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City Hunter Hammer Tops Yahoo! Japan Charity Auctions (Updated)
posted on by Egan Loo
Not-So-Daily Link of the Day: Yahoo! Japan Auctions, the #1 online auction site in Japan, has announced its 10 auctions that brought in the most money for charity in 2007, and topping the list was the "World's First(!?) Official Tsukasa Hōjō 'Life-Size' 100-Ton Hammer." The hammer measures 1.8 meters (5.9 feet) long, just like the fictional one Kaori wields against her partner Ryo in Tsukasa Hōjō's City Hunter action comedy manga and anime. (It also appears in Hojo's Angel Heart manga.) However, the fiber-reinforced-plastic-coated polystyrene replica "only" weighs about 50 kilograms (110 pounds) in real life. Hojo signed this hammer, which earned 1,832,000 yen (about US$17,150) for charity.
The hammer topped the second-place auction item, a 1,524,000-yen (US$14,270) Fernades TE-HT guitar from Tomoyasu Hotei. Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill trailer and film made this guitarist internationally famous with their use of his "Battle Without Honor or Humanity" song. The hammer also beat out signed uniforms from three top Japanese baseball players. A 2.2-meter (7.2-feet) steel replica of the Spear of Longinus from the Evangelion anime franchise was also put on Yahoo! Japan Auctions. However, its unverified closing bid of 13,727,000 yen (about US$121,100) was not included in the top 10 charity auctions. In all, Yahoo! Japan's charity auctions raised 135,948,760 yen (about US$1,272,752) in 2007.
Source: Nikkei Business
Update: Yen-dollar conversion of the hammer's price corrected.
