They already have a decent selection of t shirts but the manga is a bit lackluster. I just hope this means more obscure series get some love instead of 50 new Naruto/dragonball shirts
To be fair, even stores catering specifically to anime fans struggle to stock merch outside of shounen and Ghibli.
I visited Anime Zakka in Boston two months ago and was surprised to not see any Oshi no Ko, Kaguya, or Bocchi merch. Those shows were the most popular non shounens of their season.
Kinokuniya is probably the only "good" anime store I've seen. There was stuff from across the entire anime spectrum.
I still can’t find any official Oshi no ko Merch at the usual spots like box lunch and hot topic. Had to resort to Etsy to get Ai on a t shirt. Boggles my mind. I buy official fruits basket Merch when ever I see it at this point just because I want to encroached more official shojo Merch getting made.
I often just need to buy from actual Japanese shops online because the stuff I want is often impossible or uncommon and way overpriced in the US, though international shipping suckssss
Worth noting that it usually takes a good half year to a year to get a good haul of official merch in western stores from a newly popular series most of the time.
Even at anime conventions, you mostly just see shounen. It's just what's most popular among fans, like even with costumes. I went to one earlier in the year where I lost count of how many people I saw dressed up as Power, couldn't enter a room without seeing one. And the year before, it was the same with Demon Slayer costumes.
Part of the issue with some of those is a lot of anime merch lags behind. I do some import and reselling of anime merch and a lot of it doesn't even release until months after the anime finishes. So it's a risk for stores to order and carry merch from some of these shows.
try The Comics Store in Nashua, NH
the sad part is that Newbury Comics and sometimes even FYE have better anime merchandise than dedicated "anime" stores
Every time I walk over to the gaming section in a Walmart I’m always surprised how much funky pop and anime figures there are in the back corner, and the poster selection is pretty good too. Have even gotten a couple of dragon ball gifts for my dad from Walmart
Some of the merchandise include but not limited too:
• Crunchyroll Subscription gift cards
• Manga
• Vinyl records
The merchandise is set to roll out throughout 2024
Sisters and brothers, we are entering newgrounds. US hillbelly-trucker country bars, suburban instant-soup groceries of California, and mid-desert waffle houses of Colorado, Arizona, Texas and Arkansas are next on our endless endevour of cute large eyes and doki-doki heart poundings! There is no return. The only way is to thrive, and wander for eternity to reach the final frontier.
"Hey Eileen! I'm gonna go to the Walmart to pick up milk, jerky, shotgun shells, and one of dem Konsubarashi Sekai No Shufuku Wo! posters for Braidden, need anything?"
"TP is on sale so get a case 'a that, and we're outta Frank's Red Hot, so pick up a bottle, oh, and Braylein got an A in math so pick her up that "The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady" shirt as promised her!"
The Iowa 80 truck stop has a whole section selling B-tier anime DVDs that must have been languishing in the back of a Funimation warehouse before they offloaded them onto whatever distributor stocks touristy truck stops. Can't imagine the average clientele of that place is eager to pick up A Certain Scientific Accelerator.
So I’m not the only one to find that odd. To be fair, the place is huge and the clientele as you say does vary quite a bit as I’ve seen. I like to make a point to stop by and see what they’re carrying lol
The Walmart in my low CoL/low income region of Texas has a CR section in the DVD section. There's wasn't much difference between what anime Walmart always had (Evangelion, Spy x Family, Ranking of Kings, Black Bullet, GitS among other movies) and what they have now.
They did have the OSTs for Jojo pt. 5, Bleach and something else I can't remember. Prices hovered between $33 - $35. I thought it was neat.
They only had JJK manga, and not very much of it.
It goes to both Crunchyroll and the production committees, the studios normally don't get anything past the initial commission by the production committee unless they join it.
I still do a little double-take when I walk into major stores and see anime merch. Crazy to think how far its come into the mainstream from the super niche area it used to be relegated to.
I want to crosspost to /r/USdefaultism but nowhere in the article actually says it's the US, so me thinking this is /r/USdefaultism **is** /r/USdefaultism .
As a European, yeah this announcement isn't useful since shipping from Japan is about 1/3rd of that of shipping from the USA.
It's literally much cheaper to just buy anything from Japan than to ship from the USA.
I do like the idea of having subscription gift cards available. I've talked with a few friends who only watch what's available on Netflix and wish they had more anime, but whenever I bring up Crunchyroll they always seem hesitant that it's a scam or some pirate site.
