[Tokyo City] Nakano Broadway

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Nakano Broadway (中野ブロードウェイ) is a shopping complex in Tokyo famous for its many stores selling anime items and idol goods, inlcuding more than a dozen small Mandarake stores, which specialize in manga and anime related collectibles. The shopping complex is a short walk from Nakano Station, which is five minute train ride from Shinjuku via the JR Chuo Line.

There are four levels of shopping at the Nakano Broadway. The second and third levels are where the many anime and idol related shops are located. Here, shoppers can find manga, magazines, collectors' items, animation character figurines, idol merchandise, game consoles, video games, animation/idol related CDs, as well as little souvenirs to take home, such as idol playing cards or key chains.

The ground level of the Nakano Broadway has shops selling clothes, shoes, tidbits and second hand goods. The basement level is a marketplace, where the locals shop for their groceries. Products on sale range from fruits and vegetables to meat and seafood.

Leading to the Nakano Broadway from Nakano Station is the Nakano Sunmall, a 225 meter long, covered shopping street with a wide variety of shops, including food joints, cafes, watch dealers, jewelers, fashion boutiques, pharmacies, game centers, book stores and others.

On the side streets branching off from the shopping street are food alleys with various restaurants, including many izakaya (Japanese style pub/eatery), that serve all different kinds of food. Here one can experience the atmosphere of the bustling food crowd while taking a break from the shopping.

About 30 minutes after the end of her shift, a pink haired girl found herself arriving in front of a large shopping complex in Tokyo. Soon after she would be seen looking at the building in awe. She was currently dressed in seemingly casual attire purple and black in color with a butterfly motif. "Sugoi!~ I have never been to this one before." she mentioned of the place with childlike excitment. It had been quite a while since her last shopping trip but now with no rent and a full paycheck to spend she fully intended to splurge.

"Pretty sweet, right?" said one Takeuchi Shoichi as he descended from above. He landed next to the pink-haired lass when he spoke. For the duration of her trip to Tokyo, the young man had been following from the sky above. In doing so, he aimed to avoid showing up too late, or too early, only for one individual to be waiting around. "This place is basically nerd central. I dunno if you're into that stuff, but there's still some pretty cool stuff here if you're not."

Unsurprisingly enough the Thunder Queen was soon joined by the Sky King as they had previously arranged. His words of greeting made her nod her head excitedly in his direction."It really is.... I was a bit distressed when I found out Abenobashi went up in flames but this will do nicely." the pink haired young woman mentioned. As they moved forward into the place it was explained by Shoichi that this place was nerd central. That was interesting and though Mikasa wasn't super interested in anime or manga she did like pop idols and music so she figured she could look into that. As well as some figures for decorating her room. "Pop idols and figurines. Ooh~ Maybe a Dreameater poster to decorate my room!~" she squealed while thinking of merchandise to spend her money on.

"Yeah, that kinda sucks," Shoichi replied. "I'm pretty sure they'll have it back up and running really soon, though. Y'know... unlike the house," he continued with a roll of his eyes. Moving right along, he learned that the Thunder Queen did indeed have an interest here, at least in certain things that could be found in Nakano. With this in mind, he stepped forward. "Sweet! I was thinking of picking up a figure or two myself. Let's go!"

Mikasa found herself giggling about the Sky King's excitment about figures. "Neh, Sho-nii, I didn't know you were into figures~" she said happy to find that she wasn't alone in this random collectible hobby. As she rolled in she began looking for a shop that would catch her attention. There were mostly resturants on this end and with that in mind she took in the sights and smells of the area. "Also... how long did the house take to rebuild?" she questioned remembering that the Sky King had mentioned that the remodel was recent but she did not know how recent.

"Oro? Of course I am; I'm into everything!" he said with a grin. He had taken off ahead of Mikasa, inhaling deeply to commemorate what had to be his first time setting foot in this particular space without ATs. That aside, the man with his plain white sneakers peeked into roughly every shop on his way down the corridor, pausing his glances only to turn and address Mikasa's query. "Uhh... I think it was, like, three months? Something like that. They built it to survive a hurricane though, from the looks of things. No surprise there... the last one went down pretty hard."

Mikasa looked at the Sky King seeming not to really understand him. It simply didn't seem possible for someone to be into everything, though she supposed she could see the appeal of liking many things. At least that way, one wouldn't have to look to hard to find entertainment. "That... seems exhausting. How would you keep up with everything, if you actually liked everything?" she asked. She couldn't imagine trying to organize such random tastes, and figured it would be an odd thing. Moving right along she continued peeking into shop windows as well, taking note of things she might like and looking for any of the things she wanted listed or unlisted in her previous statements about shopping. As she did this, Shoichi explained how long the house had been down, and something about the strength of the redesigned one. "Your old house broke so hard, it had to be rebuilt to survive a hurricane? That... is a bit extreme. Though I suppose I have seen stranger things." she said as she finally came to a stop in front of a particular store window. This one sold posters and knick-knacks, one of these items caught her eye, and it was a poster of the Dreameater. "Sugei... I need that in my life." she said heading inside. It was such a strange thing to want but the girl truly enjoyed the music created by this particular young man.

