Chapter Four: All Your Base Are Belong To Us.
From the outside, the store was unassuming and boring. It actually looked like a store, however, unlike many of the other shops in the building which appeared to be more like the last refuge of a hoarder than a place of business. The entrance was unobstructed by the towers of cardboard boxes or industrial-sized spools of cabling that seemed to decorate most of the other doors. Everything on this floor, from the hallways to the interiors of the shops themselves was a claustrophobics nightmare. Danny moved slowly and nervously, partly due to Trash’s confession on the first floor, while Trash slid through the tight space with practiced ease and confidence. This was his home turf.
It appeared that many of the stores were electronic supply stores. Signs included logos of famous brand names for audio and video equipment, displays for digital electronic components, and testing equipment were partially visible behind the towers of large cardboard boxes covered with indecipherable codes of model numbers and brand logos. Trash’s ultimate destination was quite different than those shops, however.
The store Trash had entered was entirely different. Walking past the large, unobstructed double doors, Danny followed Trash into a Long and wide room, well-lit and a pleasant relief from the cramped atmosphere of the hallway.
Danny stopped inside the entrance to take in the view. It resembled a strange locker room more than a store. Instead of shelves filled with products, it was packed with Hundreds of clear acrylic boxes, each the size of an office storage box, stacked one on top of another, creating a maze-like labyrinth.
Trash approached the closest wall of boxes, his eyes quickly scanning the rows until he located one about two-thirds from the top. After a quick glance, he hunted out another one on the same wall. This box was just below the top row. After examining this box more closely, he waved for Danny to come over.
Danny looked into the clear boxes as he walked deeper into the store. Each box had the most eclectic collection of items he could imagine.
No two boxes had the same contents, or more accurately, each box in itself was full of random items. There were stuffed animals and toy car replicas. Some were filled with nothing but books, while another may only contain one small hand-painted figure of an anime character. Some items appeared to be brand new, still in cellophane-wrapped packaging, while others appeared to be used, and at least one toy that Danny noticed was clearly broken. Many of the boxes appeared to cater to anime-related goods and toys, but there was even a box full of what appeared to be bicycle or motorcycle accessories.
“What the heck is all this stuff?” Danny demanded when he reached Trash, who was now examining a third box on another wall of boxes.
“This is a rental box store. Each box is a store. Do you have these in the US?” Trash asked, not turning away from the boxes as though it was a famous exhibit in a museum that had captured his attention.
Danny moved close to examine the boxes and picked out a few more details. Each box was entirely clear, allowing light to filter through to the lower levels. They were also sealed, although there was a small key lock for each box, implying that the front face was, in fact, a door that could open up. Every box also had a label on the front face, apparently denoting the row and number of the box in the formation, and each item inside the boxes were clearly tagged with a number and price.
Trash had pulled out his phone and opened up a spreadsheet application. After looking at the fourth box, he made a couple of notations on the tiny screen in the densely packed document.
Danny was far from idle. He was fascinated by each box as he passed. He had no idea what most of the items were, but he recognized a surprising amount. There were boxes that had both video games and game consoles. Some had ridiculously cheap prices while other items, like what appeared to be an antique original Nintendo special edition Gameboy Color handheld, sported a pricetag demanding a princely sum. Some items were marked with what seemed to be detailed descriptions of the contents in Japanese, while others offered no information beyond the price.
Trash stopped scanning the boxes and checked on Danny.
“So, have you figured it out yet?”
“It’s like a flea market?” Danny murmured, now engrossed in a box full of Nintendo Famicom game cartridges.
“Kind of,” Trash was again surprised at how quickly the man caught on.
“You can rent these boxes for a small fee. Then, put anything you want into it. Customers can come here and can buy. Just fill out this form and give it to the staff in front. Easy way to sell anything you want.”
Trash handed Danny a small slip of paper that he took from a box attached to one of the nearby walls. It looked like an order form, with places to write in the Row, and Box number, along with the item numbers of anything you wanted them to retrieve for you.
Danny turned his attention back to Trash with an excited look.
“How much to rent a box? Do they take a commission on the sales? Can you really put anything in them? Do many people buy here?” He shot the questions out in rapid succession.
Trash was momentarily taken aback by the interrogation but quickly recovered. He was glad he brought the American here. He needed to stay on his good side if he had a hope of salvaging his payday.
“The boxes here are pretty cheap. The small boxes go for as low as 1,000 yen a month, but better positions and larger sizes will increase the rate. Top and bottom rows are cheaper. The store will handle the sales and you don’t have to pay them anything extra. You can add or remove things from the box as much as you want. I just go to the front desk and ask for the key for my box,” He waved around the room.
“I have ten rental boxes here. Another ten boxes are in a another shop on the first floor, and a few more are spread out around town. It’s trendy in Akiba, so I have to check every few days to see if I need to add new items.”
