Category Photo Gallery

Shinichiro Watanabe & Studio Bones’ latest anime, Carole & Tuesday, just had its first 12 episodes released internationally on Netflix. Here in Japan however, the show is already up to episode 19, has had its first concert (with a second planned for early October) and currently has its own collaboration cafe.

The Carole & Tuesday Exhibition Cafe is being held at Harajuku’s Area-Q Cafe (location for the previous two Walkure Cafes) from August 9 to September 1 and includes themed food, beverages, lineart, props, and lots and lots of music videos from the series.

This year’s Wonder Festival 2019 Summer took place at Makuhari Messe on Sunday, July 28.

There were  few interesting announcements this Summer, most of which we will cover in an upcoming podcast. In the meantime, the following gallery is a mixture of official products and amateur garage kits from the show floor. Enjoy!

(Due to a busted camera, I had to dust off an old iPhone 4 to take these so quality may vary, sorry.)

The latest “Oshare (Fashionable) Macross” popup shop opened for business at Shinjuku Marui Annex from June 21 to July 2. The series of popup shops has really taken off post-Delta, possibly due to the overwhelming popularity of Walkure. Not only are they being held much more frequently now, they are also increasingly difficult to initially get into (as Adrian reported recently) and merchandise often sells out during the first day.

As a result, the following gallery doesn’t feature much in the way of merchandise (since there wasn’t much left by the time these pics were taken four days after the shop opened) but does include the gorgeous original art drawn for the event by Chisato Mita of Capcom and some fun little additional squiggles that were added later on.

The Akihabara Container is fast gaining a reputation for holding popup shops and doing limited-time merchandise collaborations for older and lesser-known (in Japan, at least) anime. In the past they’ve help popup shops for franchises such as SNK video games, Gridman and Cowboy Bebop.

From May 11-22 this year though, they pulled off the unimaginable – a Megazone 23 popup shop. Dedicated primarily to the first Megazone 23 OVA (with a small section at the back for the teaser trailer and related merchandise for Megazone 23 XI ) the shop included everything from original t-shirts to pencil cases, with many items actually selling out. The inside of the shop also featured screenshots and production designs from the OVA which was playing on loop for much of the time. Lasting less than 2 weeks, the following gallery wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for the sharp eye of Adrian, who was on the scene first thing in the morning opening day to scope the place out.

To commemorate the 40th anniversary of Rumiko Takahashi’s Urusei Yatsura manga, a collaboration cafe was held at Ikebukuro Parco Department Store from January 11 to March 31, 2019. Much like the Ranma 1/2 Cafe held at the same location in 2018, the Urusei Yatsura Cafe offered patrons themed food and beverages while surrounded by their favorite characters and watching the openings and endings to the animated series on monitors and projector screens. While the collaboration menu was not quite as inspired as the Ranma 1/2 one was, it was still rather unique (Cherry pancakes, anyone?) and fun for fans and casual diners alike.

A message board on the premises was full of messages and sketches from fans – as well as one from Rumiko Takahashi herself. “Lum the Forever” indeed 🙂