Travel Diary 2
You shop in Tokyo. That's what you do because that's what you came to do. Stock up on the drugs of choice that have to get you through the next year or two until you come back. It's a pity that buying stuff inside the envelope of the Japanese language is a little like buying vegetables under the enhancing soft neon of the upscale supermarkets. They look so much different- smaller, less radiant, less toothsome- when you get them back home and look at them in the English light.
Perhaps it's because Japan itself does such a good job of supporting what Schodt has so vividly called the 'Dreamland Japan' quality, though there's no use asking me how Japan does it. My own theory is that it's got to do with visiting the country in winter, the only decent season of the year. A dry sun shines in an endless pale blue sky, giving the world the hard-edged unreality of a Dali painting. 
It's cold, sort of, which means it's winter, but the parks are full of trees in full green leaf. And even the cold is a sweet cold, a concept hard for a Canadian to get her mind around. A friendly cold that gives you impetus to do things, like for instance sit in the bright sun and read manga.
In a place like that where anything is possible (flowers blooming in February, for instance) the shelves and shelves of used manga at Mandarake seem irresistible, packed with the promise of more strange and wonderful worlds just waiting to be explored. Purple-eyed magicians and silver-haired demons; equally, silver-eyed demons and purple-haired magicians. You want 'em, we got 'em. Love in various shapes and sizes- comical, tragical, tragi-comical, nasty, brutish, long and short. Not to mention the lure of doujinshi, fatal as ever, which deliver the same punch as the manga in far fewer words using people you already care about. My Guys done and doing a dozen different ways-- as cold-eyed seme or ill-graced uke (Sanzou), as relentless pursuing seme or sad-eyed uke (Hakkai), as irresistible raping seme or helpless shota uke (Gokuu), as rambunctious Doberman seme or kindly acquiescent uke (Gojou.) But that's a whole other dreamland in itself.
If you're a fan of past series, the place to be is probably Shibuya's Mandarake, with its extensive dj collection. If you're a fan of a current series, it's Ikebukuro's Animate, which has taken over the building where K-books used to be. All of it, all seven floors. They sell first-run djs too, at full price, which you can probably find cheaper at K-Books down the street. (My impression is that K-Books' shelf space has gotten smaller, and its Saiyuuki section was just as small as Mandarake's, meaning miniscule, but the shelving system itself is the most user-friendly around. They shelve by pairing.)
Still the lure of Animate is the 5th floor, the Character Goods floor. It doesn't help that Animate is a Saiyuuki sponsor, like you couldn't tell by the posters, key chains, file folders, letter paper, postcard collections, drama CDs, BGM CDs, novel CDs, Sanzou vinyl black cuirasses and Gokuu plastic diadems, and the plush Hakuryuu nuigurumi that I'd have bought, heart-stopping price and all ($75 Canuck) if it had only been white and not beige. (I never used to be a fan of stuffed toys, but Certain People corrupted me irredeemably with Servis dolls and sad-faced monkeys and little squishy Hakkais, and now I have a thing for those perennial dustcatchers.)
I always stock up on the same things when I'm in Tokyo.
1. Three colour pens. I don't know why. I never use the red or green parts, depending, after the blue and black ones are done. I think it's just the lavishness of them, and having the choice.
2. Notebooks. They have hard covers and thinner lines, and they're a different size from ours. Something about them just invites one to sit in coffee shops and write, preferably with a three-colour pen.
3. Socks. OK. This will make no sense. The only place I can find knee-high socks that are both long enough for my 5'10 height legs and that will stay up is in Tokyo, in the small stores that cater to little old ladies. (A great place to get leg warmers and fuzzy slipper socks as well, neither of which are available in centrally-heated Over Here.) That's because the socks are actually thigh-high on the little old ladies. For 600 yen this gaijin isn't complaining.
4. Condoms. The boxes have happy little animals saying cheerful things on them, and you can buy them at the convenience store. The condoms themselves come in plastic pouches, and they're cheerful colours too, green or pink or occasionally green *and* pink, like a jello parfait. They aren't brown like ours, and they aren't coated with slimy spermicide. Since I don't use them on anything that actually produces sperm, neither that fact nor their size is a problem, though I hear both can be for people who actually expect them to work.
5. Vibrators. A model called the Color Rotor, which someone said reminded her of a line in Annie Hall- a dignified gentleman being asked his preference in sex toys and replying 'My wife and I employ a large egg-like object.' This is a small egg-like object, and pace the phallocrates, rather more female-friendly than the usual wand-like stuff you find over here. (Of course you find them over there too, in innumerable models.) The rotors too come in cheerful colours, and if you buy them at the Women's Sex Store (women only) you get a flyer telling you how to use them. The flyer tells you not to pull the wires, but of course the wires do pull. That's why you have to stock up.
6. Batteries. And never enough of them. Don't ask me how or why, Japanese batteries are different from western ones, and work better in Japanese-made products like Color Rotors.
7. Daybooks. I went in February, hoping that there might be a few daybooks to be found left over in some stationery store. But bless the Japanese. Their school year starts in April, so there's a whole line of daybooks that start then too- and because they're Japanese, they actually begin with a March page. I like Japanese daybooks because they're small and pastel coloured so you can find them in the backpack, and give you both month at a glance, which I need for scheduling, and day-by-day with three days to a page, which I use for diary entries. Plus a removable address book at the back. Plus they tell me when the Japanese national holidays are, so I know I can phone Tokyo on those days and get people at home who would otherwise be out working.