When I dropped by a mall on my way home, it was crowded with people. And somehow the malls are where people get together in Japan these days. And I was also one of them.
As I explained in the first posting for this year, we put an Ema on the bars at a shrine. But these Emas were fake and made of paper. Perhaps kids also wanted to do the same thing as people do at the shrine on New Year's.
The rectangular plate on the red gate (Torii) says "Loc shrine". This mall is called "Loc City" so they must have named the area after it. I went to a shrine on the 1st of this month, and as you can see in this pic, the shrines are so important to us especially in January.
A very huge Pikachu, in which kids can jump and run around. The Japanese kids are so familiar with Pikachu that we often see pics or stuffed toys of Pikachu everywhere. I guess it is like The Simpsons as far as the popularity among kids is concerned.
It says "Pokemon DP Adventure Park", where kids can experience many kinds of Pokemon attractions.
These bags are sold in the beginning of January and called "Fukubukuro", which means "Fortune bag". Take a look at the flier being hung. It shows what is included in the bag and it costs about 109 us dollars. Years ago, we couldn't guess what was inside but now they reveal what the bag has.
We Japanese are very familiar with this girl named Becky. She is one of the celebrities very active on TV. She has a father from England, which is why she looks like this. But she speaks Japanese mainly, and she can't speak English very correctly. Then again she's one of the hottest girls in Japan.
I saw some jigsaw puzzles in the electric appliance shop in the mall. Some of you might wonder why it sells Moe jigsaw puzzles, but it seemed to me they always cash in on what's very hot among young people.
And Ayanami from Neon Genesis Evangelion is still one of those hot things.
Now Haruhi is a fixture in Japan's shopping areas. Still I think many people aren't familiar with Haruhi, and Aya Hirano might be known to less than a third of our population. But a Haruhi movie will be released next month, by which we can see it's becoming more and more popular.
I was going to show you only things related to New Year's, but ended up taking pics of some anime stuff as well. Like I said before not all the people are for anime, but at least Pikachu is accepted by the adult and preteen demographic. But Haruhi anime hasn't been watched by as many people. I wonder why people discriminate against Moe anime while allowing kids to see Pokemon. >.<
