Switch. Two of them are remakes of the Nintendo DS' Diamond and Pearl Versions that will be out at the end of the year while the third is a new open-world RPG from Game Freak that is expected to release in 2022.

Mattel announced a Hot Wheels video game will be out on September 30th for all the major platforms. That one is in development at Milestone, an Italian studio that specializes in realistic racing titles. Quite a bit going on this week for gaming as Sony also held a State of Play event, though nothing there grabbed my attention. The big reveal was Final Fantasy VII Remake for PlayStation 5. Other games being brought to the latest consoles and Switch are Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2, both from Activision. If you're waiting for the Intellivision Amico you'll need to wait even longer as it was delayed for a second time and will now release October 10, 2021, exactly one year later than originally intended.

Hasbro revealed some upcoming television programs this week too. There will be two new Transformers animated shows which isn't a surprise as that franchise is continuously being milked. One will air on Nickelodeon and will be about a new species rather than Autobots and Decepticons. The other is a Netflix show subtitled "BotBots" that is set in a shopping mall where the Transformers pose as everyday objects. Netflix will be the home of a new My Little Pony series and movie as well. Finally, a live-action G.I. Joe show is in the works for Amazon Prime! Not much is known about this one other than Lady Jaye is the focus.

Here's a quick story about a recent experience with my first and still primary HDTV that I bought in January 2011. It had been giving me some issues throughout the past year with lines on the screen for a few minutes when I'd turn it on and then this month all the HDMI ports quit working. What was most strange is that the Switch and Xbox One displayed no signal, my PC caused the TV to turn on and off, and the PS4 got a partial picture through that caused the TV to make popping sounds. After searching online I found HDMI ports failing was common on older LG TVs and someone suggested "cooking" the circuit board in an electric oven. 

Back of my television opened up. Power supply
on the left, main board on the right.

Without HDMI ports the TV was not very useful so I went for it, though I had to take it to another house since I have a gas oven. That actually worked, fixing both the ports and the image quality. I'm not suggesting anyone with a broken LG TV try it but it didn't seem like a big risk since a similar television today wouldn't cost too much and if it hadn't worked I'd have upgraded to 4K but that will have to wait until the TV breaks again.

Thanks for reading,
Jonathan