Local anime stores online
Salt Lake City (and the surrounding area), has two anime-only stores:
- Aszreal's Mess, which carries a variety of licensed material imported strait from Japan. They also carry domestically released character good products (collector and action figures, bookmarks, cell phone straps, wall scrolls, posters, and so on). They will be at Anime Banzai, Utah's first and only anime convention, at the end of August. The owner, Lori Hall, is willing to hunt down harder to find items (such as this figure of Lum, or this one!), and she interacts with visitors to the site through their blog.
- Tokyo's Anime House, the first anime-only store to have a physical presence in the Salt Lake area, carries DVDs, CDs, and manga (though the manga selection was small the last time I was there). They also carry a small amount of (mostly pirated) character goods. You have to be careful about the DVDs and CDs, too, as half or more of them are pirated (even shows which have been released domestically, which can be pretty dangerous to a company's bottom line), so we recommend making sure you're getting the real thing when purchasing there).
You can find domestically released anime and manga at many local stores in addition to the two above. Just be careful you know what you're buying as some of the other local stores carry pirated goods, too.
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