The Old School Otaku Lounge

Due to rising welfare costs for a rapidly increasing elderly population (plus the olympics and the March 11 disasters), the sales tax is going up from 5% to 8%. Funny that a 3% tax on tea was what sparked an American revolution. Myself and many of my friends have been going on shopping sprees. Economists in the media were expecting spending would go up but regardless, expectations have not been met. And in other sad news, taxes will go up to 10% in October 2015. Japan is expensive enough to live in already. This is unbearable for me. I just mostly spent my money retro games, figures, DVDs, and PS3 games and a new PS4. I now have a credit card that gets me frequent flyer miles so hopefully I got enough for a first class ticket for my next vacation whenever that is.

Yeah, there really isn't anything for me to buy, so I am not running out to get a new car or even a microwave oven.

From my city, I have fairly quick access to five super-sized mega-otaku used item recycle shops (four Kanteidan and one Otakara). Those are always fun, plus there are some rather large Book Offs and Hard Offs around and I seem to keep discovering more. That's not including the plastic model shops! When making small purchases, you just don't feel it as much. There hasn't been a tax increase since the mid- to late-'90s here, so maybe it is past due.