Archive for 'Cool Shops' Category

Tokyo Game Show 2016

Tokyo Game Show 2016 was held Sep.15-18 at Makuhari Messe in Chiba. (http://expo.nikkeibp.co.jp/tgs/2016/)

At this TGS 2016, the number of the paticipant businesses made the record high of 617 and the event was full of lively energy and passion of the new games and visitors. And, there held the special live concert of “PSN meets Secret Artist” ,at which  EGOIST, a popular “fictitious singer” from  an anime work, sang songs.

 

Dragon Quest 30th anniversary

“Dragon Quest”, the nationwide or even worldwide famousrole playing game series is now celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.

The first game of Dragon Quest or in “Dorakue”(its Japanese abbreviation),”DQ1” was released in 1986. Since then 10 main games and some spinoff works have been released. And some cartoon ,animation, toy products also have been released and now almost every Japanese knows the game series.

“Dragon Quest Museum”, the special related exhibition to show the history and concept of Dragon Quest will be held  Jul.24- Sep.11  at Hikarie Hall in Shibuya Hikarie in Shibuya,Tokyo. (https://dqmuseum.jp/)  As a relevant event, the game’s theme music is played as a train melody at the Toyoko lines’ platforms in Shibuya station Jul.5-Sep.12.

International Tokyo Toy Show 2016

The International Tokyo Toy Show 2016 was held at Tokyo Bigsight Jun.9-12. This was the 55th of the event series.(http://www.toys.or.jp/toyshow/2016_files/company_html/name_a.html) 

The first two days were for business meetings and stage shows and the latter days were for open for public and lay visitors and shows, such as concerts and release of new information about new toy products or TV anime programs.

 

About 30 toy related businesses,such as toy manufacturers, animation studios, amusement parks, and so forth  particiated in the show preparing booths to promote their products and activities.  And totally about 160,000 people visited this event.

Grand opening of “NEWoMan”, department store complex in Shinjuku

A major department store chain “Lumine” opened its new commercial facility complex called “NEWoman” at the south exit of Shinjuku station Tokyo on this Mar.25. (http://www.newoman.jp/)

This new facility showed up in one of the busiest areas in Japan consists of 5600㎥of 6 floors and  2000㎥ of three floors just above the station areas connected to a part of the station facilities. NEWoMan provides about 100 shops and expected to make 20- billion- yen revenue in its first year. Foods , cosmetics, fashion shops, cafe, a daycare,  clinics, an event hall ,and so forth are there and mainly targetting working generations  of females in thier 30-40s.

“Hotoriya”,a new cafe-and-sourveir shop in Hakone

A new facility for tourists opened at Hakone-machi port on the lakeside of Lake Ashi  in Hakone, Kanagawa pref. on this Jan.23rd. The name of this new establishment is “Hotoriya”(means; a shop on a lakeside ) and is a commercial complex of “wa-cafe”(/traditional Japanese style cafe) and sourvenir shops.

Hotoriya’s nickname is “Chaya-honjin”(means;cafe-style main local guest house ) because  the building has a  figure of  an old  main local guest house of hundreds of years ago where  high-class samurai warriors stayed when Hakone was an important check point of travelers to monitor and control people by the Tokugawa Shogunate.  Eating facilities and sourvenir shop to provide a variety of  local food, beer,and other sorts of  sourvenirs are in the establishement.  Some of those shops are directly run by the operarion company of  this facility,  Hakone Sightseeing Cruise Co.,ltd.(http://www.hakone-kankosen.co.jp/foreign/en/index.html)  and some are branch shops of renowned  old  major  shops from Hakone and other neighboring areas. And from the cafes, you may enjoy  magestic and panoramic views of Mt.Fuji and Lake Ashi.

The open hours of  souvenir shops on the 1st floor is daily 9:30-17:00 and cafes on the 2nd floor is daily 10:00-16:00.

