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Village Vanguard announced yet another collaboration with the Bandai Namco's Tales of JRPG series to release new merchandise based on characters from entries like Destiny, Abyss, and Arise. Pre-orders are now open and will close on April 13, 2025. The expected release date for the goods is mid-to-late May 2025. So far, everything is only confirmed for Japan, so someone would need to import the items to add them to their collection.

With the theme of "books", the new collaboration pairs up Tales of characters that are fond of reading with characters that aren't that comfortable with it. The games and characters featured in the new collaboration include Stan Aileron and Philia Philis from Tales of Destiny, Reid Hershel and Keele Zeibel from Tales of Eternia, Luke fon Fabre and Jade Curtiss from Tales of the Abyss, Rita and Raven from Tales of Vesperia, and Rinwell and Law from Tales of Arise.

Here are the new goods available in the latest Village Vanguard Tales of collaboration:

• Mini character stand (10 available) – 1,650 yen (~$11.34)
• Acrylic keychain (10 available) – 1,100 yen (~$7.56) each / 11,000 yen (~$75.58) per box
• Pin button badge (20 available) – 550 yen (~$3.78) each / 11,000 yen (~$75.58) per box
• Clear bookmark (10 available) – 605 yen (~$4.16) each / 6,050 yen (~$41.57) per box
• Sticker (10 available) – 550 yen (~$3.78) each / 5,500 yen (~$37.79) per box
• Acrylic coaster (5 available) – 1,100 yen (~$7.56)

This is the fourth Tales of collaboration that the Japanese bookstore chain is holding. A previous collaboration announced in September 2024 featured various Tales of villain characters as plushes. Those were general ones and didn't feature an overarching theme like this latest collection of items.

The Village Vanguard Tales of merchandise items are now available to pre-order until April 13, 2025.

The post Tales of Abyss and Destiny Characters Merchandise at Village Vanguard appeared first on Siliconera.

Village Vanguard announced its third collaboration with Gnosia, which will be available for a limited time. Those who purchase a sweater or T-shirt will also receive a bromide of either Sha-Ming or Gina. [Thanks, PR Times!]

Items featuring silhouettes of the whole cast (and the Silver Key) include T-shirts, mugs, and towels. Prices range between 1000 JPY ($6.65) and 6600 JPY ($43.95). Illustrator Hungry Clicker also drew the new images of Gina and Sha-Ming. You can get these items on T-shirts, sweaters, tapestries, and more. As well, you can get acrylic keyholders and stickers of the two, as well as Setsu and Raqio. The Setsu, Raqio, Gina, and Sha-Ming stickers and acrylics look like they’re workers at Village Vanguard.

The Gnosia items will be available via the Village Vanguard website until February 28, 2025. They’ll then ship out some time in April 2025. You can purchase them via the online Village Vanguard store, or at the physical locations.

Gnosia is a single-player visual novel that plays similarly to Mafia or Werewolf. Each “loop” contains a certain number of Gnosia, which you must discover and send to Cold Sleep via discussion. An anime adaptation of the game was announced in December 2024.

Gnosia is available on the PS5, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, and Windows PC. It originally came out for the PS Vita.

The post More Gnosia Shirts Appear at Village Vanguard appeared first on Siliconera.

For the 30th anniversary of the PlayStation, Sony and Grapht have released merchandise featuring the original console and Sony exclusive titles. Village Vanguard is offering them in advance, though you will need to reside in Japan or employ a third-party proxy service to get them if you live outside the country.

The 30th anniversary PlayStation merchandise includes acrylic keychains, baseball hats, and a tote bag that looks like the original PlayStation console. For the keychains, you can choose to get ones resembling a memory card, a console, or a controller. Meanwhile, the baseball caps have the signature four PlayStation buttons (the triangle, circle, X, and square) on them.

As for keychains featuring Sony exclusive games, they come in a blind box. To complete the collection, you’ll need to get all eight different titles. The keychains all use the PlayStation Retro IP Jewel Case artwork. As for the games, you can get:

• Ape Escape (1999)
• Gran Turismo (1997)
• inFamous (2009)
• Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy (2001)
• Shadow of the Colossus (2005)
• Sly Cooper (2002)
• Syphon Filter (1999)
• Toro! Let’s Party! (2009)

Here are the prices for all the products as well:

• Baseball cap - 4950 JPY
• PS acrylic keychains (set of three) - 2970 JPY
• PS games acrylic keychains - 880 JPY (each)/7040 JPY (box)
• Tote bag - 7700 JPY

You can purchase these products through Village Vanguard.

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Village Vanguard will sell some exclusive merchandise of the Prince and his cousins from Katamari Damacy. This is to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the game. [Thanks, PR Times!]

Pre-orders will be available until January 19, 2025. Then, you can expect your orders to come out some time in Spring 2025. As a note, Village Vanguard does not offer international shipping via its website. So if you want to purchase these items but you don’t live in Japan, you might need to employ a proxy service.

Here are the items that are part of the Katamari Damacy Village Vanguard collection, as well as their prices:

• Acrylic mascot: 1100 JPY each
• Badge with flakes inside: 1320 JPY
• Clear card: 880 JPY each
• Plush hanging mascot: 2200 JPY each
• Stickers: 550 JPY each
• Sweater: 6600 JPY
• T-shirt: 3850 JPY
• Tote bag: 3300 JPY

You can purchase goods of The Prince, as well as his various cousins that appear in the franchise. This makes for 24 total variations of acrylic mascots and clear cards. The Prince and the King of the Cosmos feature on the T-shirts, and the flakes feature various items and level motifs from Katamari Damacy. There is even a massive cow, for those with fond memories of rolling up the Holy Cow.

The Katamari Damacy items at Village Vanguard are open for pre-order until January 19, 2025. Katamari Damacy Reroll is available on the PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Windows PC.

