This past week, I had the most amazing discovery.

I’m not sure when, but at some point a video store opened up close to me. Deciding not to go in on many occasions, I figured that this time I would see what’s up. “Maybe they’ll have anime for cheap,” I thought.

And boy did they.

“Time capsule” and “anachronism” are not quite the right ways to describe this store, but it’s a good starting point. The store was small, but concentrated as 80% of the stock was kung fu movies with an entire shelf devoted to Jean-Claude Van Damme. Copies of Street Fighter stared me right in the face. But I wasn’t there for Belgian heroics, I was there to find anime. How was their collection, you ask?

Naruto.

Ninja Scroll.

Fist of the North Star.

Urotsukidoji.

And all of it was bootleg Hong Kong DVDs.

Yes it is THAT kind of old-fashioned video store, a relic of the age when anime was perceived as all tits and porn… but now also Naruto. Oh, and of course the anime was right next to the porn shelf. If you didn’t like Demon Beast Invasion, maybe you’d go for Some Like It Black.

And then there was another shelf devoted to DVDs about black booty that was entirely separate from the porn section.

This store…was history.