Tuesday 3 August 2010

キャラクターグッズ(Character goods)

I have this student...or rather had this student that I exchanged a diary with to help her practice written English. One day, a month or so ago, she asked me the question, "Do you want character goods?"

I Japan, anime and video game merchandising is big business. I myself am a fan of a few Japanese animes and mangas, but there aren't many places to get these so-called 'character goods' in Tokushima. Unless you want Ghibli stuff. You can get Ghibli stuff anywhere.

Anyway, I wasn't sure whether she meant to ask whether I like character goods, or if she was making an explicit offer, but I replied with a simple, "Yes."

Oh Lordy.

The next time I saw her, she gave me three One Piece folding fans (One Piece is a long-running manga/anime). Later, she asked me to choose items from pictures she had on her phone. There was loads of stuff on there - figurines, lunchboxes, watches, stickers etc. She said I could have anything. Since I'm a fan of Fullmetal Alchemist, I said I'd take a figurine of one of the characters from that, and a One Piece watch, since I'd been getting by without a watch for two years.

However, the next time we met she was carrying a One Piece bag containing the watch, a set of figurines, some sound fx buttons and various other items. Then, on my last day at school, she was carrying a huge bag containing even more of these character goods. I asked her where she got all this stuff from, and she told me her mother won them at game centres from UFO catchers and the like. This thought disturbed me not a little. By this time my desire for free stuff had to do battle with my desire to keep my luggage down, but the former proved the stronger force and won the day. Here's a picture of my final spoils:

I love stuff.

No comments: