Between March and June of this year, Japanese clothing retailer Uniqlo has released a collection of video game themed t-shirts. Recently, Mr. Nash had a chance to pick up a few of these shirts, and offers his thoughts on them in this article.

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Uniqlo Video Game T-Shirts Review

A little while ago, I was traveling around in Japan. During this trip, I hit up plenty of the usual historical sites, as well as my fair share of game shops, exploring Akihabara during my time in Tokyo. One new addition to gaming culture in Japan since my last visit has been Uniqlo’s new line of video game inspired t-shirts. When it comes to buying clothes in Japan, I proceed with caution, as I’m fairly tall, clocking in at a little over six feet, but I am slim, so there is some hope that the clothing for sale there may in fact fit me. Fortunately for me, I actually could fit in the XL t-shirts that Uniqlo has, albeit they are a tiny bit tight under the arms.

Nonetheless, I was rather pleased with the selection that the retail chain has for this new line. You can go to their site to see for yourself, as they have a good mix of classic games like Pac-Man, Pole Position, and Dig Dug represented, but also plenty of more recent games such as the Street Fighter and Tekken series, LittleBigPlanet, and Ape Escape. The store has done a good job of trying to have a little something for everyone in terms of the sorts of shirts that are available.

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When I was at the store, I wanted to get some shirts that gamers would recognize instantly, but may not be so obvious to the layman. As such, I snapped up t-shirts for PaRappa the Rapper, and Doko Demo Issyo. Both shirts have nice color schemes, and are quite subtle in how they go about displaying their respective games. I also got a Pac-Man t-shirt that was too good to pass up. It has

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the outline of a number of tall buildings, with billboards on them showing various Pac-Man characters. It sort of reminds me of Akihabara if Pac-Man took over. While Uniqlo is known for selling clothing for relatively cheap, they certainly didn’t skimp on quality when it comes to the fabric. The shirts are cotton, and feel very sturdy. Given the materials used, though, I definitely recommend hang-drying these shirts to keep the risk of them shrinking down to a minimum.

As I looked through the shirts in the collection, I did find myself thinking that the whole thing was a bit hit and miss. The shirts I got, I’m quite pleased with, and there were some other nice ones that caught my eye, like the LittleBigPlanet shirt, as well as ones for Phoenix Wright, Minna no Golf, and the Tekken shirts. However, there were quite a few that had me thinking 1500 yen for this (about $15US)? I don’t think so. There was a Monster Hunter shirt that just said “Hunt” on it, and a Street Fighter shirt that simply said “Hadouken” on it. Color me unimpressed with those.

Overall, though, I did find the selection to be quite good, and gamers would do well to check out the shirts if they have a chance. It would have been nice if they had an XXL available for people who are a bit taller, and more bulky. As I mentioned earlier, I’m tall, and slim, and I could still squeeze into one of these shirts, but I’m right at the upper threshold for who would fit in them. Uniqlo does have stores in both New York and London, so I would be curious to know if they have larger sizes available there that are made specifically for a Western market. If anyone in those cities could fill us in on that, it would be appreciated. I've seen the shirts mentioned on the UK Uniqlo site, but haven't seen anything that would indicate larger sizes.

Nonetheless, Uniqlo has done a great thing in bringing us a huge selection of video game themed t-shirts in a very short time. It would be nice to see these shirts become readily available globally. However, all we can do now is wait, and hope for the best. There are some great shirts here, and I think a lot of gamers in North America and Europe would love to see them become available in their own regions.

Mr. Nash

June 22, 2009