It's like stepping off the street in New York - right into the dream world of a gadget-loving teenager in Tokyo.
AC Gears, located at 69 East 8th Street in Manhattan’s East Village, is a new go-to place in the Big Apple for anyone craving quirky, high-design toys and accessories from all over the world, though primarily Japan, that are usually not widely on sale here in the US.
Many devices are so authentically foreign that they do not even have English instructions.
“We do have an office based out of Osaka, and that's where we get a lot of the products from, and they're looking out in and around Japan for new things that coming out,” said Paul Rothman of AC Gears.
“A lot what we have - all the packaging and instructions - are in Japanese, but usually we can explain to the customer before they buy it or can sometimes provide instructions for them,” continued Rothman.
An East Village store's inventive electronic imports bring fanciful foreign designs to the United States. Adam Balkin has more.
Most of the products, which range from $5 to about $400, are pretty simple concepts just with one strange twist, like very realistic, furry electronic animals, indecipherable wristwatches, and golden computer peripherals.
AC Gears got its start online about six years ago selling audio equipment, and still acquires half its revenue in that area - with everything from extremely high-end headphones to extremely funky and quirky headphones.
Those include earbuds designed to resemble candy and the “mu-bot,” a cute hand-sized robot that contains earphones that is one of the store's best sellers.
“[The mu-bot is] a little robot whose arms retract and act as headphones, so you can listen to music through this little robot character, and you can clip him to your shirt as you listen,” said Rothman.
A warning for anyone who gets overly excited about all these kind of electronic goods – AC Gears is a place that can literally swallow up a good portion of your paycheck.