If you thought 2022 couldn’t get any crazier how about this incredible photo I found from December 1997. This is one of the earliest candid photos (in exceptional quality too) of Pokemon product outside of official sources and without surprise we learn more about the early history of Pokemon!
(Nagoya City, December 1997)
Pretty incredible to see Japanese Base Jumbo cards! Also seeing the setup for an early store pre-Pokemon Center era is fascinating, the majority of the product you see is from Tomy.
I have been able to decipher some information from this picture but need the power of E4 to see if we can crack the code on some of the other mysteries in this picture. I was able to barely make out the banner but haven’t been able to place the exact history of this convention.
Also if anyone is able to decipher the logo on the shop keepers apron that would be a huge help too!
Also, after getting over the initial shock of seeing all the incredible items in this picture I happened to notice I actually have the same Tomy store display from the picture above!
I have a feeling that it’s not a convention but rather an in-store sale to which Pokemon was temporarily given a dedicated area.
A couple of reasons for my guess:
The POS equipment is too elaborate for what you would typically find at a convention.
The clerk is wearing a vest paired with a white dress blouse underneath her apron, which is a work uniform ensemble still popular in Japanese department stores.
There’s something in the upper right corner of the photo that has me intrigued.
It’s a display of some sort, and the sign on it says “Rainbow” in Japanese. I can’t say for certain, but it might also say “handmade” in Japanese. It makes me wonder if it might be a display of multicolored beads, which were quite popular in Japan during the late 1990s.
The reason this interests me is because when I first saw the clerk’s uniform, I thought it might be the same green-and-white color scheme worn by floor staff at Tokyu Hands, a chain of stores that sell all sorts of things – including arts and crafts supplies.
@japanime , Those are actually good leads! I will see if I can find some of those products on the marketplace with similar looking pricetags. The location of this photo is Nagoya City. Also do you think this looks like an Ito-Yokado logo on the blue hanging sheet item to you?
Oh, that’s a possibility. Back then, the Ito-Yokado logo was a pigeon in silhouette.
I’m pretty sure that table is the area where they gift-wrapped the items. You can see some products in the foreground that are already gift-wrapped, and a bit of that same gift-wrapping paper is visible at the back of that table.
The photo comes from the Asahi Shimbun. I’m going to see if some of my old journalism colleagues (I worked for a rival news organization in the mid-1990s and had friends at the Asahi) might be able to help us unravel this mystery.
If we can figure out the logo on the apron, that might be the breakthrough.
The only other potential clue I could see is the star shaped tag on the red and green boxes which is almost certainly not the Ito Yokado logo. My guess is that is was a department store event. Not a convention.
I asked a friend from Nagoya, and he said it looks like a section set up in a larger department store. (It should also be noted that the caption on the website indicates it was a “specialized/dedicated corner.”) He then suggested to get in touch with Asahi Shimbun since they published the picture…Looks like @japanime is on top of this one!
I’m fairly certain the star-shaped sticker on the boxes is just one of those generic “Present For You”-type decals that department stores slap onto gift-wrapped purchases. So, I don’t think that rules out Ito-Yokado.
That said, I’m also not convinced this was photographed at an Ito-Yokado. The green vest to me suggests Tokyu Hands or Daiei. (But that could be totally wrong, too.)
Amazing picture, and indeed the quality is shockingly good for the time!
So unfortunately I don’t have pictures so what follows is only a guess at this point.
I currently live in Nagoya, and although I can’t quite match it to anything tangible, the “… Wonderland” apron reminds me strongly of a section of the department stores of Nagoya JR station, on the right when you enter the main building from the front.
This section (as well as the entrance of the JR towers) were specially decorated for Christmas this year (with life size raindeers/sleigh photo spot and that kind of stuff, pretty sure my girlfriend has some footage that I will share later).
Can’t think of anything else that would be useful, will see if I can match anything when I’m next there, but I doubt anything characteristic would have survived unchanged for 25 years!
I feel we are close hopefully there will be a breakthrough, I’ve had no luck with the price stickers but I am fairly confident that the apron says “Winterwonderland”.
I’ll drop some more close ups:
Price tag
Top right corner
I think you’re right about that saying “Winterwonderland”!
I spent some time the other evening searching Japanese search engines for images of Christmas-themed aprons, but turned up none that looked like the one in our mystery picture.
I haven’t had any luck with my Asahi colleagues, either, unfortunately.
I’ve been doing a little more digging around.
I was thinking JR Central Towers had a lot of potential, but it didn’t open until 2000. And apparently, neither Ito-Yokado nor Daiei have any locations in Nagoya. Tokyu Hands (東急ハンズ), however, is a real possibility. Past pictures of the store match up pretty well. Moreover, the Tokyu Hands Annex store first opened downtown in 1986, and it just temporarily closed in October so that it can be relocated. There is another Tokyu Hands still operating in the city that opened in 2000.
There are a few others to consider. The largest department stores in Nagoya that have been around for a very long time are Matsuzakaya (松坂屋; this one has the Pokémon Center), Mitsukoshi (Nagoya Sakae Mitsukoshi 名古屋栄三越), Maruei (丸栄), and Meitetsu (Meitetsu hyakkate 名鉄百貨店).
I’ve done many searches using these store names with various combinations of key words. Haven’t been getting much from the 90s. I’ll keep at it a little longer as well as look into the sign (クリスマス人気おもちゃ大会) @shizzlemetimbers identified. Still, it seems like our best bet is to get in contact with Asahi News one way or another.