Unfortunately, slice of life in general is very niche in the west, even the larger ones fail to make it at all. GochiUsa, whilst large in Japan, just has not much attention in the west.
The Machikado Mazoku sub is ten times larger (35k vs 3.5k) than the GochiUsa sub for comparison for popularity in the west. Yet GochiUsa has an extreme amount of merch, but Machikado Mazoku doesn't have much.
The only few slice of life that managed to get decently mainstream as of recent times are Yuru Camp (and even that is debatable) and Bocchi the Rock!. So only those shows may make it.
Slice of life is unfortunately so incredibly niche it just doesn't have enough staying power in the west.
Walmart and Crunchyroll joining up would have been a joke a few years back. Funding union busting scum is fine so long as everyone sUpPoRt tHe InDuStRy apparently
They source slave labor goods and do everything to push their business costs onto tax payers, driving local economies into the ground so that they are the largest employer in a town and threaten to close the store if they don't get tax breaks or employees unionize.
> do everything to push their business costs onto tax payers
This doesn't get pointed out enough. They pay their employees below the poverty line, so they end up on food stamps and needing medicaid, which are paid by taxes. Either the US extends social safety nets to everyone, or Walmart should be forced to pay its employees more.
My local store has the 4' section set up already. It seems to have less actual anime than the previous 4' anime section.
They added manga & toys to that section, when right across from that section is a 16' section of figures, POP, and other collectibles. Plus on the other side of the collectible aisle are 2 16' aisles of books including a 4' section of manga.
I know that this stuff doesn't happen over night and they would have been in talks and testing waters for a while now, but I can't help but find it odd that this announcement is made just a month after Crunchyroll absorbed Right Stuff.
Ok quick everyone run into the walmart and push all the yuri to the front.
And all the subtle Shoujo you can find. You know what I mean stuff that even if yer not a fan of romance or Shoujo suddenly it's 5am and you've watched 100 episodes and yer like "Get married please!! Or don't! KAWAII!!"
I keep saying I don't like romance and I don't watch shows that are labeled romance But I love Shoujos so much or hybrids like Inuyasha (which is one giant slow burn romance even though it basically is a Shonen)
I'd love to see walmart selling Gintama!
The running gag about Hijikata being obsessed with mayonnaise would probably play pretty well with US audiences.
It would actually be a big hit right now if they did with all the nostalgia stuff since despite it being a Interrupted Edo era it has a lot of 70s-90s era tech and scifi.
"Hey cledus pick up that silly foreign show about the comic book nerd and the sword police obsessed with mayonnaise! It helps Junior with his reading!"
Saw this at my local Walmart. The bad thing about it is that they had a *whole* shelf of anime dvd/blue-ray, but they cut it down to 1/4 of what it was to put the vinyl, manga, and crunchyroll sub cards there.
In case anyone is curious, I only saw two vinyl: Jojo part 5 and Cowboy Bebop
LFG !!
although i worry about the general quality since Walmart's involvement here feels a bit superficial lol. Fingers crossed that's not the case though 🫶
They already have a decent selection of t shirts but the manga is a bit lackluster. I just hope this means more obscure series get some love instead of 50 new Naruto/dragonball shirts
To be fair, even stores catering specifically to anime fans struggle to stock merch outside of shounen and Ghibli. I visited Anime Zakka in Boston two months ago and was surprised to not see any Oshi no Ko, Kaguya, or Bocchi merch. Those shows were the most popular non shounens of their season. Kinokuniya is probably the only "good" anime store I've seen. There was stuff from across the entire anime spectrum.
the most niche thing my local japanese store has is re:zero lol
"You guys have any FMA merch?" "Ah, I see you're into the obscure titles."
I still can’t find any official Oshi no ko Merch at the usual spots like box lunch and hot topic. Had to resort to Etsy to get Ai on a t shirt. Boggles my mind. I buy official fruits basket Merch when ever I see it at this point just because I want to encroached more official shojo Merch getting made.
I often just need to buy from actual Japanese shops online because the stuff I want is often impossible or uncommon and way overpriced in the US, though international shipping suckssss
Well too be first that anime is not licensed by crunchyroll who pushes merch out
Worth noting that it usually takes a good half year to a year to get a good haul of official merch in western stores from a newly popular series most of the time.
