Do you ever find any otome merch for sale where you live?
In my area, the games are surprisingly easy to find. Even before Aksys started localising otome for the Switch, you could usually find the Vita otoge in most gaming shops. In my local game shop, in the Switch section there is a lot of otome. They have the limited editions too. I'm not sure how well they sell, but some of the copies have been traded in, which shows that people are buying them. I thought that the otome fanbase was small, but it's probably bigger than I realise. Other than the games themselves, there is never any merch for sale. Sometimes they sell the DVDs of the anime adaptations, but that's it. Until now, the only merch I had was the stuff that came with the limited edition boxes, and a few drama CDs.
I went to this place that was sort of like a mini convention. Basically, it was just full of vendors selling various pop culture things. I hardly ever spend money at these places, cause they never have anything I like. Because I usually like stuff that was popular years ago, they don't have much that I recognise.
The first stand I went to was run by this man who buys random stuff from Japan to sell over here. I saw some Black Butler merch, and began to rummage through what he had. And somehow, there was otome merchandise! Some of it he had bought years ago, but it had never sold. That's why he was selling it all for such cheap prices. The more popular stuff was a bit more expensive. Sometimes it pays to have obscure interests! Even though most of the merch wasn't for my favourite characters, I bought a lot of the stuff from the games I loved. There probably won't be another chance for me to find it again. It hardly cost me anything, which is great. The vendor even threw in this Black Butler II notepad for free, which was nice of him.
Down below is a rundown of all the stuff I got.
At first, I didn't think much of this vendor's stand, until I stumbled across a pack of badges with chibis on them. The badge on the top I thought was of Toma from Amnesia. I was very surprised to see Amnesia stuff in the wild. Upon closer inspection, I realised that the badges were from Clock Zero. But I decided to search and see if there was more otoge stuff around.On one of the tables was a lot of pillows and towels. Most of it was for the anime Free!, which I want to watch at one point. But suddenly, I saw something that caught my eye. It was a mini pillow of Shu from DiaLovers! It looks like it was made for when MORE, BLOOD came out.
The pillow's double sided, and the art is of Shu's sprites from the game. There is no case over the pillow, and you can't get inside to see the stuffing. I put it on the chair in my room. I could've put it on my bed, but I didn't want the germs from it being on the display table to go anywhere near where I sleep. If it stayed on my bed, I wouldn't be able to see it very well. So it stays on my chair. During my online classes, it's quite nice to hug it.
