Part of the fun of visiting Tokyo is going to the famous places seen in our favorite anime, a pastime that’s known as 聖地巡礼 seichi junrei, literally “making a pilgrimage to a Holy Land.” No place is more packed with “holy lands” than Shinjuku, the setting of Makoto Shinkai’s Your Name and Weathering With You, and it’s fun to walk through the streets and remember fond memories of the films. Things are going to get a little less fun for Shinkai’s fans, however, with news that the iconic LABI Shinjuku electronics store is closing on October 4.
『LABI新宿東口館、10月4日閉店 10年の歴史に幕』
電化製品はいつもここで購入していました。
素敵な店員さんも多いし広く見やすかったんですがとても残念です。歌舞伎町の入り口にLABIいつもこのビジョンに移るMVを見ながら待ち合わせをしたものです。#歌舞伎町 #LABI pic.twitter.com/2ntwWiwjVl
— 歌舞伎町.net@無料掲載 (@llkabukichoull) September 11, 2020
Built a decade ago as part of an attempt to revamp the seedy image of Kabuki-cho, which houses Tokyo’s unofficial red-light district and is known to fans of the Yakuza game series as Komuro-cho, the LABI Shinjuku store was a gorgeous place to check out the latest smartphones, cameras, or video game consoles in a posh upscale environment. It was also popular with foreign tourists from Asia, who would flock to the shop and engage in what the Japanese called 爆買い baku-gai, literally “explosive buying,” which helped Japan’s economy for years. With those customers gone, the sprawling store apparently had no way to remain open.
J-List is based in Gunma Prefecture, and we Gunma residents are proud of three things: one, that we have one of only three Haagen-Daz ice cream factories in the world, two, that we have our own Costco in Maebashi, and three, that the national chain of Yamada Denki, one of Japan’s most successful electronics stores, started in Takasaki, a large commercial city next to J-List. So this hits Gunma residents hard.
Thanks for your service and awesomeness, LABI Shinjuku! We will never forget you!
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