Gastovic Anime Store - Buenos Aires, Argentina
Finding the store for the first time
A few months ago, my friends and I gathered in the Abasto Shopping. After getting tired of walking in circles since we already ate and nobody needed new clothes, my pal suggested visiting a “secret place”.
His brother told him it was a famous shop on the web, but he couldn’t find it easily because he had no time after the university to remember where was it located, but at least it was a popular hangout point for people who wanted to spend huge amounts of money to anime-related items back then.
“Gastovic” was its name, so we searched his social networks to confirm its popularity. It was easy to find the address using Google Maps, but when we arrived … we came across this unsuspecting street.
The shop is roughly six blocks from the Abasto Shopping centre, so in my case, I just took the Subte B to Carlos Gardel Station and walked from there.
If you wish, you can also travel to Agüero station taking the Subte D line if you happen to be close to that line, but I think that spending some time in the mall after your visit might be more rewarding for your visit.
The official address is Cordoba 3016 but you can just look for the street pictured here. It is a red door sandwiched between a car dealership and some old parking. Try to look for the correct number, there are loads of departments in the area!
The catch is that the store is hidden inside an old office building. There isn’t a single sign outside, so it is a bit hard to find the correct building. Luckily, each one has a set of big numbers on the side of each door.
To enter, you need to ring the doorbell on your right to call the “2 - A” apartment. They will just say ask if the door is open: if that’s not the case, somebody will open it for you. You can take the elevator or the stairs from there.
After you open that door …
There wasn’t a single noise outside, but when I opened the door I could hear some pleasant low-paced J-pop, it couldn’t be more perfect for the ambience. The floors were shining and the room looked quite bigger than I expected. An employee greeted us and asked if it was our first visit: he could read it in the expression of our faces, we were as pumped up as if we had found some kind of hidden treasure.
After all, my surprise didn’t come from their sneaky location. The rent is usually is too high for a niche market like this, and this is a regular thing for very small shops. I was astonished by its wide variety of actual original products. Most similar stores sell just a couple of original items, but since this is an import store you can only find original action figures, model kits, artbooks, stuffed animals and some cosplay apparel and such.
Gastovic started in 2007 as an online dealer that imported goods from Japan. After six years they opened their first store in the capital city, but they moved to this apartment recently. Most of their operations are still based on the purchase and sale of items on demand but they opened a much more comfortable showroom to buy right on the place. There seems to be another store in Chile, but I couldn’t find much info about it right off the bat.
The staff is very helpful since they have a small number of employees and everybody is interested in the same themes. I particularly consider cute the fact that they have a pet roaming around the place. “Dorian” is a very affectionate black cat with almost anyone who crosses him. It seems to be quite popular on social media! Nevertheless, I failed to take a clear picture of it …
There are various cabinets with PVC figures but due to the size of my room … I decided to focus on manga for the occasion.
There are several sections in the shop, they are categorized according to type and language: you can find translated editions by local groups such as Panini Comics or IVREA on the Spanish bookshelf or artbooks and magazines on their respective shelves.
There are items for every sort of budget, but I went for some merch from a not-so-popular show, to begin with. I was thrilled already, a lot of the stuff you find here is pretty hard to see with your own eyes in this continent. To be fair, it boggles my mind the fact that somebody took so much effort and resources to import so many items for a small number of fans.
As far as I know, character books are usually cheaper due to their lack of sales. There aren’t many Japanese speakers on the country so issues with more pictures have a larger number and consequently more demand. but they are worth for serious die-hard fans.
Another cool thing we decided to try out was the capsule toy machine. The store has three gashapon machines whose prizes are key chains. You buy a coin, spin the crank and try to get a prize related to a character you like. It is dead simple, but it is was more fun than it sounds. So much that I forgot to snap a picture of the moment. There is also the option to buy old prizes from opened capsules, but for a higher price.
Just when I thought I had have inspected every single corner of the place, the staff told me that there was another room behind me. It was behind a short hallway, but I thought it was some sort of storage area.
It wasn’t as big as the other room, but it had more things to look at. It was focused on apparel and smaller brand figures.
The Room … with sport jerseys
Among other interesting things to mention, there were some replicas of sports uniforms that some characters use. Also, there were a handful of anime-related branded shirts, which are quite difficult to find in the country.
It’s easy to think why people like to go to this place in a group, it is big and relatively comfy. It is not usually that crowded but there is usually one or two guys checking around some merch, but everything is better if you have some pals to comment on what just fascinated you.
After a while, Gastovic became one of my favourite shops in the city. After a while, I became some sort of “guide” that takes more of my friends to this place. Their shock is always priceless when they are scared of entering a building that looks just like a regular apartment and they find a big shop inside.
There is something this place has that make you feel that this is a secret club. It might not be huge compared to the actual giants that provide the source for almost all the products pictured here, but it is one of the best places I’ve been to shop my usual bunch of merch.
Do you have any unique place like this in your country? Have you been to Gastovic? ¡Cheers!
