Welcome to The Avocado’s weekly discussion of Japanese pop culture! I’m back from Japan with a million pictures, stories to tell, way too many souvenirs, and jet lag! Actually, maybe my jet lagged is cured because I slept so well last night that I only just now woke up and this thread needs to be posted in 30 minutes. There went my big plans to reveal a ton of pictures in nicely organized slideshows today! But worry not, I still have time for one pop culture-focused slideshow.

I was absolutely delighted every time I saw a fancy display or a big advertisement for my favorite musicians and manga/anime while in Japan. I was audibly gasping and celebrating whenever we either randomly stumbled upon one, or in the case of the IDOLiSH7 one, finally found it in the maze of Shibuya station (I was NOT leaving before I got to see that – my enthusiasm was apparently shared by others because there were a lot of people there to take photos of that one specifically). I thought I got more pictures at Tower Records because they also had displays for other favorites, but I guess I didn’t. Darn. Just know it was a wonderland of all the best music.

Note about Grumproro’s picture taking: Not great! I’m constantly in a state of worrying about being in people’s way or being a nuisance somehow, so when taking pictures in public I tend to move very quickly, which doesn’t result in the most beautiful pictures. Sorry! For example, the one in the header isn’t even mine because although I got closeups and videos I somehow never took a full picture of the spread. So I took it from the mangaka’s twitter.

You might be wondering (I’m sure you are): “Where’s Yuzuru?!” Don’t worry. There are many. So, so many. But I’ll save that for another week.

And, as always…

What have you been watching/reading/playing/eating/listening to lately?

Happy Wednesday! 🙂