It's that time of year again!
What time?
Time to survive on ketchup soup because you spent all your money on Lucky Bags!
What are Lucky Bags? Umm... well, it's probably better if you don't know. But hey, if you aren't exceptionally attatched to your wallet and compulsive shopping excites you more than a bucket full of pachinko balls: read on.
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Every New Year, nearly half of all big Japanese shops put out blind-packed "Lucky Bags" (in Japanese, fukubukuro). Each bag (or box or sometimes even a bucket) contains at least a certain retail value of goods usually sold by that shop at an outstanding discount. A 5,000 yen bag might be guaranteed to contain 10,000 worth of goods while the larger bags may sell for as much as 50,000 yen themselves and contain thousands of dollars worth of merchandise at retail.
The catch? It's secret!!!! So you never know what you're going to get. (The other catch is that it's almost always said store's crap: closeouts, display items, leftovers of ill-concieved products that no one bought at the retail price in the first place).
But hey, who can turn their nose up at a big bag of wonderful surprises at 25-95% discount?!
Not me! It seems as though most of Japan is with me on this one, too. The first three days of the New Year are a shopping battlefield!! With lines outside department stores stretching around blocks and helium-voiced hawkers howling advertisments into crowds of frenzied women with images of secret Starbucks coffee tumblers and assorted-macaroons floating behind their bloodshot, sleep-deprived eyes.
A typical Lucky Bag sale lasts only two or three days, ending either when the bags sell out (sometimes in only a few hours) or when the new year holiday is at an end. It's a once-a-year shot at glory!
A good run can put you in a new wardrobe for 6 months. A bad one can leave you weeping, yenny-less in a pile of rubber duckies and gold-lamme purses.
Oh, and geeks aren't off the hook either. Game stores, figure shops, and even cosplay shops are getting in on the game and running their own promotions. So how about giving it a shot yourself and braving the wilds of the shopping center next new year? You never know what you'll end up with!
How I Did:
Shop: HEAL ALL (http://www.rakuten.ne.jp/gold/healall/)
Price: 10,000 yen
What I got: a Lovely Idol costume, a Touhou Project Remilia costume, massive amounts of g-strings (why???), two costume patches.
Rating: 1/5. Less stuff than their Lucky Bag last year at the same price. One of the costumes isn't even listed on their site, so it's a red-herring (an already discontinued item). Nothing usable.
Advice: Avoid.
Shop: Mitsubado (http://www.mitubado.com/)
Price: 3,000 yen
What I got: 3 used wigs ~ a long curly blonde wig, a Rokudo Mukuro character wig, and a spikey brown wig.
Rating: 5/5. Unbeatable price for three wigs that are in great shape and pre-cut and styled. Two I already have costumes lined up for.
Advice: Get one of the wig bags! I haven't tried the costume bags that were also on sale, but a lot of Mitsubado's used costumes are stained or oddly-sized so it's probably a bigger risk than the wigs.
Shop: Assist-Wig
Price: 9,999 yen
What I got: 5 brand new wigs from Assist in a variety of colors with storage bags, 2 free wig-caps each and a styling set.
Rating: 5/5. Two wigs for costumes I want to do, 1 to dye and two to sell. About 3man worth of gorgeous stuff for a steal.
Advice: Don't miss these bags next year!!
Other cosplay shops known to have Lucky Bag sales: Coscute (Utsunomiya in-store only), Cospatio, COSPA, MAPLE (in-store only, multiple locations), CANDY ONE
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