Two weeks ago Greg and I were flown out to Japan for some business with Mishka’s distributor, Calquinto. I’m not at liberty to say what it was about, so I’ll just say it was “for business”. They flew us out to Osaka for a day and Tokyo for two days. Having just been to Tokyo in September, I can’t say I was ready to return. It’s a long flight and for such a short amount of time, a bit of a hassle. In the end, how the hell could I complain about a free flight to Japan?

After a delayed flight out of JFK (you’da guessed?) and a transfer in Tokyo to Osaka, we arrived. Luckily I had my chaperon with me to ensure we traveled safely. Mitsuo, our Japanese connection picked us up and took us to our hotel.

Japanese business hotels are incredibly efficient. The bathrooms are full water-proof rooms and the shower’s water uses a control valve on the sink’s faucet. I won’t go into the architectural nerdiness here, but know what when you travel to Japan, and stay at one of these hotels, take a fucking pillow with you. The beds and pillows here are hard as rocks.

That night we went out to dinner with Calquinto. They took us to a korean bbq spot where they force-fed us all kinds of food, beer and beef sashimi. Eating raw beef is an interesting experience. I don’t recommend it. I didn’t have my camera with me, so we’ll pick back up the next morning. Come 10am, we were in a cab headed to Calquinto’s Osaka office to discuss business.

After a few hours, we were allowed to go play. Mitsuo and Baba took us around to some of Mishka’s stockists in Osaka. The first stop was a shop called Uprise.

There were a lot of the usual suspects at the shop. From domestic brands to Japanese brands and a lot of retro-infill as you can see here in this pic. A lot of nostalgic throwbacks to hip hop’s golden years.

Next stop was Pop Soda. Talk about nostalgic throwbacks. This shop was stuffed to the brim with NIB toys from the 80′s and 90′s as well as a ton of modern-day Kaiju.

How stoked were we to see this custom Lamour Supreme-painted KillerJSauroman?!

Next up was a shop, that for the life of me, I cannot remember. Greg’s in the same boat. So say hi to the shop-worker.

They did have some insane rings in the cash wrap.

… and a ton of brands to stuff it’s shelves. Here’s Mitsuo pondering what to buy his woman.

On our way to Mandarake, the Kaiju and comic mecca, we came across this bootleg t-shirt shop. The store was so packed, my fat ass could barely fit through the isles. One tee did catch my eye though.

Bart wearing a hoodie, a Brooklyn chewing gum hat, with a GOrilla chain and a track bike. Clever!

Mandarake is where I finally began to “get” the whole Kaiju thing. In the past, when Mishka has produced a toy, I’d pick it up to support what they, and Lamour Supreme, were doing. After spending 10 minutes in Madarake, you begin to see the vintage Kaiju’s influence on the modern Kaiku. The old monsters have found new life in the more modern brands. It all made sense.

Then there were all the pervy comics and toys. Peek a poon!

At this point, it was time for some food. Baba, having spent a lot of time in Osaka, recomended this one spot that served Osaka’s traditional meal, Okonomiyaki.

Okonomiyaki is essentially a giant omelet, stuffed with all kinds of shit.

It tastes as good as it looks. If someone opened an Okonomiyaki bar in Williamsburg, hipsters would line up around the block for it.

After dinner, we headed out to a few more shops, including Time Bomb, a massive music shop. I haven’t been to a record shop that covered just about every sub-genre of music out there. They had everything, including two of my recent favorite death metal cds.

I gotta review the Nirvana 2002 album soon! It’s legit as hell!

Like every record shop, they had tons of local fliers. She’s probably in her 80′s now…

The last shop of note that we went to that day was Astro Zombies. You’ll recognize Pushead’s artwork from a mile away. Sadly though, the shop reminded me of a big Hot Topic. Nothing really original or vintage, other than these little guys.

How cool are they? After we had spent the whole afternoon shopping, we went back to our brick-like hotel beds and took a nap. That night, the Calquinto family was going to take us out to a proper Osaka dinner; seafood fusion!

Growing up on the beach, I’ve spent most my life eating seafood, so I’m a bit skeptical of so-called “fresh” catches. I’ll be damned if this wasn’t one of the best dinners I’ve ever had though. A massive bucket of shrimp and oysters awaited us.

Don’t you just wanna suck it up?

… and of course beer. Drink after drink of Suntory beer.

Then we made a bad decision and started taking shots of Suntory Whiskey. This is what ruined our next day. Blegh…

After dinner, Calquinto arranged for a special desert. When I saw this, I was pretty drunk and it took all my control to stop myself from eating it immediately. I had to take a picture…

Then I immediately devoured it. The rest of the night was a blur. We went to karaoke and come the end of the night, we were feeling like shit. Knowing that we had to be up and out of the hotel room at 8am, we headed back to the hotel.

The next morning we hopped on a bullet train to Tokyo. Those events will be posted tomorrow, in a continuation of the trip.

- Prolly