"Who needs to keep up? If ya' just get into everything, there's never a need to go looking for something you like. You've already got something you like right in front of yourself!" he said with a wide grin. The Sky King was a man of very simple preference, as he found enjoyment out of everything he possibly could. Such was even the case right now; in spite of the fact that he wasn't often one for making such leisure trips, he thought it was a good idea to hang out with the Thunder Queen under circumstances that didn't involve racing. "Yeah, we fuckin' wrecked it! It was kinda tense at the time, but in hindsight, it was a good bit of fun... and a wake-up call for me." In a matter of moments, Mikasa's eye was caught by something of interest. Shoichi didn't initially see what it was, but when he followed her into the shop, he realized what she had been referencing. "Ohhh, that kid. Y'know he's been performing at that Karaoke Bar in Miya-..." Shoichi's words paused there, and his eyes widened. Suddenly, he realized something that should have come to mind months ago... something that shocked him like nothing before, and something that made the Sky King feel very, very oblivious to the things around him. "Ho... ly... shit..."

"That... is amazing. A bit simple, but I think I like it." said the Thunder Queen. It had been quite a while since she was out and about enjoying herself. And beyond this point, it seemed that the Sky King knew of her idol interest. He started to say that the young man had been performing in Miyabigaoka which she knew about. She had an interesting story to tell about that but perhaps at some other time because Shoichi's sentence just stopped and it distracted her a bit. "Sho-nii?" she questioned not understanding what would have caused the pause. Beyond this the man seemed to have some sort of awesome realization. It came complete with a curse which she didn't understand the context for. The entire thing was quite frustrating because he hadn't yet formulated an answer. "HOLY SHIT WHAT SHO-NII!!? IS IT ABOUT THE DREAMEATER? I NEED TO KNOW!!" the girl questioned her voice taking on an almost whiny quality, she wasn't upset she simply wanted to know, and not knowing seemed to be almost pushing her to the brink of tears.

"..." Shoichi didn't immediately seem able to process, or rather, fathom his own thoughts. This thing he had come to realize was so absolutely mind-blowing to him that he wondered if the past few months had all been a lie. "That kid, Dreameater... discovered by Sparrow," he said while staring at poster art of the two together. "Sparrow is... is... that chick from the first generation! I met up with her like two months ago! I could have gotten an autograph!" Soon, the Sky King dropped to his knees in the middle of the shop, his head raised as if he wanted to curse the heavens themselves for his obliviousness. "KUSO~!!!"

Finally, the Sky King seemed to pull himself together enough to make his statement. And when he finally did, summoning himself with a very interesting posture and even falling to the ground he seemed to be completely distraught by the thing he realized. When she found out what it was that Shoichi had apparently missed, all of his actions seemed overly dramatic. And it caused her face to go completely blank and her mouth to simply fall open. "Wow..." she said. She'd known that woman was Sparrow, upon seeing her in the Tower, and had even had occasion to see her within the Karaoke Bar that the Sky King had mentioned. After thinking about it a few more seconds, a giggle escaped the strawberry blonde and she began to laugh uncontrollably. "Bwahahahahahahahahahahaaaa~" fell out of her face as she took almost a minute to pull herself together. She was almost doubled over, her stomach muscles aching but she couldn't help but laugh. It was too hysterical. "Sho-nii~ You're so oblivious. And way too dramatic~" she finally managed. A few seconds after she wiped a tear from the corner of her eye and grinned. "Neh, I have been keeping track of Dreameater's shows, and Sparrow, tends bar at the late ones. She occasionally even takes the stage~ It's pretty cool. Next time I catch one, you wanna come so you can get your autograph?" she asked of the man seemingly amused but feeling that he deserved to get his autograph. After all she had at least a couple of autographed items from Dreameater so she could understand the necessity of getting your idols autograph.

As she made this offer her eyes shifted over to a poster of two blonde twins with heterochromia. She couldn't quite place them though, but they looked frightfully familiar. "These two look familiar, but... I can't place where I've seen them." she said looking at the poster emblazoned with "the Futagoza" in a punk style font.

"But it was right there!" he replied. There was a certain level of distress Shoichi felt by not being able to realize this single thing. However, he did have some interest in the offer to catch one of the shows Mikasa attended. Given the Storm Queen's apparent temperament, it was always likely he would be denied such a request as one for an autograph, but it was worth a shot, and the show was at least a certain amount of entertainment regardless. "Y'know, that sounds like a good plan. Osu! I'm in!" he said. When Shoichi finally pulled himself off the floor, he looked to the image of two blonde twins the Thunder Queen spoke of. These two, he had seen far too frequently to not recognize. "Oh, shit! Those are the twins from Chimera! Y'know, the ones who used to be Chiyo's tuners."

