Gaming & hobby shop The Akihabara Container, which seems to specialize in hosting displays of limited-edition anime & gaming merchanidse, recently announced the pending debut of an installation dedicated to Clock Tower merchandise. It was originally scheduled to run November 3rd to the 23rd, but according to the store's Twitter, that's been delayed. In the meantime, we're left with this flyer:
Going roughly row by row, we have: mini mirrored magnets of the characters; lenticular acrylic keychains of memorable SFAM cutscene deaths; mini acrylic capsule-vended standees of SFAM sprites (well, Suspiria Anne and stumbled Jennifer aren't "standing," but you know; also, good to see Lotte represented appropriately, in an action pose); logo stickers; pins of Bobby's scissors, the demon idol, and Saidou's hannya; more acrylic character standees; an SFAM sprite art sticker sheet with characters, portraits, and items; a larger, metal-loop scissor keyholder; rubber keychains; a mug of the SFAM title screen that shows the SFAM logo when you fill it with a hot beverage; bath salts themed on the SFAM and Ghost Head bathtub scenes, tinted red and yellow and smelling like iron and sulfur respectively; a towel (a hand towel, presumably) of the celestial plate in Barrows Castle; a smartphone case; tote bags of the SFAM guide manga art and...I don't know what that is for the sequel—shears coming out of a TV?; a manga art door plate; a face towel of the SFAM box art; T-shirts (the last one's of guidebook manga art of Chinatsu/Stephanie); a hoodie of SFAM manga art; an alarm clock with the face of the SFAM Barrows Mansion clock tower clock that, despite old-school alarm-bell stylings, allegedly plays "Don't Cry, Jennifer"; a sundial with the Barrows clock tower clock face; and, finally, yet another acrylic standee of First Fear art.
That's a big wall of text that'd actually be even bigger if I made it a bulleted list, but I'd like to highlight the red and yellow iron and sulfur bath salts. They're not as high on the Innovatively Repulsive Merchandise scale as that Inside/RealDoll collaboration, but they're up there.
In other news, we have further confirmation of "Rolla" and "Anne," but "Bobby Ballows" kind of throws taking this as a definitive source out the window. (ETA: Never mind; apparently, they're using "Ballows" in the magnets. And also have Chinatsu's name wrong.) (ETA 2: And I now see they're using "Laura," with her novelization surname "Harrington," on the bath salt packaging. If the bath salt package designer took the English rendition of Laura/Rolla's name from the wiki, which took it from the novelization I translated, then I enjoy the idea that I'm indirectly responsible for the inconsistent nomenclature.)
And speaking of precedent: is Capcom/Sunsoft gearing up to do something with Clock Tower now? You don't set up pop-up shops with this wide an array of merchandise or release even throwaway stuff like that cheap phone "game" from a couple months ago (helpfully subtitled Ready for the Next, though you'd never guess it from this literally two-minute barely-interactive Flash trinket) without a Switch compilation incoming?
What do people do with acrylic standees? I understand their usefulness for in-store promo displays, but the decorative potential of a flat paper acrylic printout of character art seems limited, a very lacking substitute for a 3D figure.
Turning to digital Clock Tower delights: a theatrical gentleman known only as THE BARD recently played through the Super Famicom adventures of Warrior Queen Jennifer Connelly in the inimitable style of an grand, accomplished storyteller. The boundless enthusiasm, curiosity, and relish with which the man approaches every title combined with the voice work in his narration makes every step of the games he plays seem like a grand adventure - and he even took the time to make Phenomena-themed bumpers. He goes in largely blind, save for a trial stream of the game a couple years before the main event, and he discovers every ending, S to H! The videos are available in the Highlights section of his channel, BardicBroadcasts, starting with the end of the video "Warrior Women on the Edge of Victory"; they're a great experience whether you're new to the title or it's one of your favorites. I'd love to see him tackle the PlayStation sequel someday, but I'm grateful for what we have. Hail to Connelly, slayer of the Children of the Great Father!
