The hottest places in the Anime & Manga industry, brought to you by the SMAC! News Team… This is TOKYO MANGA DEEP WALKER! Where do the Japanese manga artists purchase their art supplies!? This is our 2nd episode introducing an art supply store!! Today our crew headed to Sekaido in Shinjuku, the shop our master class visited during their stay for the Silent Manga Audition award ceremony! This is today’s target, Sekaido – Shinjuku main store!! It’s an art supplies store located in Shinjuku, one of Japan’s most enormous cities! Let’s go see what it’s like inside!! The appeal of Sekaido – Shinjuku main store is… its overwhelming amount of items! Shelves full of items spread across the entire floor! A supply shop with this amount of items is pretty rare! I’m guessing that people from overseas don’t have many opportunities to see an artistic landscape like this! On to the manga art supplies corner! There, we spotted two ladies from outside Japan! These American ladies said they came to Japan for travel. They are actually creators who draw illustrations and tattoos! They happily gave us an OK to introduce them on this article, after we explained to them about Silent Manga Audition – which is contributed to by so many of you around the world – and this article. Thank you so much! According to the shop manager, Ms. Kurihara, even though there are so many types of items, the manga supply corner is decreasing in size every year. A big reason for this is because many Japanese manga artists and illustrators have shifted to the digital style of creation, and the store has increased the amount of space for digital products and books. Nevertheless, analog products still have a strong popularity, and the sales has not changed that much. Secondly, we asked if customers from overseas are increasing. The answer was yes! More and more people from overseas are visiting the store every year! Sekaido also sells a massive amount of non-manga supplies for art and design, and this attracts people from various parts of the world (Europe, Asia, etc…) And since each section has an enormous amount of items, it’s no exaggeration to say the shop itself is like one huge sight seeing spot!   Here’s a product that Ms. Kurihara – the kind store manager – wants to introduce to you guys! An art supply set based on a popular Japanese manga/anime: ‘Bakuman’!! You can easily tell that it’s a set of manga supplies, and that it contains everything you need! It’s popular among the customers from overseas because its straightforward and practical. She introduced this product to let you know about it! Finally… here’s a message from Ms. Kurihara, the great shop manager! “I hope you will come to Sekaido – Shinjuku main store on your visit to Japan! We’re confident in the variety and amount of items, so it will be fun even if you are only visiting!”   Throughout this research, we reconfirmed that there are still lots of places we need to introduce. We’ll keep on going with it!! If there are any places you want know about, please tell us by writing comments!! Next time, we will explore the place which has the most manga in Kichijoji, the town where our office is!! Don’t miss it!!   ===========================================    Official Site   Link to English google maps Photographer: Yoshio Kobayashi