Meeting Mr. Sometimes

Who says no one ever comes to Hawaii?

This past Saturday (and possibly again this Friday), the co-founder (and creator) of the tokidoki brand and character series, Simone Legno, made an appearance at Ala Moana Center's LeSportsac retail store. The tokidoki line, loved by girls 15-35 and widely reviled by their boyfriends, includes not only the (overpriced) handbags by LeSportsac, but a line of clothing and little figures. Simone has also collaborated with other artists and designers to bring the tokidoki look to the Gosho Ningen line and TREXi's Devilrobots.


I entertained the dog, as I waited for a certain someone to get ready to go. He seemed more interested in finding a sunny spot to lie down in.


Simone's appearance was to take place beginning at approximately 1 p.m., so we arrived at around 12:30. The line, as you can see, was already in its formative stage; Hawaii being Hawaii, the bulk of the attendees would not arrive until nearly 1 p.m. Most of the people in line were local girls in their late teens or early 20s and their boyfriends, who no doubt were coerced into attending by their feminine wiles. There were a few guys who seemed perfectly happy to be there by themselves. They also carried tokidoki bags.

A murmur ran through the crowd as Mr. tokidoki himself arrived on the scene. He was accompanied by a couple of other people whom I could not identify. Free stickers and fans were passed around. Good times ensued.

Despite being only about 30 feet from the entrance of the store, it took us over an hour to 'meet' Simone. The reason for this being that some people insisted on having him sign multiple items, which would in no way later be sold on eBay. One lady behind us brought a stroller full of tokidoki bags. The couple in front of us brought a folder full of color-printed images from the tokidoki website, which would be signed by Simone. Apparently that would qualify as signed artwork in their minds.


A giant Qee, to be signed by Simone, was the subject of a lucky draw, er, raffle. Why people pay $80 for a giant lego figure is beyond me. I'll only pay that much for giant rubbery dinosaur-monsters, thanks.


Behind Simone's table was the spring line of LeSportsac tokidoki bags, which featured a pirate theme (yarrr!). The lady directing the line made me stop trying to take pictures of them, although there were like 3 other people on the other side of her photographing them. Do what you can with what you have, I suppose. Still, if you look in the corner of one of the pics, you can see the bags... kind of. Screw her! Ha!

We just had Simone sign one of the TREXi figures, which he informed us was not designed by him. Whatever that means. You put your name on it, buddy.


Simone is a genuinely nice guy, and even did us the favor of drawing a little cactus girl on the back of one of the flyers, without us asking. I gotta feel for the guy looking at the hungry line of 100+ fans behind us, all of whom no doubt would want something similar. The crowning moment of the day was getting a group photo with him, with all of us throwing up the shaka sign.

I should have asked him to produce more figures.