Ryan's Day Out: Today's Pickups

I'm behind on posting a lot of the cards I bought over the past couple months, but I can at least show you what I found today!

I started out with a trip to the local "recycle shop" to peruse the random goods I can find, both for my hobbies and hopefully a couple household goods. I came up empty with the household goods, but I did grab a few cheap items.

First is this Hideki Matsui mini bat. It was actually the most expensive item, and cost me less than 200 yen. It's still wrapped in the plastic wrapping, so I think I got a pretty good deal!

Next is this pass case featuring the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters. I love Ghostbusters; I watched both movies and the cartoon as a kid and even fairly recently as an adult. There's a way to put a credit card-sized IC card inside. I'd guess that 99.9999% of Japanese people have at least one form of IC card for public transit, because they are used in every metro area. I'm not going to use this one, because I have a small case that I got in San Francisco.

The last item was this small milk glass with characters from Evangelion. The "E" on the package refers to a prize level. Many popular anime, music, and other media franchises do tie-ins with different convenience stores. You pay a few bucks and draw a card out of a box; the card indicates which prize level you get. In addition to glasses, I've seen all sorts of figurines, keychains, cellphone straps, posters, file folders (called "clear files" in Japan), and even food. I paid a lot less for this than the original purchaser did!

After returning home, I went grocery shopping. I went to a store I don't usually go to - it's cheaper but out of the way and has shorter hours than my usual one. I swung by a gaming card shop I almost never go to because, well, they don't carry baseball cards. But I peeked in through the window and saw some of those Aikatsu cards I'm chasing. I didn't find any specific cards but I found some cheap, well-worn cards to add to my collection.

This official Aikatsu binder was only 50 yen, though it's well-worn around the edges. I bought it because there are a few sheets inside that explain how the game works.

There were also two packs, totaling around 50 cards. There were some interesting rare cards included, but all of them can be classified as "well loved." I might bring those to you soon... but first all those other cards I have to post about, including my meeting with Zippy Zappy!

Anyway, it's great seeing some cards that kids used as intended and have seen some wear-and-tear along the way. 

So until next time...