Opening on Monday 14th April, Bandai Namco Cross Store comes to Birmingham’s New Street as its second flagship location!

Geeky Brummie got a sneak preview of what to expect as we take a first look inside the double-storey Japanese multi retail experience opening at 40-42 New Street next week!

Video:

Upstairs: Gashapon paradise & and test your skills at Crane Crossing

Gashapon

If you’re reading this, I’m sure you’re aware of the concept of Gashapon, a staple of Japanese Culture since the 1960s. Made from the two sounds from cranking two sounds, gasha (or gacha) for the hand-cranking action of a toy-vending machine, and pon for the toy capsule hitting the collection tray. If you’re old enough to remember retreiving a lollipop, bubblegum or a small toy from a gumball machine in your youth you’ll get the general gist.

Gashapon are purchased by exchanging tokens with the machines taking a set amount of tokens for each toy. There’s a wide range covering anime, manga, pop culture and even a few western franchises in the mix.

Crane Crossing

Crane machines (or claw machines) are a staple of arcade culture worldwide, but they have a unique attraction in Japan. Typically, these machines feature a joystick and a claw that players manipulate to grab prizes. The allure lies not only in the potential winnings, but in the thrill of the chase. There’s multiple machines to choose from, stacked two high and full of a range of items including plushies, licened figures and more (one even had mini crane machines inside). Payment was via contactless for each batch of 4 machines with prices ranging from £2 – £10.

Downstairs

Stores Galore

If games of chance aren’t your thing, no worries, head downstairs into the the underground mall of shops with a wide array of brands including:

BANPRESTO OFFICIAL SHOP
Ichibankuji Official Shop
MegaHouse Official Store
ONE PIECE CARD GAME Official Shop
Sun-Star Stationery Shop
Tamagotchi Shop
TAMASHII NATIONS in Cross Store Entry Models.

There’s a large area with tables and chairs for those who want to get into the ONE PIECE CARD GAME, which is gaining popularity (and we also asked if the new Gundam TCG would appear, hopefully more news on that soon).

A wide variety of items from a comprehensive Tamagotchi section to Shokugan minis, Banpresto and Megahouse, plus stationery from Sun-Star including the ever popular Metacil ‘infinity’ pencils.

There was also a wide variety of Ichibankuji (meaning ‘Number One Japanese Prize’) where you can randomly win rare toys, figurines and collectables! The display cabinets, demonstrate the range of prizes, ranked with letters from A to H (with A being the top prize). Purchase your ticket, then peel to find out the letter, check to see what you’ve got and then get your prize! No one ever loses as all tickets win something (restricted to 16+ only). From JoJo’s Bizarre adventure to Neir: Automata and Bezerk, there’s plent of raffles to enter.

The plan is for these stores to occasionally rotate as new items or franchises (GUNPLA PLEASE!) become available, and the Gashapon and crane prizes will be frequently changed so you’ll have even more excuses to come back. It’s fantastic to have a store like this open in Birmingham and being so close to New Street station, you should pop down!