Akihabara Gamers started its special event by Gift (anime goods maker) for the otome game, AMNESIA since Saturday (June 22)! Special kuji, new goods, event hall, and new gachas! It runs through until July 7th. Also Otomate Cafe and Gift for AMNESIA are doing a collaboration cafe menu~
I unfortunately had work and couldn’t make it on the opening day but I was determined to get there first thing in the morning for the second day. It was a good thing I checked their twitter as it told me that girls had been around and lining up since 5am on the opening day. I had originally planned to get there for 7am but I decided to get to Akiba as early as my first train would let me (only slept 1 hr!) and arrived at 5:48. Due to the previous day’s issues with crowds forming and the police coming to disperse the crowd, Gamers was not allowing a line to form and asked us to walk around instead of standing in front of the store. I, among many other girls, ended up walking about and settling a little ways away from the store against the wall or the sidewalk barrier. By 6-6:30, quite an intimidating number of girls had formed their own “line” right outside the JR station. I chose to stay on the other side of Gamers by Chuo Dori but what a mistake that was!
The beginning of a crowd forming on the station side…
Several staff came out and took down the information papers and opened the shutters. People assumed the lines would form and everyone started to walk towards Gamers, closing in from both sides. The station side crowd was enormous and more people being added. They kept their semi-line fairly uniform. The people that were standing around me lacked in number and I was not the only one who thought it was kind of scary. We stopped on opposite sides of Gamers and waited… like a face off (I was distinctly reminded of Project Diva F – World’s End Dancehall video by wowaka). But the staff weren’t ready and asked us to disperse again.
Around 7 they started forming the line and the face off happened again but they gave priority to the giant crowd and didn’t let us on the other side move until they finished forming the line towards the station. I felt a little jilted since I was so much further back than I wanted. They started handing out the seiriken (numbered tickets) shortly after.
Rules:
- You had to choose either a kuji seiriken or the event hall seiriken
- Once you got a seiriken you can loop the line for the other seiriken
- You can only get one of each type of seiriken
I ended up pretty far back in line and got a seiriken for 242 for the kuji. I ran back to the end of the line which ran around the station and under the underpass and resulted 99th for the event hall. I didn’t have to worry about overlap which was good since the kuji sales were slated for 8:30am start and event hall at 10:30am.
Here, as I had some time, I ran over to the Otomate Cafe in Pasela to see if I couldn’t get one of those tapioca drinks which was part of the collaboration drink. Of course the 241 people in front of me thought the same and I went into another long line which ran up 3 flights of stairs and curved into their sports bar floor on the third floor. Gift was constantly tweeting and asking seiriken holders between certain numbers to come by a certain time which was very convenient. The kuji line moved faster than I expected so I was worried whether I would be able to buy a drink before I had to run back to Gamers but I barely squeezed through and made it back by 9:30.
The kuji was limited 5 per person (T_T I wanted every prize on the kuji!!) Finally my turn came and…! I pulled out G-1 (Shin plushie), E-1 (Shin rubber strap), E-5 (Ukyou rubber strap), D (mouse pad), and B (Ikki, Kent, Ukyou tapestry)! I was really gunning for B prize so was extremely happy! In fact, Gift had a huge stock of A and B prizes. I wasn’t quite sure about how they divided the ratios but many people were pulling the tapestries but I still felt really lucky~
Then I loitered a while looking to trade people (must get Ikki and Ikki and more Ikki!) and I heard something interesting. The original seiriken line was long gone but there were some kuji seirikens left over. I saw a girl ask the staff if it was possible to get another seiriken if you have already finished going through the kuji. It’s slightly different from looping the seiriken line to get multiple tickets at once I guess. The staff said since there were left overs and provided they get to the current number (in the 800s) it was OK. I followed suit and asked for the same question and was rewarded with another seiriken for the kuji! (Number 846)
Then it was time to go to the event/goods hall. I went a little Ikki crazy here and my shopping basket was filled with blue goodies! Shopping’s all done and it wasn’t even 11am at this point. At the same time, in another building, the gachas were taking place. They also allowed people to trade goods here. Since it was a place I could sit down and perhaps also get some good trades, I headed over, played a bunch of gachas and settled in until my next run for the kuji line. 11:55 and my number was called for the kuji and this time I picked up E-1, E-2 (Yay Ikki! I traded earlier so this became my second Ikki), 2x D, and A (Shin, Toma tapestry)! \o/ Luck was on my side! They still had a few few number of kuji seirikens left but I felt satisfied and bad if I went a third time so I just ended up going back to the trading site to trade my doubles (minus Ikki). I ended up getting some good deals and ended up with everything I wanted the most. I was hoping to collect one of each for the E prizes and the G-2 (Toma plushie) but Toma is so extremely popular that this was a hard feat. People were buying Toma plushies for 3000 yen after all.
The kuji prizes I ended up with at the end of the day after extensive trading process…
It looked like the kuji seiriken went up to 1000 and they still had decent number of stock left. I heard from the staff that the remainder will be used in the kuji the next day. I’m glad I decided to go on the Sunday. Overall, it was very fun and trading and chatting with other fans was also very interesting~ I still haven’t given up on the Toma plushie and the other E prizes but we’ll see…
Goods I obtained at the goods hall. Can you tell who my favorite character is? (笑)
The gacha prizes (minus the coaster) after extensive trading and buying. The 3x Kentos were unwanted and untradable…
Kimidori Life 