Aarin's Tokyo Trip (May 2023)

[aarinfantasy]

Hello everyone! Guess what I've been up to lately?

It's Animate's 40th anniversary and they have just renovated their Animate Ikebukuro (Tokyo) flagship store. Said to be the biggest manga/anime store in the world and also BL heaven.

So I went to Animate at Ikebukuro recently and took this video (sadly, it was a very cloudy weekday afternoon). Will be posting some pictures and a bit of info regarding this new store at this thread. Also bought a few things from Animate for contest or giveaway next time!

The obvious difference between the old Ikebukuro's Animate is that the new Animate is very spacious now, about double the size. Even on busier weekends, people have more space to walk around and won't be blocked by long queues compared to the past.

I will be posting at my FaceBook, Instagram and Twitter about this... if you prefer to check from there. Links in my sig.

[aarinfantasy]

I will be talking a bit about Ikebukuro's Animate for the next batch of pic posts. Hopefully it will give a bit more insight of the place or inspire to visit the store if you plan to go Tokyo.

There are 9 floors in Animate Ikebukuro. Most of us will usually visit the 1F-6F for the books/goodies and the rest are mainly event spaces. My advise is to visit Animate on weekdays or if it has to be weekends, early in the morning when they just open will be good. Apparently, weekday nights are less busy too.

As soon as you enter 1F, there are lots of gashapon machines ranging from 300yen to the premium ones over 1000yen. There is a Gratte Cafe where customers have a standing space to drink, no seats though.

Pictures:

[aarinfantasy]

Since there's a cafe (Gratte Cafe) at Ikebukuro's Animate, there are also food items like printed cookies of various BL titles etc. I took a picture of Negu Akahara x Nanako Semori of "Kaniteki Pervert Romance" printed cookie (Price: 486yen per piece).

There was even a collaboration between Thai BL show "Our Skyy2" with Gratte Cafe where they have their printed cookies for sale.

If you are not aware, Animate is also available in Thailand, so I guess this collab is made possible especially now that Thai BL is also very popular.

Pictures:

[aarinfantasy]

For obvious reasons, I can't take wide view pictures since there are many customers at Animate, so here are some BL manga that are on display.

At 2F, there are lots of Japanese manga, mainly mainstream ones or for the general public.

At 3F, it's mostly targeted to BL fans, and there are obviously a lot more female at that floor. The manga shelves are mainly organized according to creators. So if you like a certain mangaka for example, you can find their work all at one section. There are also manga shelves that are organized according to certain genres in BLs like school life, working adults, omegaverse etc.

On the 4F, there are anime apparels or clothings section which is a brand new section from the old Animate. They also highlighted that they have anime items that are not too obvious for those who don't want to show anything too weeb in public and yet subtle enough for fellow fans to know what they are wearing. They even have beauty products of certain characters or animations like hand creams, shower gel, lip balm etc. There are also various mangakas' autograph, sketches and messages at the wall here.

Pictures:
Animate is currently promoting "Black or White" Volume 10 by Sachimo.
This title is available in English by SuBLime Manga for other volumes, I think up to Vol6 at the moment.

[aarinfantasy]

I found a classic fave of mine - Viewfinder by Ayano Yamane! There are also Chinese BL goods from Mo Dao Zu Shi and Korean BL goods from Painter of the Night.

Actually, many goods or merchandise of various animes can be found at 4F and 5F of Ikebukuro's Animate, but sadly not a lot of BL anime goods when I was there... because no BL anime was actively promoting at that time. Sasaki and Miyano have their goods displayed at 4F since it's an anime, which ended not too long ago.

However, if you are looking for BL goods that are not from anime but from manga only, then you can find it at 3F where all the BL mangas are located.

Pictures:

[aarinfantasy]

5F has more goods for the general public and also small section for game merchandises like Final Fantasy or Kingdom Hearts for example. Here, I bought some Final Fantasy music boxes~

Goods in Animate varies from keychains, file folders, plushies, decorative items and many more things... you will feel like getting them all!

