Tokyo Kid is a store in the Garage, the little indoor mall in Harvard Square. It deals almost exclusively in Japanese pop culture -- manga, anime, dolls, toys, and scuplture. Andrew, the owner, was tending the register and agreed to show me around (though he asked me not to give his full name). He started by pointing out two individual statuettes that are some of his favorites.
As a piece of sculpture, these are amazing.
We talked about how hard it is to find high-quality anime-inspired sculpture in America, and he said that it generally sells better in Japan, making it more cost-effective to produce there. While Americans don't generally want to spend hundreds of dollars on their sculpture, the Japanese are much more willing to, so the manufacturers and dealers "are willing to make something that makes $400 a pop" because they'll actually sell a lot of them relative to in America.
He mentioned another reason that it's hard to find this kind of scultupe here: Japanese artists sometimes simply don't want to sell here because they don't think their work will be appropriately appreciated. While the Japanese are obviously willing to sell consumer electronics, they might not sell what to them feels like fine art.
For them, this stuff is much more personal, rather than a car, or a camera.
[Continued tomorrow.]
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