The foreigen tourists’ number exceed 19 million

Keiichi Ishii, the Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport. and Tourism (MILT) declared that the total number of foreigners visiting Japan thsi year as of Dec.19 has exceeded 19,000,000  on Dec.22nd. (http://www.mlit.go.jp/en/index.html)

The number 19 million is already higher than the total number of the visitors in the year 2014 which was 13,41 million and reflects the rapid ongoing growth of the number of foreigners in Japan. This year 2015, the total number in the first half of year was 9,14 million and the verocy seems accelerating.

The sources of the growth are something like the week Yen rate,  relaxiations of  visa systems, the expansions of  objects of duty free items for foreign tourists, and so forth. The Japanese government  now has decided to increase the total budgets for tourism related arrangements from this year’s 10,390 million yen to 24,550 million yen (+14580 million yen).  This abrupt and huge increase implies the huge expectation of the government of the growing inbound markets and revenues created by the related industries.

 

Majibu won the grandprix of “Wakatabi” of JTA

Japan Tourism Agency (JTA)(http://www.mlit.go.jp/kankocho/en/index.html) released the results of  “Wakatabi”(/ a young travel), the awards to recognize people or businesses that have made efforts to promote travels of young people on Sep. 16.  The winner of the grandprix is Majibu (/マジ☆部, a serious club), a platform of  application for various services for young people to enjoy  travels and related pleasures.(https://majibu.jp/). The platform is run by Recruit Lifestyle (http://www.recruit-lifestyle.co.jp/english/).

The ceremony of the Wakatabi Awards was hosted at the venue of the Japan Stage of “Toursim Expo Japan 2015” at Tokyo Bigsight in Tokyo on Sep.25. (http://t-expo.jp/en/)

“Blood Blockade battlefront” Character store opens at Tokyo station

A temporary character goods store, or a “chara-pop store” of “Blood Blockade battlefront”(/血界戦線, Kekkai Sensen), a popular manga and anime work will open Jun.16-Jul.31st on the B1 floor in “Tokyo Eki Ichibangai(Tokyo Station First Street)” , the biggest station basement shopping arcade zone of Tokyo.(http://kekkaisensen.com/)

 

This manga and anime work is a fantasy about an imaginary world where the human world and and a fantasy world exist together and describing stories of a secret order.  To the work, such a chara-pop store is the first one and is going to sell relating goods to the work. The store will prepare wagons at selling stages and also provide special lottery services whose special goods are available only there.

LAOX SHINJUKU Main Store Opening

Laox, a major home electric appliance tore chain opened a new store in Shinjuku, Tokyo on Jun.6th. (http://www.laox.co.jp/)(http://www.laox.co.jp/en/)

The new store is located on 3,4,and 5th floor of JTB Shinjuku Kyodo Building  near Shinjuku Station, which is the busiest commercial area in Tokyo. The store space is about 2140 ㎡ and the management expects mainly Chinese and Islamic tourists for huge shopping visits.

The store provides wide range of goods, such as PCs, TVs, watches, cosmetics, video games, goceries and so forth. The opening cerempony was held on the opening day and a famous Taiwanese actor, Lin Chi-ling  turned  up and did promotion of the new store, saying, Laox chain is a well-known and popular duty free and home electric appliance chain even in China. She showed  a Chinese character calligraphy, “美 ”（/beauty）.

“World Cosplay Summit 2014” in Nagoya

“World Cosplay Summit 2014” is  hosted by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other bodies Jul.26-Aug.3 in Nagoya. (http://www.worldcosplaysummit.jp/en/)

This WCS is the 12nd and this time representatives join the event from  22 countries or regions. The  event includes several programs such as a coaplay parade, cosplay championship, visitations of the representatives to city offices and MFA, anime-song festival, and so forth. Six representatves of the event from China, Mexico, and Finland officially visited Seiji Kihara, the vice-minister at MOFA in Tokyo giving presentations over attaractions of cosplay. Kihawa made a speech saying, pop culture has power to bind countries together and expect the representatives to support strengthening rapport with Japan. The Chinese representative said cosplay had a role to enhance cultural exchange.

