It’s that flop-sweat time of year: late in the Christmas shopping season—and really late in the Hanukkah shopping season—so you can’t rely on shopping sites to ship your gifts in time. Looks like you’ll have to actually go outside. Luckily, since you live in the shopping capital of the world (you do, right?), it shouldn’t be too hard to find something for your favorite poindexter. With GONY’s last-minute shopping guide, you’ll be back home playing Scrabulous and sipping store-brand egg nog in no time.

“There’s a cult around these toys, isn’t there?” said a woman in ToyTokyo during my visit there this week. She was a video journalist for the New York Post, and she posed the question to an employee who was showing her around. It was a textbook invocation of the familiar lazy-reporter maxim: If something inspires passion in other people that I do not understand, it must be a “cult.”

While the “cult” rap is unfair, it’s not entirely without basis. There is a substantial fanbase in the West that consumes Japanese toys, movies, snacks, etc., without discrimination. To these self-described otaku¹, the content of the thing is secondary. “Made in Japan” is novelty enough. Web shops like J-List cater to this marketing goldmine, pushing the simple equation that “Japanese” = “awesome.”

ToyTokyo and Zakka NYC, the two stores in today’s installment of the X-tra X-pecial X-mas X-travaganza, exist for the quiet majority who are intrigued by Japan but stop short of fetishizing it: the non-cultists.

ToyTokyo
121 2nd Ave. 2F, Manhattan

Look around ToyTokyo, and the name might seem misleading. There’s about a 50-50 split of Japanese and American toys here; for every Astro Boy, there’s a Betty Boop. But the name is accurate in a different way, as ToyTokyo’s mix of modern and kitsch mirrors what I’ve seen in Japan. The experience is much like shopping in one of Tokyo’s specialty toy stores, minus the sexually submissive schoolgirl figurines. Otherwise, very similar.

ToyTokyo was literally built on kitsch. The owner, “Lev,” used to collect Batman toys and memorabilia with great fervor: “I had the biggest collection in the country—probably in the world,” he said. Meanwhile, another collector amassed the definitive collection of Batman comic books: “He had all the paper, and I had everything else.” So Lev sold his stash in one huge lot to Bizarro Lev. One man became the Batman Collector to Rule Them All, and the other opened a toy store.

While retro fare such as Batman, Star Wars, and Lost in Space are well represented in ToyTokyo’s aisles, I’m usually drawn to the back room, which is populated by new designs—mostly vinyl toys—from independent artists. It’s a vibrant display, but as I browsed on this latest visit, it occurred to me that the art-toy scene has been around long enough for parts of it to become stale. The cute-cum-grotesque aesthetic is played, and if I never see another Kubrick/Be@rbrick, I’ll manage. (The bear comes in different colors. I get it.)

Yet Lev is able to ferret out innovation. I asked him to show me some highlights of the designer toys—my eyes having glazed over on my first pass—and he skipped the big-name designers to pull out a “Minigod” by Marka27. It’s a portable speaker system in the guise of a striking, cartoony Aztec deity. (There’s a picture of ToyTokyo’s Minigod in the gift suggestions; I also love this one.) As Lev showed me the Minigod, he was more animated by the fact that he’d discovered it than the prospect of selling it. That sense of discovery drives ToyTokyo. If, like me, you’re not feeling it, try asking the staff, who are happy to share.

Zakka NYC
155 Plymouth St., Brooklyn

“Otaku culture is almost finished,” Toshiki Okazaki said, and he seemed relieved. It gave him a reason to reduce Zakka NYC’s focus on toys and cute characters—which, he tacitly admitted, ToyTokyo and SoHo’s Kidrobot do better anyway—and rededicate the space to modern design.

Toshiki’s revelation was prompted by his move from Grand Street to the hipper, rough-edged DUMBO, where Zakka NYC reopened in October. “At the Brooklyn location, it’s a different customer base,” he said. He found that visitors were going less for the toys and more for design art books or limited-edition T-shirts. The take-home message was that tastemakers were no longer viewing Japan exclusively through the narrow lens of anime and video games.

Toys haven’t been banished, just put in their place. A row of display cases housing 20th-century Japanese pop-culture artifacts sits across from a library of rare books; together they constitute a museum of design history that Toshiki plans to open soon.

Indeed, while I’ve made gift suggestions below, a visit to Zakka NYC at the right time might be gift enough. (Although if you put “One Coupon Good For Visit to Trendy Brooklyn Design Store” under the tree, don’t hold me responsible when everyone calls you a cheap S.O.B.) In addition to the museum, Toshiki plans to hold events to showcase underground VJs. Not the Kennedy kind, the kind who mix video to live music. Zakka has been holding dry runs, broadcast over dailysession, every Monday night at 6. That might not be a bad way to kick off your New Year’s Eve.²

Gift Suggestions

OK, enough atmosphere. You’re short on time; you need to spend some money but quick. Here’s a fraction of the crowd-pleasers I found for sale.

Typography Today, $59;
Typography in Japan, $55;
Typographic Composition in Japan (not pictured), $80; Zakka NYC. Font nerdery is a frustrating pursuit. Type is ubiquitous, so everyone is familiar with the subject matter, but few can discuss it intelligently. At Zakka, type gets the treatment it deserves. Make a font nerd happy this Christmas.

onezero_select DVDs, $35 each, Zakka NYC. Toshiki, the Zakka NYC owner, is excited about the burgeoning art form of motion graphics, hence his interest in bringing VJs to Zakka to perform. These DVDs, containing selections from recent onedotzero_select digital film festivals, are an affordable way to introduce someone to the state of the art. If the trailer for DVD 5 doesn’t get your blood pumping, then apparently you didn’t enjoy it very much, and I apologize. Loser.

CompatiBalls by Shultzo, $75/2-part set, ToyTokyo. A gag gift of sorts. Wrap each one up separately, and after the second one is opened, your family will think you screwed up and bought two of the same thing. See how long it takes for someone to figure out the gag. Or you could opt for the topless cow girl on the right, if that’s your thing.

Minigod by Marka27, $150, ToyTokyo. For the friend who needs a little god in his life. Ha-ha! Get it? Because it’s a little god! Oh, you got it. OK.

There’s a port in the front where, as Lev noted, “You can connect your iPod.” iPod connectivity is always the big selling point, but it’s just a standard minijack, so you can connect any other music player, too, like an iPod nano or an iPod Touch.

This golden dude is a limited edition for ToyTokyo, so while you may find similar false idols elsewhere, they won't have the same feel of Aztec excess you get with gold.

Remote Control Piston Action Robots, $100 each, ToyTokyo. They’re remote-control piston-action robots. Do I really need to elaborate?