Translator/toy maniac Matt Alt and Japanophile Patrick Macias
become (almost) the first gaijin to set foot inside the Bandai
Hobby Center and live to tell about it at AltJapan.
http://altjapan.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/11/tha_shizznit.html
Tha Shizznit
Patrick and I really did it, I think to myself, pressing the
shutter for what has to be my first-ever photograph of a urinal.
We've penetrated the inner sanctum. This is where the people who
design Gun-Pla relieve themselves.
We're in the Shizz. That's what Patrick has unoffically dubbed the
Bandai Hobby Center, a gleaming new high-tech factory in Shizuoka
prefecture where each and every Gundam model kit is lovingly
manufactured. Bandai set up a personal tour for the two of us after
a sake-fueled evening in Asakusa a few weeks back. Patrick's book
Otaku in USA made a big splash at the Bandai offices, and my
company's been doing translation work for them for years. Now we're
being thanked with the otaku equivalent of an audience at the
Vatican.
frm Gunota