ROCKET NEWS
 

With 60 items for just 1,000 yen (US$8.35), Animate’s lucky bag might just be the luckiest of all.

At New Year’s, almost every major retailer in Japan sells “lucky bags,” which are bundles of merchandise bought sight-unseen. While it might seem a little strange to buy something without knowing what it is, the unspoken understanding is that the price you pay for the whole bag is supposed to be less than the total individual costs of the items inside, so bargain hunters with a general liking of a particular store’s wares are keen to pick up one of that shop’s lucky bags every year.

While some lucky bags can be pretty expensive, Animate, Japan’s premiere anime retailer, has budget-friendly ones that cost just 1,000 yen (US$8.35), so we decided to swing by the chain’s branch in the Ikebukuro neighborhood of Tokyo to get one for ourselves. Since we heard that Animate’s lucky bags are big sellers, we decided to arrive early, and strolled up to the shop at 8 a.m., two hours before it opens.

Literally 100 other people had the same idea, and by 10 a.m. another hundred anime fans had lined up behind us.



Thankfully, there were enough lucky bags to go around. Considering how affordable Animate’s are, we were expecting a pretty tiny package, but the store’s lucky bags turned out to be startlingly enormous!



It was also heavy, being laden with what was obviously way more than 1,000 yen worth of goodies. After lugging the bag back to RocketNews24 HQ in Shinjuku, we emptied its contents, which covered an entire desk.

We counted them up, and found our Animate lucky bag haul amounted to a whopping 60 items. So what were they? Make yourself comfortable as we go through the list.

▼ Steins;Gate plushie (which looked as surprised to see us as we were to see her)



▼ Boyfriend (Beta) clear file set


▼ Yowamushi Pedal Hakone Academy bag


▼ Dramatical Murder fan

That’s a mind-blowing mountain of merch for just 1,000 yen, and what makes it even more impressive is the fact that if you purchased each piece separately, your bill would come to 48,000 yen! In other words, Animate’s New Year’s bundle represents a 4,700-percent return on investment, which is about the sweetest deal you’ll find all year.

Photos ©RocketNews24