It was a bloody hot and humid weekend. It sure felt like summer in a temperate country. Summer is the season for t-shirt (though tank tops are preferable).
Uni Qlo @ Tampines 1
Usually, I would avoid going to crowded places on a terribly hot day. But since I was alone and had time to spare (no assignments due the following week), I decided to make a detour to the newly opened Tampines 1 mall after picking up my weekly shipment of Hong Kong comics from the local Comics Connection. There was still a crowd at Singapore’s first Uni Qlo even though it’s been more than a week after the opening. I was hoping to get some of the anime-themed t-shirts, especially the Tatsunoko Production line-up.
There was a queue to manage the never ending flow of Uni Qlo fans and curious shoppers.
Queue: It’s not a natural instinct in the Singaporean society
There was a need for the shop to direct the crowd because of the crush in during the opening week. The excessive crowd brought services and shopping experience to a halt. I could only fathom what happened during that time when the horde of fashionistas descended upon the shop like hungry locusts to a fresh harvest.
Nothing like that happened yesterday afternoon when I was there. The customers were civil and the goods in the shop were relatively neat and unmolested.
I made a bee-line for the Uni Qlo Mega Culture tees.
To my disappointment, all the available Tatsunoko tees were sold out.
UT: Gatchaman
According to the store assistants, the Gatchaman UT was sold out even though it had been re-stocked.
UT: Time Bokan
I pointed to the Yatterman (Time Bokan Skull-cloud) shirts on the catalog, but they weren’t available yet. The Japanimation t-shirts would be released here in batches.
Most of the otaku culture t-shirts in stock were from the old school games series such as Bomberman and Dig Dug. Nothing from Street Fighter yet.
In the end, I only managed to get something for my wife from the Tezuka Otomo collaboration Ravex series…
UT: Kimba the White Lion
…and for myself, something from last season’s Hokusai Manga series.
UT: Hokusai’s Dragon
Who’s Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾北斎)? According to the tag, Hokusai was “the master of art who identified himself as the ‘drawing maniac’ and gave all his passion to draing during his life. Starting with his representative work, the Red Fuji (Fuji Aka), he produced over 30,000 book illustrations and prints during his 90 yeas of life. Hokusai Manga became the catalyst for Japonism when it was brought to the West, which was the important source of inspiration for many European impressionist artists like Van Gogh and Claude Monet.”
Uni Qlo Slippers
The pair of slippers was a surprise buy. It’s nice like those you’d find at New Urban Male – only more reasonably priced. It cost less than twenty bucks for a pair and it’s an excellent replacement for the pair of beach slippers that I’d been using for more than 4 years.
Will I visit Uni Qlo to pick up other anime/manga/game-themed UT? Certainly. The quality of the t-shirt is good, and the brand is collaborating with the iconic manga/anime companies of my era – such as Tatsunoko, Shueisha and the likes. I hope they’ll do a cross-over with Dynamic Production, since Go Nagai’s works are seeing a revival these days. Until the day Cospa does a mass-market label, Uni Qlo’s UT offers better value for money. Yet, I’ll continue to buy Cospa because they’ve got a lot more licences to contemporary and retro-cool titles such as Ghost in the Shell, Mobile Suit Gundam and Armoured Trooper VOTOMS.
