简体中文
Young people tend to have more leisure time during Spring festival – also known as Chinese New Year – and, for some, that means more time for gaming. In arcades, department stores, and cinemas, many in Beijing are enjoying the Japanese past time of playing claw machine games.
Fans of anime, manga and action figures in Beijing have found that their dreams have come true: A store filled with not one, or two, but 50 claw machines. A sight rarely seen outside of Japan's Akihabara district.
Handout Photo from 12 Block Culture
The LJJ store is already crowded and staff say visitors can expect to wait in long lines outside as so many people are trying their luck.
The real catch, however, is that the machines contain dolls and figures that WeChat users want, namely WeChat emoticons.
The LJJ store is operated by 12 Block Culture, the company that creates the WeChat emoticons in question, which are popular enough to have spawned into a series of products and businesses, including this claw machine store.
Wang Biao, CEO of the 12 Block Culture company, said, "Claw machines were imported to China in the late 1990s. Our store is different from others as we consider it to be an extension of our intellectual property, such as the WeChat emoticons. We are aiming to give our customers the best service. All the dolls here are authentic and have the correct copyrights. They're of high quality, and are not available from any other vendors, for example, online. If they want it, they have to grab one here."
While fans can buy similar dolls online, the experience of grabbing one for yourself is irreplaceable.
One visitor said, "The moment you grab one, you have a sense of accomplishment. They're all lovely dolls."
Another visitor said, "I work in the Tongzhou District. But I came to have dinner in this area. I came with my wife. She likes these dolls, and we want to grab more."
A girl who came to the store said, "We are college students. It costs us five hundred yuan to grab these eight dolls. The chance of grabbing one at this store seems higher than at other places."
"It's interesting to me. And it's really cool," said a college student from Russia who found the store when she was exploring the city.
According to a survey, the popularity of this LLJ store has already surpassed the ones in Japan, and the company is already planning to open a dozen more branches around China this year.
(CGTN)