Trash motioned for Danny to follow him as he moved to another aisle. He stopped in front of what appeared to be a row of slightly larger boxes and pointed at one that was chest-high.
“This is my most expensive box. This one costs 3,500 a month. I put some of my more expensive items here.”
Danny looked into the box that Trash had pointed out. He saw a variety of video games; most of the titles were in Japanese, and he didn’t recognize them. There were some X-box games as well, and a few old handhelds, including a GameBoy and a Sega GameGear. Danny nodded to Trash, approving of the collection.
Positioned behind the games was what appeared to be a complete and painted plastic model of an anime robot. Danny was vaguely familiar with the franchise but did not recognize the one in the display case. Looking at it closely, he could tell that it was hand-painted and was expertly made. The shading and details made it look like a real-world replica, complete with painted-on dirt and scratches that made it look like it had seen real action. He noticed the price tag attached to the model.
[¥50,000]
Danny’s eyes widened.
“That toy is worth five hundred bucks?”
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Trash looked at him with an embarrassed look. In truth, he had forgotten all about the Gunpla models in the boxes. He had been placing them here since he started but had yet to sell any.
“It’s not really there to sell. The price is high because I don’t expect anyone to buy them. I just like making them, but I don’t have anywhere to display them. They only cost about 3,000 yen, and I can put one together in a weekend. My friend suggested I put them in my boxes to attract customers. Makes my boxes look more interesting gives me a place to store my models.”
He pointed to the small index card taped to the inside of the front of the box. It included a list of all the items inside and the prices. Danny did some quick arithmetic.
“Wow, theres more than a thousand dollars of products in this box alone, including the model. What’s your revenue look like?”
“Not bad. I spend about 50,000 yen a month on rent for all my boxes. On a good month, I can make eighty, maybe ninety thousand yen profit on all the items I sell, but I also sell a lot of the items on internet auction sites now. It’s getting more profitable to use the internet, but I started out here, so I keep the boxes out of… nostalgia?” Trash couldn’t think of a better word to describe his feelings. Maybe it was just hard to change his habits.
“Also, there are things you can sell here that auctions won’t allow them,” He said, pointing to a nearby box. It was a larger box on the same row, so it would likely cost the same rent as Trash’s box.
Danny looked closer at the box. Inside, there was a single item. A very large anime figure. It appeared to be of a woman posing, and she was completely naked except for what appeared to be some strategically placed stickers. The price tag placed on the base of the sculpture was yet another eye-popping figure.
[¥220,000]
“Two grand? Are you shitting me?” Danny sputtered.
“That’s Suppon’s art. He’s famous. Look. See the mark?”
Danny noticed a small drawing next to the price.
“That little turtle?”
“Yes, that’s his mark. I mean, maybe his. We don’t know if Suppon is a he or she. No one ever sees when their boxes are filled. All the figures are handmade from scratch and unique. There are a more around here, and even more downstairs; even then, maybe only two or three are sold each month.”
Danny looked closer at the figure but, in a moment of self-awareness, shook his head and looked away at the scandalous piece. He glanced back at Trash’s box and the inventory.
“Hey! Is that your mark?” He asked, pointing at the small logo on the corner of the card. It was a simple icon of a trashcan with some Japanese lettering underneath.
“Yeah. All my boxes have this mark. So customers who know me will know my goods are quality.”
“What’s that under the logo?” Danny pointed at the letters.
“Just my name. ‘Trash,’ in Japanese characters.”
Danny got a thoughtful look on his face.
“You know, you said I would have to come to Japan for you to tell me where you got that name.”
Trash gave Danny a blank look.
“C’mon, spill it! I told you where Lancelet comes from,” Danny pressed his case.
“Huh? When did I say that? Besides, you just picked your name out from some old fantasy novel, right? That’s basic.”
“It’s not just some old fantasy novel. It’s an unappreciated classic—more literature than fantasy. Zimmer-Bradley took a stuffy old legend and turned it into a true epic. It stands up there with the works of Tolkien and LeGuin and Bradbury.”
Trash didn’t quite follow what the man was talking about so enthusiastically. He wasn’t much of a reader, aside from the weekly comic magazine Young Sunday. Since they had discontinued publication a few years ago, he only kept up with the latest anime and manga trends out of professional interest. Limited products from the popular anime series were some of his most consistent sales items, after all.
Realizing he had lost track of his question, Danny regrouped.
“Anyway, what’s the big secret? Just give me your first name then.”
Trash shook his head.
“I hate my name, okay? It’s a stupid name in Japanese. It’s embarrassing. I used to get bullied just for my name. So I never use it anymore. When the bullies finally stopped making fun of my name, they just called me ‘Trash.’ I guess I preferred that name, so I just stuck with it.”
