Hundreds of pieces of anime merch collected at annual event near Akihabara.

At Shinto shrines in Japan you can buy omamori, good luck charms that are supposed to grant good health, academic success, and various other blessings. It’s said that the effects last for one year, but once that time is up you’re not supposed to just toss the amulet in the trash. Instead you’re supposed to return it to a shrine, thanking it for its service and handing it over to be disposed of in a dignified manner.

This month at Tokyo’s Kanda Shrine, however, people weren’t just bringing in old omamori, but also their old anime keychains and acrylic character stands.

As you can probably guess, Tokyo’s Kanda Shrine, a.k.a Kanda Myojin, is located within the Kanda neighborhood. What might not be so readily apparent, though, is that it’s also the closest major shrine to Akihabara, the world’s biggest and most passionate anime and video game district.

As marked on the map above, it’s only about a 10-minute walk from Akihabara Station to the shrine, which makes for some interesting intersections of modern and traditional culture. Once a year Kanda Shrine hosts the Acrylic Appreciation Festival, in which anime fans are encouraged to bring in any merch made of acrylic resin that they no longer desire so that it can be recycled.

Though this is a secular event, organized in coordination with Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation, there’s no denying that being able to give their once-cherished character goods a sendoff at the famed shrine helps puts fans’ hearts at ease. This year’s Acrylic Appreciation Festival, which took place on April 17, collected hundreds of items.

There is a robust market for second-hand anime merch, but for simple trinkets like keychains and small acrylic stands, resale prices tend to be low. For a single, non-rare item, you might only get a few hundred yen, making listing it online and shipping it to the buyer, or taking it to a specialty store and having to sit through a long wait for it to be appraised, not feel worth the time or hassle. Then there’s the issue of merch that’s damaged, dirty, or discolored to an extent that makes it impossible to find a buyer for.

Acrylic resin recycling is still a relatively new field, and the event hopes to raise awareness and prevent people from tossing the material in with general trash that ends up being incinerated or stuffed into landfills.

With acrylic character stands becoming an increasingly prevalent part of anime merch lineups, it’s good to know there’s an event trying to make this aspect of fandom a little more eco-friendly. And should you decide to stop by Kanda Shrine for next year’s event and find yourself feeling thirsty, don’t forget about the cafe that owes its existence to a samurai’s quest for revenge that’s just a few blocks away.

Source: PR Times, Yomiuri Shimbun via Yahoo! Japan News
Top image: Wikipedia/Kakidai
Insert images: SoraNews24, PR Times
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