At the 6th floor, there is a wide space with a huge monitor display which shows whatever title that are in promotion. This floor has CDs, DVDs, games and even Vtubers goods.

For the 7F-9F area, I didn't go there as they were changing some new things to those spaces, so I didn't get to visit. Apparently, the Space Galleria at 8F needs to buy ticket to enter to see its display and so on. What you can do is just check out their website about what will be on display or events at this flagship store before visiting.

Pictures:
There were various Vtuber standees on display, Touken Ranbu corner, tons of Genshin Impact items, and even old fave anime like Katekyo Hitman Reborn goods. I also like the colorful and useful display organizer pouch just like an itabag (but smaller)! I forgot to buy one because I was too distracted by other things there!

[aarinfantasy]

There is an extra flight of stairs at the new area of the Animate building which is wider and bigger, but the old iconic staircase still remains as you can see a lot of awesome promotional posters on the wall at the staircase. Promotional posters on both set of staircases are different, so if you want to take a look or take photos of them, you can go up from one and go down from the other so you can see all of them!

You can tell the difference between the new and old building as there is a significant difference in the floor's color (the old one is brown and the new one is gray), not sure if they will be changing that anytime soon.

We used to only be able to pay for the items at the same floor, but now we can pay for items at any floor that has a counter. My advise is the first floor will be the best as it is less busy and there's also an English help corner. Payment can be done by cash, credit card or IC Cards like PASMO or SUICA. Do bring your own shopping bag as they will charge you a small amount for their plastic bag.

Animate has a Point Card which is used to collect points, get discounts at certain conditions or redeem items. As a tourist, I just got one since it's free.

Hope you find this helpful in getting to know more about the new Animate at Ikebukuro!
I will be posting more on my Tokyo trip and a bit more on some other places that has BL when I visited.

Pictures of Paradox Live ads at the staircase area:

[aarinfantasy]

As we are talking about Ikebukuro... I have many food recommendations at Ikebukuro! But this time, I've only spent half a day at Ikebukuro and to give up-to-date info, I will mention the recent ones that I like at Ikebukuro:

Picture #1:
The ramen at "Kikanbo Ramen" is really nice especially the soup and chunky pork meat. Kikanbo is famous for their Oni or devil level spicy ramen but I didn't go for that since I don't want to get into any problem during the trip. I visited this small restaurant at 11:05am (weekday) and ordered the Special Ramen with less chilli and less sansho pepper level, which I regretted because it wasn't spicy at all, should have picked the medium level for both! (I actually can eat spicy being a Malaysian but if you can't eat anything spicy at all, please choose the "None" or "Less" levels). If you don't like bean sprouts, remember to tell them not to add it as it can be a lot. Queue got quite long after I've finished eating, but I think turnover time is pretty quick as they cook and serve really fast.


Picture #2:
I highly recommend the Coffee Jelly at "Caffe Veloce", it's yummy, simple and inexpensive for that amount and quality. Their iced black coffee is good too, typical Japanese coffee which is more mild than what you can usually find at Starbucks.


Honestly, I can go on forever about food and a huge foodie, so let me know if you'd like to read more about my "Food In Tokyo" experiences or recommendations, I may post more about it next time in the forum or at social media.

~

[aarinfantasy]

The very next day in Tokyo, I went to Shibuya for shopping and to check out more anime stores. The first one I went to is "MAGNET", which is located very near to the popular Shibuya Scramble Crossing. The place don't normally feature or sell BL stuff there but I came across some BL stuff there this time!

Picture #1:
Standee of Sakishita Senmu/Cream Puff by RED.


Picture #2:
A few other BL titles available at that same corner, but all of them are in Japanese only.


Picture #3:
A huge poster display of "Innocent Ni Kuchizuke"

[aarinfantasy]

Also at the same "MAGNET" building, I came across Mo Dao Zu Shi merchandises. They are really beautiful and quite a lot of variety too.

Pictures:






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