The lighthearted smile on Danny’s face disappeared with Trash’s admission. Trash scowled after being pushed to explain the story.
“Shit. Okay. Sorry. Anyway… It’s cool you took control like that. Trash is a cool handle. Unique in a counter-culture subversive way, I mean.”
“Yeah. Anyway, I just need to check a few more boxes. Then we can go.”
Danny nodded, then looked around and found another interesting looking box to draw him away. Trash went back to checking the stock in his boxes.
As he feared, product had barely moved. At this rate, he might not even clear the box rent this month. He had really blown it on those event-limited K-On! Character goods. He thought the series would have kept its popularity longer, but he’d now been sitting on tons of inventory that wouldn’t move and would probably get harder as time went on. He was already pricing everything at cost just to clear it out.
He didn’t even bother glancing into any of the other boxes. Even if there was something interesting, he wasn’t in the position to risk spending the last of his cash reserves on more stuff that he wouldn’t even have a place to store in a few weeks.
The boxes on the first floor would have fared better, of course, but the profit from those boxes was lower. They were full of lower priced goods to attract the tourists and normies who wandered into the boxes on the way to the video game arcades.
Taking a deep breath, Trash steeled himself. He had to find a way to get the deal between Danny and Sakamoto to go through.
Sakamoto had been adamant when they spoke the night before. He wanted the entire amount in cash. He said it was too risky to fly down to Singapore to get the money, and the US would be even worse. Besides, the man didn’t speak a word of English.
On the other hand, Trash knew how hard it was for foreigners to get large amounts of cash in Japan. Anything over $10,000 would automatically get flagged. He had even tailored his fee to make sure it fell under that line. The last thing he needed now was scrutiny of his business dealings.
He knew from his research that Danny had the money. He was some kind of Silicon Valley pioneer. He sold off his startup for millions. If only he had come over as an investor, there was probably a way he could bring plenty of money through customs.
But considering the business that they were attempting, any scrutiny by officials would be a disaster. Trash was well aware that the worst-case scenario might even land him in jail.
If only he weren’t up against this unreasonable deadline. His prospects were arguably not great by Japanese standards. He didn’t have a steady job or even a moderately respectable academic record. He lacked the social skills for any kind of service job, except maybe a convenience store employee. In his desperation, Trash had even checked out the pay for that unpleasant job, and even with the late-night bonus, the pay there would never earn him enough to pay off his debts.
His mind wandered to his friend Pazu.
He cursed inwardly and chastised himself. He had sworn never to ask his friend for money. Through all his troubles, he had never once begged for a single 100 yen coin from his best friend, even when Pazu had offered.
It was a matter of pride, he knew. Pazu had been his only friend from school. He was a far better friend than he deserved, and Trash had vowed never to use that connection. If he lost his best friend over something like money, then he didn’t deserve the money or the friend.
Besides, Pazu had already helped him out by paying him to build his live-streaming setup and webpage. Trash knew he had technically overpaid him as he got industry rates for what was obviously an amateur job.
Trash was about to look for Danny so that they could finish the tour, but stopped when he had a sudden thought.
There was no way he could ask Pazu for a loan. He had already ruled that out. But Pazu had always been eager to help him. He was the only one Trash trusted would never betray him.
Pazu was rich. That was never a secret. His family had money, and as an only child, all that money would go to him. Despite that advantage, however, Pazu was also smart and highly motivated. Trash was sure he could have been a lawyer, or a teacher, or maybe a doctor. They both agreed that being a businessman was a waste, and luckily, Pazu’s parents had given him the freedom to plot his own path.
That path had led through many places, and while Trash was useless with other people, Pazu was naturally charismatic. He cultivated contacts and supporters with ease. This had culminated in his current choice of vocation. Along the way, however, he had tried more than a few other potential careers.
Trash recalled one specific job that Pazu had tried out while still a high school student, working in a record shop.
Trash had been shocked that his friend would even consider a job in retail hawking used records in of all places, Shibuya. Sure enough, he had only stayed there a few weeks before moving on to something else.
There was something about that job that had stuck with Trash. Something that Pazu had mentioned months later while they were hanging out.
「It was so boring. That place barely got any customers. I couldn’t take it.」
Pazu had been complaining about the job. Even though he had been on good terms with the owner, he could not take the tedium of minding an empty store.
「But the owner. That guy. I’d kill to know what his secrets are. You could tell by the people he talked to. The kind of guys who came to the shop right when it closed.」
「You mean…」
「Definitely.」
Trash understood that this would be crossing another big line. One that he had always avoided. But this whole deal was crossing one of those lines.
He was out of other options. He hated to involve Pazu in this mess in any way, but maybe just an introduction might be enough to get him out of this mess.
What more did he have to lose?