Nintendo Kyoto with KyotoGamer, Super Mario Bros. Wonder

[00:00:00] Welcome to Tokyo Game Life, a Tokyo-based video game podcast focusing on Nintendo and

[00:00:14] gaming culture in Japan's capital.

[00:00:16] Your host, Mono, here to bring you a slice of gaming life from Tokyo.

[00:00:20] But we're stepping outside of Tokyo this episode and heading all the way to Kyoto to check

[00:00:24] out Nintendo's newest merch chat about Nintendo Kyoto, which opened up on October 17th. It was announced on June 9th, quite a quick turnaround from the announcement to the grand opening. What was your reaction to hearing that Kyoto would get its very own Nintendo store? It wasn't a total surprise because as everyone knows, Nintendo's from Kyoto

[00:01:42] and with the amount of tourists coming into Kyoto, I sort which is Takashi Maya. And that's been there forever. And about a year ago, there was a big redevelopment near the Takashi Maya building. And sort of in the back of my head, I was kind of wondering, oh, I wonder what's going to go in there, maybe another Gucci shop or something brand related. And then once the announcement of

[00:03:04] Nintendo was made that the shop would be opening Kyoto, I think where it is is probably the exact spot I would choose. How was it actually entering the store? Was there a huge line and did you need a timed entry ticket or could you just walk in? So it opened two days before I arrived and went there, but I'd been following on Twitter through Japanese,

[00:04:21] basically language of what people had been doing

[00:04:24] to get into the shop and stuff.

[00:04:25] And I saw some videos on Twitter of this guy filmed your ticket in the morning. So I told my wife, we're going early, get ready, you know, put the makeup on early, we're going out. And so we got to Shijo Kawaramachi at about 8.45 on the day. And we went to the underground where you're supposed to go. And there was a million staff everywhere like, and they were all holding signs. For example, on the

[00:05:43] street level, there are signs in English andible stuff, a bit of clothing and so on. And so basically what happened was we got to the gate at 10 o'clock and you know there's a big crowd of people not only for the Nintendo store but also for the other shops as well. And I'm sure as

[00:07:04] you know when you try to go into the shop based on the time of their ticket. Since it was opening time, they kind of just let everybody in quite quickly. It was very smooth actually just to get in and next thing I knew I was in the shop.

[00:08:24] What was the thing that stuck out sort of glass cases within the ceiling. Everything was divided just I think as the other stores

[00:09:40] probably are divided by each IP each sort of slowly changes over time like that. So I thought it was really cool, very, very, I wouldn't say futuristic, but it was very modern. But one thing I forgot to mention earlier with that kind of red stripe in the middle of the shop at the very end of it on the back wall, which was a bit surprising to me. Even though it just opened, it seems like it didn't feel cramped with a lot of people, correct? Or was it really like shoulder to shoulder? No, it felt like I said, there was a lot of people there. It's the third day. So it was busy, but it was very, very manageable. I mean, my wife went off to a different

[00:12:22] section. She was like, I want to look at the Mario stuff. But as I said, it was still very manageable and it was comfortable and not stressful at all for me personally. This week, the Nintendo merch stores also introduced a new Mario and Pikmin merch. Did you see any of that while you were at the store? I did see they had it clearly on display in the

[00:13:41] Pikmin section. I'm not sure what you would call them, sort of wind for example. Yes, a lot of the merchandise did have a sign on it in, I believe, only Japanese saying one per person or possibly even two per person or depending. And I did buy quite a bit. The funny thing is my wife, she has very little interest in gaming. She's not a gamer at all. But

[00:15:01] when we got in there, something came over her. Maybe it was the whole series. She's like, I want to get one of these. I'm like, okay, sure. And she's like, I also want to get one of these. It was like also a Mario mint. I think it was Ramone or mints inside it. And it was also one of the games from the Mario series, for example, Mario 3 or Super Mario World or a galaxy little tin. So she thought that was quite cute. And she

[00:16:20] wanted to get one of those, even though she thing that I've been trying to get for a while on the on the Nintendo online store, which I don't know about you,

[00:17:42] but I kind of get frustrated on there trying to find certain items No, I didn't mention this yet. There's actually a second floor to the shop, which is actually it's enclosed, but it's on the roof. So there's science towards an escalator says go up here and see the flagpole Mario and after we finally got through the massive line to pay for our items that probably took about 15 minutes and

[00:20:21] We got out. Okay, let's go up to the specific photo spot and there was about three other people there taking pictures. There were no lines to wait up to take a picture of it. You can't get too close to it or put anything on it or touch it but you can stand back and take some pictures of it.

[00:20:23] So that's actually on the ground floor I'd seen every section of the store and the game section and all the different merchandise. And I said, where the heck are the Amiibos? I said to myself. And then, OK, I started looking really carefully. And where are the game sections, the actual physical copies

[00:21:40] of the video games are?

[00:21:41] There was kind of a hidden behind that.

[00:21:44] There was sort of a small little shelf with Amiibos are kind of on the bottom as well. So you have to bend down to actually get it. And I went to Nintendo Tokyo last week and ironically it had the 8-bit link and also Majora's Mask link. So that's kind of strange that those two are being stocked nationwide. I don't know why those two. This is kind of a side note, but is there a Pokemon Center anywhere close to Nintendo Kyoto?

[00:23:01]