 

Tokyo being the most satisfying city of the world

Tokyo (http://www.metro.tokyo.jp/ENGLISH/index.htm) comes first as the “overall satisfaction city” of  a survey of  satisfying cities in 2013 conducted by an Internet travel site, TripAdvisor(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TripAdvisor), according to  its report on the 20th.(http://blog.tripadvisor.com/blog/2014/05/20/survey-tokyo-tops-list-world-cities-best-overall-experience/)

The survey was conducted with questionnairs to 54,000 travelers who had visited 37 major cities in the world in such a manner as asking how much they were satisfied grading each city by 0-10 points to each of 16 sections. Tokyo has come first in five sections of “helpful locals”,”best taxi services”,”cleanest streets”,”best public transport”,and “best overall experience”.   As for the “best overall experience”, New York came second and Barcelona placed third.

“ABENO HARUKASU”, the highest skyscraper grand opening

The new highest skyscraper of Japan “ABENO HARUKASU” had its grand opening in Abeno-ward in Osaka City on March 7th. (http://www.abenoharukas-300.jp/en/)

The building is 300m high, rising 60 stories above the ground, which is the highest skyscraper and the third highest building of Japan next only to Tokyo Sky Tree (634m) and Tokyo Tower (333m).  “harukasu” means “to clear up” in the old Japanese language. The view from the observatory “Harukasu 300” on the 58-60 floors is expected to “clear up” visitors hearts and give lively and fresh impressions as well as good services available from the facilities in the building.

The B2- 14 above the ground floors are shopping area of Kintetsu Department Store, which now has  the biggest space of all the department stores in Japan. The 19,20,38-55,and 57 floors are for Osaka Marriott Miyako Hotel. Abeno Haruksu Art Museum in on the 16th floor, and other floors are for office area for businesses such as banks, schools ,and others.

This new highest skyscraper, which has overtaken Yokohama Landmark Tower (296m) ,the old higehst one since 1993, now is highly expected to become the new center of commerce and tourism to get a lot of attention and popularity, especially in Osaka and the Western part of Japan.

 

 

 

Mitsukoshi’s five hidden lion images will be exhibited

Mitsukoshi, the oldest and one of the most renowned department stores is famous for the two lion images standing at the main entrance of the main store in Nihonbashi Tokyo. Still there are five more lions images which are usually kept in storage ,and they will be exhibited t the public commemorating the 100th anniversary of the lion images in this April.

Ginza Matsuzakaya closed for reconstruction

Ginza Matsuzakaya, one of the major department store chains’ flagship store closed its business for reconstruction on Jun.30th.

The store was opened in 1924 and now put an end to its 88-year history for the construction. On the premise, a new shopping mall complex with  13  floors above ground and  6 below is planned to be built in 2017. However, if  Matsuzakaya itself  is to be open ine the new building is still up in the air. On the final day, for the special sale, more than 1,000  customers got to the store making a long line. The new establishment is aimed to gather much more customers in the middle of  Ginza, the most popular and  fanciest  hopping street of Japan.

Shima Spain Village is to re-open on March 1st with new attractions

Shima Spain Village, a theme amusement park in Shima Mie pref. ,which had temporarily been closed for remodelling, is going to re-open on this march 1st with new attractions. http://www.parque-net.com/foreign/english/index.html

Felliz Cruise, a ship cruise attraction of fantasy is going to start its operation from this March on.http://www.parque-net.com/pr/  Chapu Chapu Lagoon, a swimming facility in fountains for children is to start operation,too.  In addition,  a flamenco show program will start as well.

In addition,  this park is located in near  Ise Shrine which is to undergo a special renovation which takes place every 20 years as a solemn Shinto ceremony. From March on,  shuttle bus services between Ise Shrine and Shima Spain Village will start and the traveling time of such a bus is planned to be about 39 minuates at minimum