A Visit to Animegane!

Hello everyone and welcome back to Tiro Finale for an exclusive look inside the premier anime-themed glasses maker, Animegane. For those who do not know, Animegane (together with Eyemirror) is a company specializing in making anime-themed eye wear and have been met with great success over the years. These days, you can even get select models internationally via an online retail option. But if brick and mortar is more your thing, then make sure to pay the original store in Akihabara a visit. 

Located on the back streets of Akihabara, you probably would not notice Animegane at all unless you were specifically looking for it. Make no mistake, both the neighboring stores beside it and across the street are not hobby related with Animegane being the only anime store in the entire street. So if this is your first time, make sure you get help from a handy navigation application on your smartphone.

Animegane claim to fame, as its namesake, is anime-themed eyeglasses. While anime-themed apparel and accessories are nothing new, Animegane has really made a name for itself over the past couple of years with its high quality frames and also functioning as a legit optometrist. Yes, you can get the frames and prescription lens all in the same place. 

Animegane's frame designs fall under two main categories, homage and replicas. Replicas are faithful recreation of glasses worn by characters in their featured anime reproduced in 3D for fans to collect or ear. Meanwhile, homages, their more recent endeavor, sees a collaboration between the series and Animegane to produce an original product. 

Replicas can only bring you so far as there are only a limited number of glasses wearing characters in a series and a limited number of designs too. In anime, these designs tend to be very simple making it easier for animators to draw and animate consistently. 

On the other hand, homages allow for an almost infinite array of designs and series to collaborate with. While it may seem simple at first, Animegane takes its job very seriously in faithfully honoring the design queues of each individual character for their own personalized pair. Taking queues from their character design and traits, these character glasses are often very, very sought after. 

Case in point, Animegane's recent collaboration with Puella Magi Madoka Magica to produce five pairs of personalized glasses for Mami, Homura, Madoka, Sayaka, and Kyoko. This also happened to be the primary reason for my visit to Animegane in the first place but, I was met with the unfortunate fate of it being sold out. Keep in mind, this is not the first but second release of these Madoka Magica glasses and for both times, Mami and Homura's have sold off almost immediately. 

If you are a fan of Madoka, Sayaka or Kyoko, you are in luck as their personal pairs are still very much in stock both in Animegane in Akihabara and Eyemirror in Ikebukuro. For those keen on getting Mami and Homura's pair, make sure to keep a close watch on Animegane's twitter feed for news of the glasses being restocked!

Aside from unique designs, each pair also comes with a special carrying case and cleaning cloth. As a glasses wearer myself, these help reinforce the roles of these anime-themed glasses as solid secondary pairs. With their distinctive box, you always have a safe place to store it and can immediately identify which pair it is. So on any particular day you feel like wearing something extra special, you know where to look. 

Construction of the frames vary between plastic and steel mostly. No exotic materials used here such as aluminum, titanium or polymers. As such, you will want to take extra care with these pairs as oil, sweat and general wear and tear will lead to corrosion of the steel frame. Depending on the construction, prices vary between 8,000 and 14,000 Yen which really is not too bad when you consider the cost of frames in Japan.

Aside from having a lovely showroom decorated with figures and themed-glasses, visitors are even allowed to try the glasses on. The ever helpful staff are always nearby to attend to all your needs and will do their best to accommodate to your requests. Certainly one of the most pleasant experiences I have had at an anime store thus far!

As of my time of visit, Animegane is gearing up for a massive collaboration with the Fate Series which I have no doubt will be a great success. So, if you are ever in Tokyo and would like to add a new pair of glasses, anime-themed ones at that, to your collection, make sure to pay a visit to Animegane. There is certainly something for every fan, even if you do not wear glasses!

With that, we come to the end of this special store tour. If you have an questions, do not hesitate to leave them in the comments section below! Until then, thank you so much for reading and have yourself a wonderful day ahead!