If there's anything you must know about me it's that I constantly find myself interested in the weirdest things for long periods of time. One of these being the early 2000s Japanese kids show Popee The Performer, which I have been obsessed with for over half a decade now. It has been an interest of mine long enough for me to try to do some digging to get merch, but as you can probably assume by the fact that you've 1. likely never heard about it, or 2. have only heard about it in niche internet communities, it is extremely hard to find moderately priced merchandise for.
If you're not familiar, Popee The Performer was a low budget 3D animated Japanese kids show that ran for one year between 2000 and 2001. It had three seasons at 13 episodes each which together come to the grand total of 39 episodes + a New Year's special. The show was created and produced by the husband-and-wife duo Ryuji Masuda and Wakako Masuda with music by Osamu Tezuka. Ryuji was responsible for the plots and directing while Wakako handled the visuals/art/design. It was broadcasted on the kids' station in Japan exclusively.
The simplicity of the designs and premise of the show are truly due to the lack of budget. The Popee Fandom Wiki supplies that the budget of each episode was 100,000 JPY, or around 920$ USD. The plot itself is about a 17-year-old circus apprentice named Popee who is being taught the craft of performing by a purple masked wolf named Kedamono. Popee is notoriously hard to work with and often gets into situations that parallel that of Tom & Jerry in America. There were originally only two characters, the aforementioned Popee and Kedamono, but as time went on and the show progressed there were a few additions including a frog, Popee's biological father Papi, an alien, and a sentient wagon with the head of an elephant. Each episode is self-contained, and the characters die at the end of each one. There is no dialog and most of the noises are royalty free common ones to cut cost. While the show was made for kids in Japan, its contents may be shocking to American audiences. It never saw a release of any kind outside of Japan which makes the secondhand merch from America imported, and thus more expensive.
On my many-year-long mission to obtain Popee merch I always ran into the worth vs. price issue and never ended up buying anything. That is until I recently discovered Buyee, a Japanese proxy service. Buyee is a website where you can search through many Japanese sale websites and purchase things VIA conversion and have them sent from the seller to a warehouse and then to you. I was able to find an awesome deal on there for a Popee theme song CD that also included the limited-edition full soundtrack CD and a pair of Kedamono's boxer shorts. As it was a bundle, and all sold together it was around 30$ USD. A STEAL! The theme song CD Sells for around 70-100$ USD by itself and the full soundtrack CD w/ Kedamono shorts are currently listed for 80-100$ USD
The shipping fee for me was around 20$ on top of the 30$ I spent on the item, so around 50$ in all. The shipping is paid after the item is received at the warehouse from the Japanese seller, so if the seller cancels you are refunded. You cannot be refunded if the item gets to the warehouse and you cannot pay the shipping fee, though, so be careful! I am very excited about my deal but do your research regarding proxy services before making a buy like this.
They unfortunately did not come with their original keychains and secondary OBI paper strips, but they were purchased by the seller at a secondhand shop, so they are in amazing condition despite the missing keychains. They came with everything else they were supposed to upon release, even stickers in the case of the theme song cd!
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