Earlier this week I decided to head downtown to see the new bigger and better Bookoff in Midtown.  I have almost been here for two years, but still love walking through Times Square every time; there’s really just nothing like it.  While I prefer Bookoff for books, manga, and movies because it’s so much cheaper, Kinokuniya has a pretty awesome selection of all the little goodies from Japan that pretty much anyone could love.  This, of course, includes a nice little selection of Japanese erasers.

I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to show what I have been talking about in my previous posts and show a couple of pictures of them in the store.  As you can see, like a lot of other collectibles from Japan, it’s a wall of bright adorableness.  This still could just be me, but for some reason Japan manages to produce things that encourage obsessive collecting.  I have been able to resist compulsive spending for the most part up until now (other than on books and movies to use with studying), but I couldn’t help but give in just a little this time.  I’m going to write off my new Japanese eraser sets as specifically for my kanji practice in the morning.

So that’s what a wall of Japanese erasers looks like for anyone not lucky enough to live near a Japanese bookstore.  Pretty awesome after looking at the little things through a computer screen for a couple years.  The funny thing is that they seem so much larger in pictures online because they look so much like little toys; sometimes you can forget they are erasers.  I hadn’t really noticed the brands much before, but there really are a ton of Iwako Japanese erasers.  I would love to see the factory they’re cranking these things out in.

Here are some more of the Japanese food erasers.  I mainly talked about the ones coming in more Western foods before, but here are some more traditional Japanese foods in eraser form.  I love how the one on the right comes with a little tray to carry the food on and there’s a little cafeteria man in the upper right hand corner.  Another cool thing is the Japanese used on the box because of the use of the honorific “o” in front of the word for food.  I’m still just learning, but it’s fascinating the way this is used in the Japanese language and I still have yet to get a handle on it.  In this case, the word for food is 食事 (しょくじ）which is pronounced “shokuji.”  The character in front is pronounced “o” and is used to add a degree of respect.

I took this close up to show the comment I made on my last post, in response to a comment about the name for Japanese erasers.  These characters are pronounced “keshigomu” and are written solely in hiragana, instead of using the kanji associated with the verb.  My thought in my response was that this was because it’s safe to assume that all Japanese erasers are primarily marketed towards a younger audience and younger children do not yet have a strong grasp on many kanji.

Here are some more eraser sets, these ones including a Japanese food eraser I’m not familiar with.  I’m not sure if this is a good enough excuse to go visit Japan to find out, but I might have to use it.  Fortunately I can either expect a fun experience with a food that is beyond what I could imagine in the United States, or something incredibly delicious – both would be fine with me.

Lastly, here are some animal erasers and the hamster Japanese erasers are what led to my impulsive spending.  Usually they’re not too expensive, but Kinokuniya is kind of like the Barnes and Noble of Japanese bookstores (in New York City at least) and gifts are known for not being too cheap.  I’m not sure where to buy Japanese erasers outside of Kinokuniya in the city, but it has been enough to keep my interest in them at bay (mainly due to a lack of funding though).

Either way, it was a fun trip and I hope you enjoy the pictures.  It’s a pretty great place just to walk around in if you find yourself near Bryant Park and are curious to see something new.  Maybe it will even have enough of an effect to get you to want to learn Japanese.  I know if I had visited a couple years ago I would have started learning even earlier.