TOM Infiltrates the Best Anime Shop in the World! [3/3]

Continuing our tour of Animate Sunshine, the seventh floor is dedicated to Shogakukan, the publisher that is known for the manga Detective Conan, which is hugely popular overseas. Some of this publisher’s recent works include The World God Only Knows, Silver Spoon, and Magi, which has also been highly successful both in Japan and overseas. Magi has also become a popular title at cosplay conventions. At the time of our visit, a Magi exhibit was set up that featured many never-before-seen items including original character design notes, a life-size cutout of Ugo-kun, the Djinn who resides in Aladdin’s flute, and more. It was enough to make fans drool. Truthfully, we were surprised at how big Ugo-kun was!

The eighth floor is a display space for Square Enix, publisher of Fullmetal Alchemist and Black Butler. Many of Square Enix’s unique works were available, including Working!!, which features the cute Popura-chan. We were excited to see a reproduction of Yaguchi Haruo’s room from High-Score Girl. In the manga, Haruo plays many famous Capcom games including Black Dragon and 1943, and these nostalgic games were set up and available for fans to play. Also on display were reproductions of artwork from Square Enix’s serialized works and original illustrations from the popular series Dimension W! A raffle was also being held in which the winner would receive an original illustration from the artist. Even this is reason enough to visit Animate Sunshine, don’t you think?

Finally, we made it to the top floor, which is used as an event space for exhibits, autograph sessions, screenings, and more. On this occasion, the event taking place was themed after Uta no Prince-sama: Maji Love 1000%. Fans were able to don one of Saotome Academy’s uniforms and take a commemorative picture with a lineup of character cutouts!

Whether you just want to have fun looking at all the anime and manga goods, challenge yourself with cosplay, or visit all the different exhibits, you can see many different sides to today’s otaku culture at Animate Sunshine. If this isn’t the world’s best anime shop, we don’t know what is.

Animate Sunshine:
http://www.animate.co.jp/special/sunshine/pc/ (Japanese)