My name's Ren, and I'm the founder of Senspace, a Web3 creator network built from me and my team's local community in Tokyo.
I've lived in Tokyo for the last 8 years and as a creative and culture nerd, I'm always picking up merch and knick knacks throughout town. Each item has a story and context, which is what makes the process of collecting these items so thrilling.
Every week I'll be posting pictures of what I've copped with a brief story on each item and links to learn more about its creator.
Hope you enjoy tagging along on my journey as much as I enjoying living it!
Shinsei Galverse Stickers and Higher Selves Keychain
I got these cute items at the release party for Tokyo Weekender's Spring 2024 issue hosted at OR Tokyo, a club venue in the Miyashita Park shopping complex in Shibuya. Ayaka Ohira, the artist who made these items, was recently featured in the mag and was given a booth at the event to show her work and sell her merch.
Shinsei Galverse is one of the top NFT projects to come out of Japan and in my opinion, THE OG anime PFP project in Web3. Ayaka and I first met in 2022 at the Galverse party at NFT NYC in 2022, where we bonded over our mutual love for Japanese hip-hop, me running my own indie label in Tokyo, Frank Renaissance and her being the animator and music video director for several top hip-hop artists in Japan. We became fast friends and even launched our own creative collective, Booger Flick, with some other video creators and 3D artists in Tokyo, throwing parties in Bushwick and Tokyo in 2023.
I have a ton of Galverse stickers and merch at home, but this was the first time I'd gotten a full sticker sheet and was hyped to cop this grail :).
Higher Selves is a new spiritual meets cosmic character series launched by Ayaka in 2023. Ayaka launched Higher Selves right around when we did our first Booger Flick and so I was lucky enough to get to see some of the early designs before they were released. At the time, I also was in charge of sticking Higher Selves stickers around NYC and later Tokyo (please don't call the cops on me!). My favorite sticker placement was in the bathroom at Music Bar Lion, a popular club in Shibuya, though it was taken down a week or so later.
This was the first keychain I've gotten from Ayaka so was hyped to cop it. However, it seems that my girlfriend has taken a liking to the keychain (she already uses a higher selves pink cup every day) and so the keychain may not be mine for long.
Both of these items are cool in their own right but perhaps the reason why I'll remember these items most is this amazing picture that was taken of me for the Tokyo Weekender IG from the party for 140K of their IG followers to see.
Misato (right), who is also a Booger Flick member and an amazing 3D designer, looks great, but I (left), as you can see, have some pretty nasty looking bruising on my chin. This was my first day out of the house in a week after a botched wisdom teeth pull and I actually only ended up being at the party for about 15 minutes or so because of the pain. But hey, at least I have a memory now 🙂 and I'm not tagged in this picture haha.
Tokyo Vitamin x No Free Coffee Collab Tee
I copped this tee at the Tokyo Vitamin x No Free Coffee Collab pop up at No Free Coffee Japan in Harajuku this past Sunday. No Free Coffee is based in Nashville, Tennessee but recently opened up in Tokyo with some help from fellow culture nerd and Meta Japan Global Partnerships Lead, Koji Ayao.
No Free Coffee is a coffee shop and streetwear brand, having done collabs with popular brands like New York's, The Good Company. They have followed this same playbook in Tokyo, now collabbing with popular Tokyo creative collective and streetwear brand, Tokyo Vitamin. Tokyo Vitamin is run by fellow Japanese-American, New York-Tokyoite, Vick Okada, who is also a popular DJ in the Tokyo Club scene. Pro Tip: If you come to Tokyo, definitely be on the lookout for Tokyo Vitamin parties.
What makes this T-shirt so unique compared to typical drops from Tokyo Vitamin is the Japanese on the back of the T-shirt. Most of Tokyo Vitamin's clothing features English lettering, but this one says "No Free Coffee, Tokyo Vitamin, Nashville, Tennessee" on the back in Japanese, despite No Free Coffee being an American brand. "Coffee" is also written in kanji (Chinese characters used in Japanese), which makes the word feel more retro/formal/old school vs. the more casual/street/international vibes of Tokyo Vitamin. Seeing two very internationally minded brands drop a tee together that without context looks like it might be from a traditional Japanese Kissa (traditional Japanese coffee shop), is clever and unexpected.
The pop up also featured a trucker hat and coffee mug, which I didn't end up copping (and will probably regret at some point) and had popular Tokyo DJs setting the mood. I was feeling slightly better than two days before (Tokyo Weekend Party) and enjoyed my time hanging out and catching up with friends but my new puppy, Dub, was the life of the party. This was her first time at a party and we were worried about how she might react to the music and number of people, but she was friendly and social with everyone. She even became the very very very unofficial brand ambassa-dog for Tokyo Vitamin and No Free Coffee.
If you want to see more of Dub, I post her here and there on the Dogs channel on Warpcast so be on the lookout!
Thanks!
If you've made it this far, I hope it means you enjoyed reading Week #0 of Copped in Tokyo! More to come next week, and if you want to keep up with what I'm up to outside of just copping fun stuff, feel free to give me a follow at the links below!