Mikasa heard out what the Sky King had to say, but apparently he was interested in probably catching a show with her at some point. A large smile came to her face as she nodded. "Hai!~ I'll let ya' know when I find out about the next one. They are all super hush hush, you have to be part of the fan club to know about it ahead of time. It's a pain but totally always worth dropping everything for~" she chimed. It seemed that the Thunder Queen was a bit of a Dreameater groupie among her other life activities, but that didn't really need to be discussed. As she stared at the picture of the Twins, Shoichi apparently recognized them, and then she remembered where it was she'd seen them recently. "Shoot! These are the two who were hanging all over Chi-chan at the meeting yesterday. I spoke to them yesterday, they occasionally perform with Dreameater, and I didn't recognize them. You know them too right? Would they autograph this for me?" she asked finally seemingly stunned. It wasn't really her fault, they were far newer to the scene only a couple of months in, but the male twin had a very interesting voice. Still she took this moment to pick up a few posters related to said artists and while she was gathering them, something else the Sky King said struck her as odd. "Wait, they were Chi-chan's tuners?" she said, it seemed a foreign idea to her that any would go to Tuners outside of their Generation. Particularly Chiyo as she had previously been so fond of Usagi.

"Sweet; keep me posted! And yeah, they're pretty friendly. They'd definitely sign for ya'," he said about the pair of twins and their potential autograph signing. As this conversation progressed, Shoichi had a quick glance around for posters of his own. There wasn't anything of interest, bar the image of Sparrow and Dreameater, so he took only that one before heading to the register. "They were. I dunno why, but she had them doing all of her work for a few years."

Mikasa had three separate posters in her hands as she headed for the register. She seemed to be really excited, about the idea of getting at least one of them signed with relative ease. "Yay! That will be so good, might have to frame this one then~" she said of the image of the two blonde twins. They really did look stellar side by side. Moving right along, she was given the information that the Storm Queen of their generation has indeed kept the pair of blondes as her personal tuners for a few years for reasons that even the Sky King didn't know. It was quite a curious set of circumstances. "It's a bit strange..." she said thinking about it more. "Then again, I saw Chi-chan for the first time in years a few months ago, and she was strange then." the girl said shrugging it off. She couldn't place what was weird about Chiyo, but she also wasn't as in the know nor nearly as clever as some of the other Gravity Children of their generation. She figured that if it was something really pressing she'd figure it out eventually.

While she thought this over she placed her items on the counter to have them wrung up and bagged. And once they were she reached for her wallet to pay for them. This was quite exciting and she hadn't really gotten around to decorating her apartment as much as she would have liked. She planned instead to do a much better job with her bedroom, which was admittedly bigger than her entire apartment had been previously. "Arigatou Gozaimasu." the girl said as she waited for the Sky King to pay for his item of choice as well so that they could continue on her adventure though the mall. "So, are you looking for anything in particular? You could totally choose the next shop~" she mentioned not wanting to be full leader of this particular endeavor.

"I'm pretty sure you'll be able to frame all three. Well... at least two of 'em." Following Mikasa's lead, Shoichi made his purchase and had his poster slid into a tube for storage. Said tube was shoved into his hind left pocket as he walked toward the exit of this shop. For the next stop, it seemed the Thunder Queen was willing to follow his idea. "Hmm. There should be a shop nearby for trinkets and figures. I've got this big ass mantle in my bedroom now, and I wanna fill it up with stuff. Let's see..." As he spoke, Shoichi continued looking around for the shop he had in mind. After a few moments of wandering, he stumbled upon it and walked inside. "Found it! Now, what to actually get for that mantle..."

"Hai! I know what you mean... should be awesome though. Framed signed posters for my big wall in front of my bed." she said imagining their placement well prior to picking them up, because obviously she intended to fully decorate her room. She seemed to find this whole outing amusing and after the Sky King made his purchase it seemed his choice was shopping for smaller trinkets and figurines for his mantle. "I could see that~ Mantles deserve decoration." she said looking at the white haired male. She hadn't expected him to be so much an interior decorator, it kind of made her curious about what he would pick. And after they entered the next shop she wandered around a bit, eventually finding a small butterfly ornament that she liked very much. It had small glass wings and was purple in color. She couldn't help but find it to be stellar, beyond this the ornament was meant to be cellphone charm, and she'd recently lost her old one. "Kawaii!!" she said picking it up immediately. Though she was looking for things for her room, she couldn't help but pick up a nice little trinket for her other items. "Look, Sho-nii~" she said holding it up by its attaching piece so he could see how the light showed through it. She then immediately picked up another one which was a bit luminescent and had shades of blue, pink and green weaved throughout it, seeming to make it change color, thinking to give it to the Pledge Queen, since she also enjoyed butterflies. Moving right along she began to browse the other trinkets looking around for something a bit more substantial.