The post Katamari Damacy Prince and His Cousins Head to Village Vanguard appeared first on Siliconera.

The third line Village/Vanguard Tales plush toys are available for pre-order on September 13, 2024, and this time villains are the main focus. In this line, you’ll be able to get plush versions of Mithos (Tales of Symphonia), Saleh (Tales of Rebirth), and Sync (Tales of the Abyss). Pre-orders will remain open until September 29, 2024.

All three of the Tales plush toys of villains have a slightly different design to match the character’s personality. Mithos has a calm smile, while Sync’s smile is a bit wider and more antagonistic. Saleh, on the other hand, has a smile and furrowed brows, which matches with how arrogant and cocky he is. Each plush is about 191 mm x 195 mm in of size, and will cost 6100 JPY each. That would convert to around $43.40.

This time around, the three Village/Vanguard Tales plush toys depict the villains of their respective series. Overseas players may be familiar with Mithos and Sync, as Tales of Symphonia and Tales of the Abyss were available in the west. Saleh in Tales of Rebirth is a major antagonist with a cruel, sadistic, and (later) racist streak. Mithos and Sync are a lot more sympathetic than he was, despite their antagonist status.

The Tales plushes from Village/Vanguard are open for pre-order until September 29, 2024. They’ll ship out some time in mid-to-late December 2024.

The post Village/Vanguard Releases Tales Villains as Plush Toys appeared first on Siliconera.

Japanese bookstore Village Vanguard announced the opening of a new collaboration pop-up shop pairing Oshi no Ko and Sanrio characters together. The new pop-up shop will open between February 9 and 25, 2024, at the Grand Tree Musashikosugi store in Kanagawa Prefecture. [Thanks, PR Times!]

New plushies, keychains, and other goods featuring character pairings from both franchises will be available for sale for a limited time. Other non-collaboration Oshi no Ko items will be available as well. You can check out the specific character pairings here:

• Ai x Little Twin Star
• Aqua x Cinnamoroll
• Ruby x Hello Kitty
• Kana Arima x My Melody
• Mem-Cho x Pompompurin
• Akane Kurokawa x Kuromi

And here is the full list of Oshi no Ko x Sanrio merchandise items available alongside their prices:

• Character plush (6 available) – 4,376 yen (~$29.30)
• Keychain mini plush (6 available) – 3,080 yen (~$20.60)
• Acrylic keychain (6 available) – 1,078 yen (~$7.22)
• Random book style pin badge (6 available) – 660 yen (~$4.40)
• Mini pouch (6 available) – 858 yen (~$5.75)
• Squishy ball chain heart charm (6 available) – 968 yen (~$6.50)
• Cushion (2 available) – 2,750 yen (~$18.40)
• Pouch (6 available) – 748 yen (~$5)
• Oshi no Ko random TV style pin badge (8 available) – 550 yen (~$3.7.0)
• Oshi no Ko stickers (6 available) – 385 yen (~$2.60)
• Oshi no Ko stick mirror keychain (6 available) – 528 yen (~$3.50)

Additionally, customers that spend over 2,200 yen (~$14.70) at the pop-up store will receive a collectible postcard with a random collaboration design as a present. You can check out the Oshi no Ko x Sanrio collaboration items in the gallery below.

The designs and pairings for the collaboration were used in a previous merchandise collaboration that appeared in Tsutaya stores in October 2023. An Oshi no Ko and Sanrio kuji lottery collaboration also appeared in November 2023.

The Oshi no Ko x Sanrio pop-up shop will be open between February 9-25, 2024, at the Grand Tree Musashikosugi store in Kanagawa Prefecture. The Oshi no Ko anime is available on streaming services such as HIDIVE.

The post Oshi no Ko x Sanrio Merchandise Pop-up Shop Announced appeared first on Siliconera.

The lead characters of three Persona series titles are showing up for work at Village Vanguard, a Japanese bookstore. The special promotion brings Persona protagonists to Village Vanguard as a line of exclusive merchandise items [Thanks, Denfaminico Gamer!].

Village Vanguard is a bookstore chain that bills itself as an "Exciting Bookstore," bringing in customers interested not just in books and manga, but also character merchandise, novelty items, prank toys, candy, and other things of interest to geeky customers.

That said, only three Persona protagonists will show at Village Vanguard for the promotion. Specifically, the male leads of Persona 3, 4, and 5 are on offer. The main image for the promo is an exclusive poster featuring the boys dressed in Village Vanguard staff wear.

All three are wearing Village Vanguard aprons over their school uniform undershirts. The aprons The Persona 3 protagonist also sports his headphones, which are based on the real-life Audio Technica ATH-EM7 wired headphone set. Their aprons are also decorated with buttons of their most recent respective games (Persona 3 Portable, Persona 4 Golden, and Persona 5 Royal), and their IDs show their unique Personas (Orpheus, Izanagi, and Arsene).

As for the Persona protagonist x Village Vanguard merchandise available, the line runs a familiar selection of accessories. Keychains, clear files, posters based on the art, buttons, smartphone stands, and shirts are on offer. Folks who want art of other characters from the franchise can also purchase some acrylic name cards featuring either the protagonists in the poster art, or the original character illustrations from the games. Characters offered include Yukari, Junpei, Yosuke, Chie, Yukiko, Ryuji, Morgana, Ann, and the Female Protagonist from Persona 3 Portable.

The special Persona x Village Vanguard promotion runs until December 18, 2022 in Japan. Village Vanguard stores will stock the items, but mail-order options are available within Japan. The games are available on various platforms, including PC, Nintendo Switch, PS4, and PS5.

The post Persona Protagonists Staff Village Vanguard Bookstore, Get Merchandise appeared first on Siliconera.