My Hero Academia X Namco
**Please note that the information in this post is as accurate on June 26 2017. **
As mentioned in my earlier post, here’s part 2 of My Hero Academia (MHA) escapades in June 2017!
So during my Japan trip last June, I decided that as much as I wanted to just fangirl do all the anime/manga related stuff in Tokyo, I should still include some cultural sight-seeing so I took a little side-trip out of Tokyo to the Kanagawa Prefecture (namely to Fujisawa, Enoshima and Kamakura) for a couple of days.
I highly recommend all to visit these cities the next time you are in Tokyo because it’s only a short train ride away (~1 plus hour or less depending on which part of Tokyo you are travelling from) and the food/cultural sights is amazing. And if you are a Slam Dunk fan (who isn’t?), in between these cities lies Kamakurakōkōmae Station where the railway crossing as seen in the OP of the Slam Dunk anime is found.
I can ramble on and on about these cities but as this is a post about My Hero Academia, I should refrain from doing so. (If you do like to know about what I did at these cities, just leave a comment or PM me. ^ ^)
To my pleasant surprise, there was a pop-up Namco x My Hero Academia collaboration event shop at one of the shopping malls near the hotel I was staying at!
Prior to my trip, I knew that MHA would be having these pop-up collaboration event shops with Namco but I didn’t realize that one of the pop-up shops was actually in Fujisawa during my travel dates! (I first went to one such pop-up collaboration event in Osaka back in 2016 which I totally chanced upon by accident as I was walking to Animate.)
This was held during the second season of the anime so naturally the theme was the U.A Sports Festival.
The staff was super friendly and allowed me to take all sorts of photos after I had asked them for permission. ^ ^ It could also be due to the fact that I was a tourist and was the only one at the shop that day. The event had been going on for quite some time now so it’s to be expected that crowds wouldn’t have been as much as the first month or so I suppose. Still it was a boon for me and I for one am not complaining!
Now for the Namco collaboration events, there usually are a few mini games you can play to win some exclusive prizes. This event had two mini-games which you could opt to play to win some exclusive prizes. (Do note that the mini-games differs each year/collaboration event. Check out their website for more information.)
The first mini-game I tried was by Kaminari’s winning medal game. Basically, you were given some balls to toss onto the trophies as seen in the photo below. Each play was 350 yen (tax inclusive) and I think you get about 2 balls per play.
I gave it one try and well, I pretty much sucked at this (none of the balls landed in any of the trophies) so I got a consolation prize out of it. In my defense, you have to stand at a distance from the trophies to throw the balls so yeah… well I’m better at crane games! LOL
If the balls landed inside the trophies, you’ll get to choose a badge (it’s huge! 100 mm in diameters). There were 5 designs you could choose from. If like me, you didn’t get any in, you’ll be randomly given a bookmark sticker. I got Tenya ^ ^
I moved on to the second mini-game which looked much easier. And it was … except it just wasn’t my day to play it. I called it the “Bakugo Boom” game. ^ ^
Each play was 500 yen (tax inclusive). The game-play was pretty much bingo with a twist or perhaps tic-tac-toe might be a more apt description. There are three “cubes” which you will put inside the pink tube shaped column and the “cube” will then roll out to reveal the top-face picture. Each cube has a picture of Bakugo on one of its ‘faces’ with the rest of the cubes made up of “MHA’s logo” and a red image with the words “勝ち”.
For some strange reason, the cubes kept getting stuck in the pink tube column when I was playing it and the staff had to reach in to take it out. She said this rarely happened when others were playing it. (Hmm…. haha okay~ ) The staff was quite apologetic and empathetic though. She kept giving me words of encouragement as I was playing the game when I kept only getting 2 Bakugo out of the 3 cubes! LOL I think I played about 4 times and I ended up with 3 of the square badges from Tier B and 1 round badge from Tier C. Naturally, I chose the square badges of Midoriya, Bakugo and Todoroki and Todoroki for the round badge. 😉
If all the 3 cubes showed “Bakugo”, you’ll get to choose one of the acrylic keychain stands from Tier A prize. (There are 5 designs to choose from.) If you get 2 “Bakugo” and 1 “勝ち”, you get to win a square badge from Tier B prize. There are also 5 designs you can choose from. If you get the MHA logo and/or “勝ち”, you’ll get a round badge from Tier C prize.
With the games out of the way, it’s time to do some shopping at the Merchandise Corner!
And buy I did ^ ^ Although I had pretty much reined in my purchases. I bought a couple of T-shirts (just couldn’t resist!) , 2 MHA lockets and a couple of keychains. (You can check out some of my loot on my Instagram.) Here were some of the merchandises on sale.
As you can see, the bigger versions of the acrylic keychains (Tier A prizes from the “Bakugo Boom” game) were available for sale in the event shop so even if you couldn’t get them from the game, you could always just buy them. Naturally, I bought Midoriya, Todoroki and Bakugo. ^ ^ Personally though, I found the 2016 Matsuri design series of the acrylic keychains (see picture below) nicer. These were sold during the 2016 Namco X My Hero Academia collaboration event and I had only bought Todoroki and Bakugo back then.
After I had returned from my trip, I found out that for the second phase of the 2017 collaboration event, Namco would be releasing the the acrylic keychains of Kirishima, Kaminari and Yaoyorozu for the Matsuri Design Series!
Noooooooo!! I just missed the release by a few days!!! I really like Kirishima as the manga progressed (he’s now my favourite) and especially since it was revealed by the merchandise team that the “coat” Kirishima was wearing belonged to Bakugo… I NEEDED to get his keychain!
Thankfully, a few months later, I managed to find someone travelling to Tokyo to help me buy Kirishima’s keychain. ^ ^
And that concludes My Hero Academia escapades in 2017! 🙂
PLUS ULTRA!
Namco x My Hero Academia 2018 Collaboration Pop-up Event Store is currently ongoing in its game-center outlet in Shibuya and ends on March 25 2018. If you are planning a visit there, do let me know how it was for you! 🙂
Animate also ran another cafe collaboration from August 30 to September 25 2018. You can read about my experience here too.
Check out my other Posts!
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