Convenience stores and game merch

It doesn't matter if you come to Japan for a holiday or for an extended stay, it's pretty much guaranteed that at some point during your stay here you'll end up in a convenience store to buy something.

I've noticed during my time here an abundance of video game stuff being sold in these convenience stores and while its usually quite pricey stuff and I never buy it, it's interesting to see this stuff being sold as its something that would absolutely NEVER happen back home.

The above example is a bottle of drink called Dodecamin, which usually has this sort of brown label, but in order to promote the new Monster Hunter game on the horizon they've changed the label to this funky design.

Monster Hunter isn't the only thing that I've seen kicking about the convenience stores either.  A few weeks ago, I think to promote Persona 4 Golden on the Vita, these stores were selling all sorts of Persona 4 merchandise, such as posters and blindfolds with character designs on it, although it was all needlessly expensive.

Even Japan's greatest fake pop star Hatsune Miku has been in on the whole convenience store marketing thing with a merch campaign that ended a couple of months ago.  This thing was so big that it even had its own ad on TV, check it out!

So if your in Japan, checking your local corner shop is a surprisingly good way of getting your fix of nerd shit, and you can get some fried chicken with it all too.