A Japanese oddity that I'd not experienced before. Deep inside Tokyo station, their Grand Central, there's a long hallway called "Character Street" where store after store sells 3-D approximations of beloved cartoon characters.
Every store in the hallway specializes is a specific "character." This is a mysterious aspect of Japanese culture - their obsession with cartoon characters. They're everywhere. Every company and every government agency has a mascot, often overly cute. The most popular ones can be found here, in the bowels of the largest train station in the country.
It's not targeted at kids, though you see them here too. It's mainly adults buying for themselves stuffed animals, key chains, phone covers, tee shirts, statues.
There are so many stores that there's a map showing where each character's store is located. The writing on the top says "Tokyo Character Street."
Why did this happen? How did they get to this point? I've read various explanations but the best one I heard was from a comedian. He joked that the two nuclear strikes in WWII had bombed the masculinity out of the place.
Jean and I were taken by the small plastic characters you balance on the rim of your coffee cup.
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