It was day four of our Japanese adventure, and two days before Celebration Japan kicked off. My fiancé Kristina (I can call her that now, I’d popped the question on day one) and I were in Osaka.
We had been to Kyoto the day before and fell in love with the place. Kyoto is full of temples and shrines and had a quiet, laid-back feel that we loved. Osaka was the complete opposite, but we loved this place too.
Now, I must confess I’d heard of this ‘Bootleg Star Wars bar’ a few months before, but was hesitant to bring it up as I didn’t want the trip to be totally consumed by Star Wars. My other half is very patient with me and my fandom, but I didn’t want to take the biscuit as Celebration was approaching fast.
However, the fandom in our hearts is simply too powerful sometimes, and I mentioned it while we were strolling through the streets of Osaka.
“There’s a famous Star Wars bar in this city,” I threw out.
“Well, why didn’t you just say,” Kristina replied. “Why aren’t we there already?”
She really is a keeper, isn’t she!
The bar itself is called ‘Pachimon Wars’ with the word pachimon being a Japanese slang terms for knock-off or bootleg.
It’s quite simply phenomenal. Star Wars is constantly playing on the television in the corner, there’s a life-size Han in Carbonite and every possible bootleg Star Wars collectable and toy imaginable on display.
The deco of the bar itself is done to look like something straight out of the backstreets of Coruscant, and the focus of the bar is a massive display cabinet. Event the toilet is made to look like the Bespin Carbon Freezing Chamber. It’s all outstanding, and eventually I got talking to the owner.
He’d been a collector since the days of the original trilogy and his specialty had grown into collecting bootlegs with a deep fascination for them. Of course, being in Japan meant there are some truly unique items on display. Some of the collectables were just hilarious, some so poorly made, some hand crafted to perfection. Every element of a collectable was there to be seen. It was really, really something to behold. I was totally in my element.
The more time I spent there, the more I needed something to take home as a memory of my time there. I enquired about anything to buy from the owner.
There were two items for sale. The first was a bottle of sake with the logo of the bar on. It was a huge bottle, and though I don’t drink alcohol I thought I could just tip out the contents and keep the bottle. Then he told me the only other item for sale was his book on bootlegs. I did a double take. “You have a book?”
“I do,” he replied, in his brilliant English. “But it is only in Japanese. I’m so sorry.”
“No need to apologise. I’m sold but only if you’ll sign it.”
The deal was done, and it’s become one of my favourite pick-ups from our two weeks of traveling across Japan.
The owner actually had a Collecting Tracks panel at Celebration, but scheduling meant I couldn’t make it work, which I was gutted about.
I could have spent all night in the bar, and as you’d expect it was rammed full of Star Wars fans discussing this and that. One thing of note is that an episode of Skeleton Crew came on the tele in the corner, and there was nothing but praise and love for the show.
The owner told me, as impressive as the collection is, this wasn’t all of it. He had more in storage. It was fantastic to see that he was sharing his bliss with the world and turned displaying his collection into something wonderfully social.
As you can see from the pictures there are some absolute gems in this place, so I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking and if ever you find yourself in Osaka then you really must visit. It’s been open seven years, and long may it continue.
