Pony in Japan?

[Charmypony]

Hi everyone !!

I will be traveling for holidays in Japan next week.

I'm wondering what merchandise are available there about pony ? Not pony itself, I don't really collect them anymore, but is there thisrt, pen, keychain ???

Just to know. And if you know where to look, like in drugstore or general store??


Thanks !!

[ponyqueen]

This is such a good question, and I would like to know too! I traveled to Japan a year ago and looked for pony things everywhere I went (tourist shops and regular mall stores) and found... nothing! We even spent a few days in the Akihabara section of Tokyo which is full of character merchandise. They had plenty of Hello Kitty, Disney, and every video game character I had never heard of, but no pony. So yeah, where should I have been looking?

[octocorn]

My friend just spent 2 weeks in Japan and I asked her to keep an eye out for pony stuff and no toy store she went in acted like they'd even heard of it!

[AJLareneg]

I'm also curious about this...I know someone going to Japan in a few weeks and was curious about how merchandise was there.

[ponyqueen]

  I just remembered my daughter Kaho is in Japan! (okay, she's Japanese... she was only my exchange daughter but I forget!) She's in Osaka... I'll ask her right away about where to find ponies... stand by... (may take a few hours; as of this writing it's about 4am there).

[hathorcat]

G4 is big in Japan at the moment and some of their merch is super cute!!! This is the official online shop -  http://mlpj.shop-pro.jp/ - just about everything featured other than some toys are licensed so you can find them in actual stores as well.

[Charmypony]

I love the hair clip and retro stuff! I hope I can find them.

I will look for tokidoki unicorno too if I can.

[Dragonflitter]

MLP just recently got popular in Japan, thanks to FiM. I remember I went there in 2006 and I went to several toy stores in Tokyo and even a Toys-R-Us in Osaka looking for G3's but they did not exist there.

(I did find one single G1 in a 'retro' toy mall and the seller was asking the equivalent of $50 USD for it o_0 It was an almost bait condition G1 Curly Locks! )

[ponyqueen]

There are TRUs in Japan? Hm... my exchange daughter lives in Osaka. I suppose this would be a good place to start looking!

Charmypony, what part of Japan are you going to?

[spottedslug]

Ponies are actually harder to find in Japan than you might think, or so I've heard.

[Charmypony]

I'm going to Tokyo, Okayama and Kyoto. I'm not looking for ponies, but more for items related to it like stationary, bag...

[Dragonflitter]

There are TRUs in Japan? Hm... my exchange daughter lives in Osaka. I suppose this would be a good place to start looking!

Ah, my apologies! I just checked the photobook I made of my trip and the TRU was in Odaiba, not Osaka. I got them confused.

[gemini_pony]

G4 is big in Japan at the moment and some of their merch is super cute!!! This is the official online shop -  http://mlpj.shop-pro.jp/ - just about everything featured other than some toys are licensed so you can find them in actual stores as well.

Not really that big. I just spoke with some people from Japan and asked them how popular it was there. They said it has gotten more popular but is still pretty obscure.

[ponyqueen]

Japanese people are way into Japanese stuff. And Disney. Beyond that... like I said, I was looking for three weeks in Hiroshima, Kyoto, Osaka, Nara, Tanabe, Hongu, and Tokyo. I guarantee given that much time I would have found some type of pony merchandise if I had been in, say, Mexico.

[hathorcat]

G4 is big in Japan at the moment and some of their merch is super cute!!! This is the official online shop -  http://mlpj.shop-pro.jp/ - just about everything featured other than some toys are licensed so you can find them in actual stores as well.

Not really that big. I just spoke with some people from Japan and asked them how popular it was there. They said it has gotten more popular but is still pretty obscure.

Thats interesting considering the amount of merch being pounded out right now Companies like FurYu dont normally purchase licenses for anything which is unlikely to do well for them.

I have heard and seen more about MLP in Japan with G4 than I have with any other generation and certainly more about it than many other western brands which try to break the market.