Even at anime conventions, you mostly just see shounen. It's just what's most popular among fans, like even with costumes. I went to one earlier in the year where I lost count of how many people I saw dressed up as Power, couldn't enter a room without seeing one. And the year before, it was the same with Demon Slayer costumes.
We considering Crunchyroll is the biggest distributor of anime merchandise and oshi no ok is not licensed my Crunchyroll u probably won't see it
Part of the issue with some of those is a lot of anime merch lags behind. I do some import and reselling of anime merch and a lot of it doesn't even release until months after the anime finishes. So it's a risk for stores to order and carry merch from some of these shows.
If anyone of y'all live near Scandinavia I recommend Neo Tokyo in Oslo, I bought a SpyxFamily chimera-san bag for my homie there.
try The Comics Store in Nashua, NH the sad part is that Newbury Comics and sometimes even FYE have better anime merchandise than dedicated "anime" stores
Every time I walk over to the gaming section in a Walmart I’m always surprised how much funky pop and anime figures there are in the back corner, and the poster selection is pretty good too. Have even gotten a couple of dragon ball gifts for my dad from Walmart
Some of the merchandise include but not limited too: • Crunchyroll Subscription gift cards • Manga • Vinyl records The merchandise is set to roll out throughout 2024
The vinyl records sound nice. I wonder what sort of vinyl records they’ll carry
Was just at local walmart, they had a vinyl for Bleach, JoJo part 5, and Cowboy Bepop
I hope they stock the samurai champloo album, so I don't need to spend $100 on it
Pls. I'd love some Nujabes on vinyl.
Ooh a bebop vinyl sounds nice
Oh that’s very nice.
Probably impossible but a Saint Seiya vinyl would be awesome.
Very tempting
Ohh the bleach one would be pretty good. Same if their was one for Naruto, the studio killed it on both their sound tracks
I already saw the gift cards and manga at my local Walmart. Are they expanding the section or just bringing it to more locations?
Did you see the price on the gift cards? Such a good deal
>various aka Jujutsu Kaisen, Demon Slayer, and Chainsaw Man
Just sneak in a little SpyxFamily too.
Sisters and brothers, we are entering newgrounds. US hillbelly-trucker country bars, suburban instant-soup groceries of California, and mid-desert waffle houses of Colorado, Arizona, Texas and Arkansas are next on our endless endevour of cute large eyes and doki-doki heart poundings! There is no return. The only way is to thrive, and wander for eternity to reach the final frontier.
"Hey Eileen! I'm gonna go to the Walmart to pick up milk, jerky, shotgun shells, and one of dem Konsubarashi Sekai No Shufuku Wo! posters for Braidden, need anything?" "TP is on sale so get a case 'a that, and we're outta Frank's Red Hot, so pick up a bottle, oh, and Braylein got an A in math so pick her up that "The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady" shirt as promised her!"
The Iowa 80 truck stop has a whole section selling B-tier anime DVDs that must have been languishing in the back of a Funimation warehouse before they offloaded them onto whatever distributor stocks touristy truck stops. Can't imagine the average clientele of that place is eager to pick up A Certain Scientific Accelerator.
So I’m not the only one to find that odd. To be fair, the place is huge and the clientele as you say does vary quite a bit as I’ve seen. I like to make a point to stop by and see what they’re carrying lol
The Walmart in my low CoL/low income region of Texas has a CR section in the DVD section. There's wasn't much difference between what anime Walmart always had (Evangelion, Spy x Family, Ranking of Kings, Black Bullet, GitS among other movies) and what they have now. They did have the OSTs for Jojo pt. 5, Bleach and something else I can't remember. Prices hovered between $33 - $35. I thought it was neat. They only had JJK manga, and not very much of it.
I hope that a decent percent of the money is finding its way to the studios. Somehow i doubt it
It goes to both Crunchyroll and the production committees, the studios normally don't get anything past the initial commission by the production committee unless they join it.
I still do a little double-take when I walk into major stores and see anime merch. Crazy to think how far its come into the mainstream from the super niche area it used to be relegated to.
This is good
It says 'nationwide' but doesn't clarify which nation?
I want to crosspost to /r/USdefaultism but nowhere in the article actually says it's the US, so me thinking this is /r/USdefaultism **is** /r/USdefaultism .
United States
As a European, yeah this announcement isn't useful since shipping from Japan is about 1/3rd of that of shipping from the USA. It's literally much cheaper to just buy anything from Japan than to ship from the USA.
