A few days ago I had some lunch with a colleague of mine in Albuquerque at El Patio. It was pretty good except for the fact that I ordered a blue corn spinach enchilada and I got a normal enchilada, but I only realized it after I ate about 90% of it because I was hungry for green chile.

Anyway, after the lunch we went to scope out the area. The “Brick Light District,” as it’s called, is fairly new. It wasn’t there when I went to UNM. I saw this store that had a sign: “Tokyo Hardcore Pop Culture Shoppe.” We went in.

The first thing I noticed was a Domo-kun plushie. Pretty cool. Then I noticed some other random Japanese culture stuff. Hello Kitty stuff, birthday candles that spelled out “omedetou,” vinyl toys, etc. It kind of reminded me of Wizzywig, except with less emphasis on video game and anime pop culture and more on fashion and toy culture.

I talked to the store clerk girl for a little bit about the store. Apparently there are less people that come in who are “our age” and more really young people and fairly old people. Interesting. She said they opened maybe a few months ago and that they’re getting cool new items in regularly.

I’m pretty happy that a store like this exists in my (former) town. I think it adds a lot to the vibe that Albuquerque is one of those culturally interesting cities. I think I read somewhere that we’re somewhere up there with Austin and Seattle, etc. So I hope the store does well. Also, the girl at the counter was really cute, in that Suicide Girls kind of way.

When I first saw pictures of the Humping Dog USB thing, I thought it was an ill-designed USB flash drive. Obviously people were laughing at it because it was dog shaped, and if you put it onto a laptop, it looked like the dog was humping it. I was wrong.

The device is specifically designed to look like a dog humping a laptop. Moreover, it is mechanical. Yes, the dog physically humps the laptop when you “plug it in.” The website (in Japanese) states, “Once you insert it, it doesn’t stop!”

I’m not even sure that the USB device has any memory, as the website says nothing about capacity. I think it’s just more of a desk toy than anything. It costs 998 yen, which is less than $10.

I don’t know if the best part of the video is the mosaic censoring of the dog, or “Believe” by Cher playing in the background…

Dr. Clinic Gum

So the only reason he bought this gum was the weird name. I guess it’ll fix my breath or something. It has a picture of a tooth under an umbrella…

Random Buddhist Charms

My brother told me these were to hang in my car so I don’t get into so many car wrecks. I actually have a Mr. T air freshener protecting my car right now, so I pity the fool who tries to smash into it!

Ichigo Candy

So this candy says “ichigo” on it, which means strawberry. It also says “ramune” like the drink. I haven’t opened it yet, but it looks sorta pez-like in nature.

Melonpanna Stamp

This Melonpanna thing is a character from some anime. The base comes off and has a hidden stamp! Melonpanna spins frantically when you use the stamp. Pretty cool, but I wish it had a melon pan scent to it too…

Also pictured is the capsule that the toys came in, and the Final Fantasy Advent Children insert thingy.

Naruto Phone Thing

Sweet! It’s a Naruto phone thingy. You strap it onto your phone like a Japanese schoolgirl. It appears as though Naruto is either jumping, or on the ground in pain. I vote for the latter. He seems to do that a lot.

Random Bubblegum

This bubblegum comes in three flavors: Cola, Grapefruit, and (tsubu tsubu?) Ichigo. It looks pretty good, so I’ll be consuming this shortly.

Roz from Final Fantasy Advent Children

Believe it or not, I haven’t actually seen the movie yet, so I have no idea who this is. Cloud or Tifa would’ve been so awesome, but this is cool too. Is this guy a Turk or something? I hardly remember the plot for Final Fantasy VII…

Super Mario Flashplate

Apparently, this is a pretty rare item. It’s a diorama with an lcd on it, and it flashes using solar power. It’s the thing in Super Mario Brothers where you can get the koopa troopa on a step, and get infinite 1-ups by jumping on it while it bounce back at you. I used to be able to do this as a kid, but I don’t really have the patience anymore…

Well, that’s all. Thanks to my brother for getting all this cool stuff. He really saved me a trip to Jlist.com. You can see his blog here.

え？自分にしか買ってこなかったの？　(eh? Jibun ni shika kattekonakatta no?)

Which I think means: “Eh? You only bought it for yourself?” (the subject was gifts)

Not only is this hard to say, but the Japanese person saying it just blazes through it! And I had to figure it out from listening, not from reading it! Listen for yourself:

jibunnishikakattekonakattano.mp3

I guess it’s harder to understand if you’re doing listening homework, and you don’t know the Japanese that she’s saying. I’m going to go ahead and say it’s my new favorite Japanese tounge twister! Next to basugasubakuhatsu, of course…

First, the Final Fantasy Potion:

Yes, that’s my hand in the picture. Maybe I should be a hand model… Anyway, the bottles were a bit smaller than I envisioned. I’m going to be drinking the potion along with my cousin, who ordered 2 with me. I was thinking of doing a video review or something. I’ve heard it tastes like medicine, but I think I’m getting a slight cold, so maybe the potion will cure it!

