I was wandering through Akihabara doing important book research SHUT UP, when I discovered the key to collecting all those damnably elusive kittehs in Neko Atsume: put out lots & lots & LOTS of hundred yen coins and you can attract these. For those of us whose primary life goal is luring animated cats to visit our phones DON’T JUDGE, now there’s a way to capture our favorites in real life!
This might get expensive, since I will be needing several dozen more phones in order to accommodate all these mic jack danglers
But fortunately I’m going to soon find out that I’m richer than Tubbs, once I use these to clip together the bank statement-like papers now sitting woefully unfiled on my desk
And of course – since mostly what authors do is lie around on their chaise lounges sipping fine cognac – I’ll need some of these. A whole set, in fact, in case I acquire some friends.
And what’s the point of being a writer and working at home if you can’t knock out a few chapters dressed in your favorite King Of Tattoo t-shirt and these fluffy kitteh underpants?
Would these look better hanging from my rear view mirror or my backpack? OK duh, we know the answer to that: both.
If you’re feeling really lucky (and I was, oh yes, I was!) you can stuff your last coins into the awesome gachagacha machine I spotted on the way back to the train station, and get THESE!
But you’ll be happy to know that I haven’t taken total leave of my senses, because a few days later at Nakano Broadway when I saw this claw machine I RESISTED. (Because that way lies madness. WE KNOW THAT.)
If you’d like to snag some of these beauties for yourself, the clips and danglers and drinking glasses and backpack stuffies can be bought inside the corner shop across from the doll parts store on the 5th floor of the Radio Kaikan Building, near Akihabara Station. (A map is on my website The Tokyo Guid I Wish I’d Had.) The underpants were being sold at a sock shop in Shibuya near the BAPE store, and I already made the mistake of telling you that the claw machine is at Nakano Broadway, so you’re just going to have to try to avoid that whole area of Tokyo, sorry.
Jonelle Patrick is the author of the Only In Tokyo mystery series, published by Penguin/Intermix.