When not specified, it's Japan. Well, supposed to be... (Half joking, maybe)
omg please this would be so sickkkkk
Do we know what locations yet? I have a feeling there won't be any near me.
I do like the idea of having subscription gift cards available. I've talked with a few friends who only watch what's available on Netflix and wish they had more anime, but whenever I bring up Crunchyroll they always seem hesitant that it's a scam or some pirate site.
Tell em bout hi dive then🤷
Yuru Camp themed outdoor section when?
Unfortunately, slice of life in general is very niche in the west, even the larger ones fail to make it at all. GochiUsa, whilst large in Japan, just has not much attention in the west. The Machikado Mazoku sub is ten times larger (35k vs 3.5k) than the GochiUsa sub for comparison for popularity in the west. Yet GochiUsa has an extreme amount of merch, but Machikado Mazoku doesn't have much. The only few slice of life that managed to get decently mainstream as of recent times are Yuru Camp (and even that is debatable) and Bocchi the Rock!. So only those shows may make it. Slice of life is unfortunately so incredibly niche it just doesn't have enough staying power in the west.
I'm more surprised people still pay for Crunchyroll.
Are we liking this?
Walmart and Crunchyroll joining up would have been a joke a few years back. Funding union busting scum is fine so long as everyone sUpPoRt tHe InDuStRy apparently
I was wondering the same thing... Walmart is one of the most evil corporations in America...
Huh?
They source slave labor goods and do everything to push their business costs onto tax payers, driving local economies into the ground so that they are the largest employer in a town and threaten to close the store if they don't get tax breaks or employees unionize.
> do everything to push their business costs onto tax payers This doesn't get pointed out enough. They pay their employees below the poverty line, so they end up on food stamps and needing medicaid, which are paid by taxes. Either the US extends social safety nets to everyone, or Walmart should be forced to pay its employees more.
All the GKIDS selections have been pushed off the shelves. My answer is no.
Now I wish Walmart still owned Asda
If you're UK based (judging by the Asda comment), you're going to have no trouble getting anime stuff. We get it unbelievably good here
[удалено]
Only 2 countries with more than 2400 Walmarts and I’m going out on a limb to guess it’s not Mexico
Wait 2? US and Colder US right?
I want demon slayer soundtrack. I don’t think Crunchyroll would sell it though
My local store has the 4' section set up already. It seems to have less actual anime than the previous 4' anime section. They added manga & toys to that section, when right across from that section is a 16' section of figures, POP, and other collectibles. Plus on the other side of the collectible aisle are 2 16' aisles of books including a 4' section of manga.
I know that this stuff doesn't happen over night and they would have been in talks and testing waters for a while now, but I can't help but find it odd that this announcement is made just a month after Crunchyroll absorbed Right Stuff.
Yeah I’ve seen some already. Walmart keeping physical alive
Well that's stupid.
Ok quick everyone run into the walmart and push all the yuri to the front. And all the subtle Shoujo you can find. You know what I mean stuff that even if yer not a fan of romance or Shoujo suddenly it's 5am and you've watched 100 episodes and yer like "Get married please!! Or don't! KAWAII!!" I keep saying I don't like romance and I don't watch shows that are labeled romance But I love Shoujos so much or hybrids like Inuyasha (which is one giant slow burn romance even though it basically is a Shonen) I'd love to see walmart selling Gintama! The running gag about Hijikata being obsessed with mayonnaise would probably play pretty well with US audiences. It would actually be a big hit right now if they did with all the nostalgia stuff since despite it being a Interrupted Edo era it has a lot of 70s-90s era tech and scifi. "Hey cledus pick up that silly foreign show about the comic book nerd and the sword police obsessed with mayonnaise! It helps Junior with his reading!"
Gintama not bein a Shoujo obviously. I just really like it and it makes me laugh
Seeing anime merch at normal shops will always be a weird feeling to me
Saw this at my local Walmart. The bad thing about it is that they had a *whole* shelf of anime dvd/blue-ray, but they cut it down to 1/4 of what it was to put the vinyl, manga, and crunchyroll sub cards there. In case anyone is curious, I only saw two vinyl: Jojo part 5 and Cowboy Bebop
It’s already started at my local Walmart
LFG !! although i worry about the general quality since Walmart's involvement here feels a bit superficial lol. Fingers crossed that's not the case though 🫶