I recently decided to purchase a t-shirt from Uniqlo’s UT Online Store. I could have just as easily went into town and purchased it directly from Uniqlo or headed up to Harajuku to choose from a bigger selection but I wanted to see what their online shopping experience was like. Actually we ordered this shirt on the same day as we ordered from Graniph. It took a day longer to arrive though.

When the box arrived … yes, I said box, we were a bit surprised by the size. I mean it was just one t-shirt. I think it wouldn’t have been too difficult to put ten t-shirts in the box. And when we opened the box we could see the plastic UT t-shirt container rolling around inside with the invoice and another piece of paper. The tube is cool though we haven’t found a use for it yet.

I chose the Tsurikichi Sanpei T-Shirt from the Sunday Magazine 50th Anniversary Collection. It features the aforementioned manga character from the aforementioned comic book/magazine. I am not an otaku or even a fan of manga and I had never even heard of this character. I just liked the t-shirt. I’m sure if I had actually recognized the character I wouldn’t have chosen it. I’m am told that it is quite famous though. On the tag of the t-shirt it gives information about the character in both Japanese and English. I will reproduce the English for interested partied below the picture.

Tsurikichi Sanpei by Takao Yaguchi

Serialized by Shonen Magazine from 1973 to 1983.
A buzz phrase at the time the series began: Semai Nippon, sonnani isoide dokoe iku (Japan is a small country; why hurry so much to go where?)

Story
Sanpei, a young boy living in the mountains of nature-rich Akita, loves fishing. Blessed with an extraordinary talent for fishing, he travels all over Japan and the world, where he meets a wide variety of friends and rivals. He uses his ingenuity and skills to catch illusive as well as giant fish.

The t-shirt itself is very soft but firm fabric with a slim fit (I must go to the gym.) and it seems to be printed with ink jet technology rather than screen printing. To be honest, I am glad. I don’t think that screen printing is necessarily the best option for t-shirt printing, but more about that later. The collar has some reinforcement material on which the UT tag is attached.

Overall I’d say it is a pretty sweet t-shirt and at 1,500 yen who could complain. I don’t think it is available in the US store though and the Japanese store doesn’t ship internationally as far as I know.