Next, the Question Mark Box Bank:

Yep, it’s a bank shaped like the box in Mario that you hit to make a coin or whatever appear. I tried punching it. It just made my hand hurt. I envisioned it would be bigger than it actually turned out to be. It can probably hold like, $1 worth of change. Yay.

It also came with a keychain character. I got a blooper. He came in a little protective baggie. I like it.

Next up, the other Sound-Making Keychain!

There are six of these keychains in all, but I ordered one and got a random one. It makes the Mario swimming sound. It’s a lot bigger than I thought it would be, and I dunno if I should walk around with it as a keychain. It could go off in my pants without warning! Check out my quick demo video of it in action!

Last but not least (well, probably both) is the Busted Pouch of Pocari Sweat (try saying that five times fast!):

I’m going to ask Jlist if they’ll send me an unbusted one. It sort of got all over the other stuff and made it look like I got some cocaine with my order. True, there’s still some mix in the pouch, but now that it’s open, I dunno if I wanna ingest it. For all I know, it IS cocaine!!!

EDIT: Jlist wrote back saying that they’d send me a replacement. How cool are they!?

So yeah. That’s it. If you wanna be cool like me and get crazy stuff from Japan, check out Jlist. They’ve got some neat stuff. Shipping is kind of a lot, but if you buy in bulk, it becomes somewhat reasonable.

Actually, I’ve already done 2 of 6 required homeworks, and my brain is pretty much dead. Learning languages takes quantity studying, not quality. That is, it’s better to study Japanese 3 times for 20 minutes than once for 60 minutes. So I’m gonna slowly catch up.

Seriously, though, I’m curious as to what the Japanese still have behind their sleeves. Cold Fusion, anyone?

1. Final Fantasy X (2001)
2. Final Fantasy VII (1997)
3. Dragon Quest III (1988)
4. Dragon Quest VIII (2004)
5. Machi (1998)
6. Final Fantasy IV (1991)
7. Tactics Ogre (1995)
8. Final Fantasy III (1990)
9. Dragon Quest VII (2000)
10. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998)
…

Apparently, Japanese gamers like their RPGs! The whole list is pretty much dominated by RPGs with a Mario game here and a Sonic game there. Strangely, Super Mario RPG didn’t make the list.

Another thing I noticed was that Final Fantasy X-2 sat pretty high at 32nd place. It beat The Legend of Zelda. Think about that. The. Legend. of. Zelda. I think the Japanese have finally lost it. Seriously.

This map is basically what would happen if you got a bunch of Japanese guys in a room, got them drunk, and then asked them to draw what they could remember about America on a bar napkin. Hell, that’s probably how this game was originally designed. Anyhow, I feel the map speaks for itself.

This is really distressing. I’m assuming this is some kind of parody thing, but Chicago is some kind of mega fortress, Alaska has an ice palace, Montana seems to be some kind of Neko City, and Saint Paul has a giant one of those bird things that drink water! Most of America also seems to be covered in impassable mountain terrain. At least they had a location from New Mexico: Carlsbad Caverns!

Also scary is the existence of Mexico, but not Canada…

As bad as this is, I have a feeling Americans could probably not do any better.

So today in Japanese class, instead of having class as usual, we went over to this traveling art exhibit about shoujo manga. Shoujo manga is written for girls, so no guys in the class really admitted to reading any of it, per se. Actually, I don’t read shoujo manga either; I watch the anime…

Anyway, the exhibit goes through three time periods of shojou manga from the 1960s all the way to the present. The art seemed pretty cool, and I was surprised at times how “modern” the stuff from the 70′s looked. I was hoping there’d be more Yuri and less Yaoi, but what can ya do!? We also got to talk to Masami Toku (the director of the project) briefly about the history of shoujo manga.The exhibit runs until around the middle of the month (I think), so if you’re at UNM, check it out at Maisley Gallery.

I also snuck out with a copy of Shoujo Beat Manga Sampler! “Snuck out” not as in stealing (it’s free after all) but as in getting away with it as a guy. Man, can’t they label these manga something else, like “masculine” and “not quite as masculine?” Honestly though, I don’t care if people know I read shoujo manga, I mean, I’m writing about it on my blog right?

Here’s a link to the exhibit’s homepage in case you’re interested.