having been to Japan I finally understand amiibo

[kitler53]

I always thought of them as dumb overpriced pieces of plastic Nintendo was using to lock away in game dlc.   

but in Japan there are literally 10s of thousands and pieces of plastic on almost every street corner (gatcha machines) and shops specializing in larger ones.  amongst then I ran into amiibo at here there are just appropriately priced pieces of plastic for there size that also come with game pearks.  


my god do the Japanese love their plastic figures..   it's overwhelming.

[Legend]

It's even worse than funko pops and all that stuff you find in nerd culture here?

[kitler53]

just at Akihabara was about 5x5 blocks by 8 floors of nothing but anime statues, posters, pins, ect.   it was Soo full of people it was hard to even walk 

and that was just 1 tiny corner of Tokyo.  it was really no different in Kyoto and osaka.   I must have seen 100,000 gotcha machines and they were always being swarmed with paying customers. 

oh, and maid bars is a thing..


but amiibo feel really expensive in America.  i know the dollar is strong right now but they felt cheaper.   ~1,500 yen which is about $9. 

most gotcha machine are 500 yen and the figure is less than half as big.