Super Festival

Monday was Super Festival, a big toy event held several times a year in Tokyo. I went with my friend Joe Wong. He used to live in Japan and help me get toys here, but is now living in Beijing. He came here for the event.

We got there quite early, before 7, but there was already a line. We later found out that there were 100 people in front of us.

One thing they do is have a pre-show outdoor sale for very limited items. The way they handled this was kind of strange. About 7:30 someone came down the line and handed everyone who was there a number. Then a bit later everyone with a number goes by a box and pulls out a folded up piece of paper that has a different number. This number determines the buying order for the presale. So there is an advantage to being there when they hand the numbers out, but no advantage to being there any earlier.

Here are people hanging around while they set up the pre-sale. No one really knows what will be there until the day of the event.

Later on, at 10, the show itself started. There were all sorts of vendors...vinyl kaiju (monster) toys, models, action figures, stuffed animals, and random every-day toys.

I had a good time and I'm glad I got to experience how the Japanese collectors do their things. That night Joe and his wife took me out for Singaporean food...it was really good! Kind of like Chinese, kind of like Indonesian, but with its own flavors.