Sailor Moon Toy Sightings in Hong Kong 2013

I just got back from my vacation in Hong Kong a few days ago and I had the best time!!!! I got to see my family, go crazy at the ufo catcher machines, had the best meal of my life at a restaurant called Caprice (more info below), and of course go Sailor Moon toy hunting!

Wan Chai: I went into an old building with lots of random tiny shops that sell electronics, dvds, really wasn’t expecting much since there were only 2 toy shops. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be my biggest haul of the trip! This shop had all 3 S excellent model figures, set of 3 Starlight dolls, set of 4 Amazoness Quartet dolls, a talking Eternal Sailor Moon doll and a ESM excellent pose doll. Everything was new in box too! I ended up buying the amazoness & talking esm dolls!

Mong Kok: This place is a shoppers paradise, everywhere you look there are shops all around: clothes, electronics, makeup, shoes, toys, food, etc! There are several buildings that are stuffed with shops selling anime collectibles (new & old) and toys from Japan. As expected I found many Sailor Moon things here!

Imagine my surprise when I saw GE merchandise and the Brazil S DVD for sale! I was very tempted to buy the sketchbook but it was HKD$940 (USD$130) which I felt is a little too much. The other items in the picture are overpriced as well. Senshi guide book set: USD$210, SuperS artbook: $62, Luna Pen keychain: $16.

This shop had several finger puppets for sale (pictured below) and also a set of 10 tiny candy toy figures. Unfortunately everything is overpriced here as well.

Throughout this experience, I found a lot of shop owners don’t even remember/know what they have! I routinely ask every single store I come across if they had any Sailor Moon toys for sale, some of them think for awhile and answer no like this next shop below! Good thing I took a look for myself or else I would’ve missed this super cute microphone toy!

Some shops only had 1 or 2 things like a folder or a boardgame but even though I don’t collect those items it was still very cool to see in person! Every single time I find something it is just as amazing as the previous time, it never gets old! 😀 I bought up all the towels & handkerchiefs in the pic below.

This next shop makes me sad… 🙁 In addition to the items pictured they also had some GE clearfiles and notebooks. I ended up buying a few finger puppets from them and we got to talking..turns out the shop owner just acquired a bunch of vintage Sailor Moon dolls and figures! Sadly he told me everything was still packed in boxes and he didn’t have time to unpack everything yet. I basically begged/nagged and showed him a picture of my collection to get him to agree to unpacking everything in 4 days (since I had to leave soon!). I gave him 5 days just in case but when I returned the shop was closed!!!!!!! ;_____; I didn’t have time to check back before I had to leave.. 🙁

In general I think everything was either overpriced or ‘market value’, there were definitely no amazing deals anywhere! Every shop owner I talked to went on about how rare Sailor Moon is and whichever toy they had is so valuable and hard to find. One guy is trying to sell a Super Sailor Moon doll with wings in the wide box for USD$650!! I thought he was joking or I did my math wrong..but nope..

One shop had the Limited Edition MTR cards for sale USD$24 but it seems to be missing the keychain. The middle picture brings me to another long story T_T I saw the Spiral Heart wand (bubble blower toy) in a shop display but this shop was closed too! I really wanted it so I went back the next day, it was still closed. In total I went back FIVE TIMES and it was closed every single time!!!!!

Sham Shui Po: This area is known for cheap stuff, especially electronics but there is one toy street! When I got there I was quite disappointed because most shops sold very cheap no name toys and bootlegs. I only found one official Sailor Moon thing there, the SMW Megahouse Cutie Model figure. They were asking for USD$111 and I totally would’ve bought it if the box wasn’t so damaged.

Central: This is the financial district of Hong Kong, so it’s very odd for this one toy shop to be located here. I went to check out this shop on my way to Caprice (3 star Michelin restaurant at the Four Seasons hotel, highly recommended btw!) sadly they closed at 5pm so I was too late. Argh! All these closed shops! 🙁

Kowloon Bay: Finding these Sailor Moon items were by chance since I had no idea about this area. I just made sure to check all toy stores I came across! Little in box figures: USD$10, calculator/diary: USD$65, PGSM gashapon set: USD$18.

Overall I had tons of fun going Sailor Moon toy hunting, I honestly didn’t expect to find as much as I did! The high prices were kind of disappointing but just seeing everything in person in a shop is unreal and amazing! If you plan on toy hunting just make sure you ask every single shop you come across and look over everything once yourself. Don’t get discouraged when 95% of the shops say no and laugh in your face. This happened to me a lot because apparently it’s crazy to hope they still had merchandise for sale from such an old anime =P You never know who will say yes and that will make everything worthwhile! I found some of these in the most unlikely places! I did buy a bunch of Sailor Moon items during my trip but that will have to wait for the next post! 😀