BODY: Every Dragon Quest player has cursed the slippery ice floor at least once. Starting October 7, you can step on one every morning — Square Enix and budget fashion chain Shimamura are turning the series' infamous sliding-tile dungeon floor into a bath mat.
The collaboration spans more than 100 items and lands in roughly 1,400 Shimamura stores across Japan (excluding locations under renovation or temporarily closed), with a dedicated site up at shimamura.gr.jp. Prices run from ¥539 to ¥4,389 — roughly $3.50 to $29 — which is the real headline here.
The lineup reaches well past T-shirts. Apparel covers tees, bottoms, roomwear and knit caps, including a fuzzy cap modeled on Momonja, the flying-squirrel monster that has been ambushing low-level parties since the NES era. Accessories include ID card cases, hair clips and pouches. Home goods bring that "slippery floor" bath mat (¥1,969), plus paper holders and blankets. There are also car air fresheners and dashboard signs, folding picnic mats, shopping bags, and Slime sandals (¥2,739). A Slime roomwear set tops the range at ¥4,389, and the Slime knit cap matches the bath mat at ¥1,969.
Shoppers who spend ¥5,000 or more on qualifying items get an exclusive shopper bag while supplies last, and the Shimamura Park app is handing out limited-time smartphone wallpapers through its member rewards program between October 7 and November 1.
The insider take
Shimamura is not a fashion brand Western readers will recognize, and that is exactly the point. It is the roadside, suburban, park-your-kei-car-out-front chain — Japan's thriftiest major clothing retailer, with a devoted shopper subculture that calls itself shimarer. Anime and game collabs are its signature move, and the reason they matter is geography: 1,400 stores means a kid in rural Akita gets the same Slime sandals as someone queuing in Akihabara, at a price that undercuts standard character-goods markups by half. Those odd numbers — ¥1,969, ¥4,389 — are tax-inclusive Shimamura pricing, not marketing cleverness. Expect sell-outs within days and a Mercari resale spike by the following weekend; Shimamura does not restock much, and this collab is aimed squarely at the Famicom-generation parents now shopping with their kids in tow.
Originally reported by GAME Watch (Japanese).