I’m usually not particularly attracted to super-hero related merchandise, but I couldn’t resist picking up a few of these Spider-Man gacha-gacha figures. I picked up these ones — Carnage, regular Spider-Man, and Venom — a week ago, and the other day I added the Scarlet Spider-Man. You can see the entire series — seven in all — here. They’re from Yujin’s TIME CAPSULE (“Art Capsule Toy Project”) series.
Don’t know how I missed this, but as Boicozine reports, a new designers cafe called Sunshine Studio opened this weekend in Harajuku “as a place for various designers from all over the place to meet, eat and exhibit.” It’s run by the design unit Design Works Project, and the current show features the works of Geoff McFetridge. I was even in the area yesterday, having lunch at the nearby Cafe Studio! I’ll try to drop by sometime this week to have a look.
Finishing off the weekend with a glass of MUJI red wine.
It’s hard to believe, but Patrick announced in his latest newsletter that Tokyo Recohan, the online used CD store he runs, has just turned 5! Congratulations are in order — running a service like this surely takes a lot of his time, and it’s quite admirable that he’s kept at it for so long — and here’s hoping this valuable service keeps on going for a while yet!
You can read all of my Gridskipper posts here (or even subscribe to a feed).
Most of you know that I’m a regular contributor to Gridskipper, Gawker’s urban travel guide, and this week saw the launch of a major overhaul of the site that sees it embrace Google Maps in a big way (read more about the changes here). For now, my posts will continue as usual since the system can’t deal with Japanese addresses yet, but I’m told this will hopefully change in the near future.
PingMag pays a visit to the very green home of eccentric design unit Namaiki (or rather the David Duval Smith half), which turns into one of the most image-heavy pieces I’ve seen on the site. It also marks Uleshka’s — Ms. PingMag herself — final work for the site. I wish her the best of luck with all her future projects (which, for now, includes collaborations with PechaKucha Night and Worldchanging).