Stumptown Otaku — Local services in Portland

The store has a lot of problems, but perhaps the worst is they sell fake Pokemon plush. I knew that had a lot of unlicensed fan art and that's fine, but they straight up sell bootleg plush from aliexpress like it's normal merch. I purchased one without knowing and only found out much later. I'm not happy. On top of that they record everyone in the store all the time and occasionally post the videos on reddit as part of the owners anti-shoplifting crusade. Good for him but I don't want to end up in the background of one of these things and get my image blasted all over social media. He was also vocally anti cop in the past so I find his turn around strange. Overall, I'm done with this store.

Edit: since the owner wants to claim the Pokemon plush are officially licensed, I will elaborate in my review. First of all, the shop literally sells plush that were never made by the official Pokemon company, like eeveelution Mimikyus. So they cannot be official products, because official versions were never made. I had purchased from them a Mix au Lait eeveelution, a plush line that came out in Japan in 2019 and now sells for a lot secondhand, but he had a ton of them for cheap in 2023. After comparing pictures online, I found that the version I bought from him does not have embroidered foot pads like the real one and has an additional suction cup strap on the top, which the real ones don't, but the fake ones on aliexpress do. A lot of other Pokemon plush he sells suspiciously seem to have identical counterparts on aliexpress as well, despite not having been released from the Pokemon company as official plush for a long time (if ever...)

In doing some digging, I discovered others have made this complaint, and claim to have even had their comments removed when it was brought up on the shop's social media. I don't know, maybe he really does buy these fake plush in Japan and doesn't realize, or maybe his supplier is scamming him. But I'm not going to deal with it. And no, I am not a new account trying to slander the store, I just rarely review anything. I am a real customer that discovered I was sold a fake product and am disappointed.

Edit x2: You don't sell the eeveelution mimikyus anymore? THEY ARE LITERALLY ON YOUR WEBSITE FOR SALE RIGHT NOW! I have attached an image. These are FAKE, bootleg plush. They were NEVER released by any official Pokemon source. It's not even a real Pokemon, it's a fan creation! How are you lying like this??

"from before the shop came under my ownership.." bro, this is YOUR store that YOU started! There was no other owner! I can't believe how much of a liar this guy is. Any benefit of the doubt I had is out the window now. Unbelievable.

Also, thank you for adding my legal name in your response, which was not provided to you. What a ridiculous creep. What...

Stumptown Otaku is a great specialty store. I'm not the target demographic by any stretch.

The only anime I watch is Sailor Moon and the only video game series I play is the mainline Pokémon and the Legends game. I have watched about 1/3 of the Ghibli films, enough to be familiar with them and know the plots and characters. So, again, I'm not the primary target customer, BUT...

I worked small, specialty retail, and from the POV of someone who worked in an adjacent-like field (independent comic book store; independent table-top miniature store; independent board game store), this storefront is well put-together and exactly what the community needs. A quiet, unassuming storefront that welcomes all guests, but doesn't hover and try to upsell every minute you are in the store.

As a stockist, that consistent masking (I'm neurodivergent) and fake cheer and salesmanship burned me out and made me grumpy. It's really nice to see the associates who work there are able to just be, and if the guest engages them, they are happy to help and happy to talk about common interests and perhaps why a guest came in. This makes for a laid-back, casual environment that is nice to shop in.

The stock of goods is a carefully curated collection of licensed goods, goods made by the proprietor, and snacks. There is so much available to stock in a store like this but an indie-owned/operated store can't stock it all and hope to survive. The stock range tries to provide a little bit of everything from the major ranges and currently trendy anime.

I've gone in twice, and came out twice, with things I didn't need, but definitely wanted, and was made to feel welcome back anytime.

Don't let the negative-nancies and crazy karens scare you off this place. It's a pearl of a store, worth a visit if you are,or are not,the target...

I really like this shop, I’ve been in a couple times and the vibes are great and the people working are always very helpful and nice. I was looking for something very specific when I came in and ended up getting a lot of help from Nathan and Keanu who were looking things up in the system for me, and digging through the plushies with me until we found everything I was looking for! They were great help and I appreciated the extra steps they were willing to go.

Overall I think this is a great place, some feedback I have though is I do not think I should have had to pay $2 to exchange a blind box item with the one on the shelf. I’ve never seen another store charge for that before. I was also given the other item without a box and didn’t realize until I was home that it seemed to have old hot glue on the product, and a piece was missing that resulted in the item not being able to be set up correctly. So knowing I paid an extra $2 to get a damaged product with missing parts is frustrating.

My other feedback would be to get rid of the “$1” sticker containers. It’s pretty clear those containers are full of stickers you can find in packs on Amazon and those Amazon stickers are notoriously art and IP that have been stolen and are being resold. It’s a small thing but in general I do not buy from stores selling stolen art, and that was exactly why I stopped purchasing from a similar local shop.

I’m still giving 5 stars because the service was so good, and I think my issues are something that could be corrected (although not sure how they’d correct my damaged blind box product) but overall I look forward to seeing that store thrive, hopefully without selling art that doesn’t...