I wanted to show off some of the exciting things I picked up on my Japan holiday. These are the video game-related ones, which formed the majority of my purchases.

-A Dragonite evolution model kit. I loved putting Zoids together with my brother, this is the same thing. The Dragonite evolution set was the best of the Pokemon kits available, and fairly cheap too.

-A set of mini Hyrule Warriors figures from a gachapon machine. They’re reasonably detailed for their size and I just love this game and these designs.

-A cute Nausicaä figure, a nice Peach & Toad figure, and the awesome and huge robot & Lupin figure set. The robot design in Laputa: Castle in the Sky was originally made for an episode of the Lupin III show that Miyazaki had directed. What a find that was. That one’s my favourite, although its game connection is tangential (there’s lots of Lupin games…?).

-A Pokemon hanafuda set. Everyone knows that Nintendo makes hanafuda cards, and even ones with Mario characters on them, but this Gen 1 Pokemon deck was a pleasant surprise. The game is complicated though!

-Other cards. A Pokemon arcade game awarded me a few trading cards, and I also got some vintage Dragonball Cardass cards from a gachapon. I didn’t play Dragonball Heroes but I got some cards from it, they’re pretty cool.

-Super Mario-kun. I picked up every volume of Super Mario-kun that featured a Donkey Kong game, as well as a couple others that seemed interesting. I also saw three volumes of its spin off I Am Wario! so nabbed those too. SMk and the Corocoro Kirby comic are very common in second-hand bookstores.

-Other books. Corocoro comics have a lot of fun comics for kids based on video games. I got one of their Kirby volumes, a Layton one, and volume 1 of the Chocobo comic and the Animal Crossing New Leaf comic. I also found a volume of the other Super Mario-kun, a Mario 4koma book and a Kirby Canvas Curse 4koma; these ones took some searching but I wish I’d looked more for similar books. Finally, a retro strategy guide for DKC1 with full colour maps.

-Retro games. I bought a few Gameboy games because they were real cheap, except for the sweet Genjin Collection (the three BC Kid/Bonk GB games on one cartridge). X, Picross 2, Kururin Paradise, and the Zoids game were exclusive Japanese releases. I’ll certainly play through Picross and X, but Zoids and Kururin Paradise were just for curiosity. Good thing too because those carts are kinda broken and don’t work. The Tamagotchi game is just like the real thing, which is fun. And I now own the superior GBC release of Donkey Kong Land 3, this version of which was only in Japan (but check out the fan translation!).

-Newer games. Electroplankton was cheap, and I was curious about this experimental musical playground game. I’ve watched enough Game Center CX now that I’m really interested in the games they made, so that should be interesting to play. And finally the second, Japan-exclusive Tingle game for DS! Oh man, that one was expensive but I just couldn’t resist the siren song of that green bodysuit. OK, thanks for indulging me bragging about the cool and/or questionable things I bought!