Super7 Closes Its Doors in Japantown

On Sunday, September 19th, Super7 closed the doors to the Post Street shop it has inhabited in San Francisco's Japantown since June of 2004. The store will re-open this Friday on Haight Street. I stopped by the shop on Saturday, and I was quickly rendered powerless against their 50% off books and magazines sale. (The $5 and $10 toy bin had already been sufficiently scoured.) I picked up all but one (sold out and long gone) issue of Super7's Japanese toy culture magazine of the same name. The pages read like a glimpse into another era, which, I guess it was. Volume 2, Issue 2, went out in July of 2004. Looking at the photos of the store and the scene then, are there clues to the splintering of companies and fracturing of friendships that would follow? Hard to say, but damn were there a lot of great toy photos in a really well-designed print publication from the days when "kindle" was just a thing you did to increase fire.

Removed from its Japantown microcosm, Super7 the store will now be neighbors with other toy and design shops including Kidrobot and Giant Robot. The potential to open up new eyes to Japanese vinyl is there. If you can withstand the scent of piss and patchouli, Haight/Ashbury could soon serve most of your toy-buying needs. Thanks to Josh, Aaron, Alex, Glenn, Brian and everyone else who nerded out and occasionally even got arty over the last several years. See you on the other side.