The interesting thing about Star Wars Celebration events is that every attendee will have a unique and different experience. The likes of cosplaying, panels, photo opps, signings, merchandise and talking to other people are just some of the many reasons why Star Wars fans love Celebration so much. For the middle day I decided to push myself and so, having walked our dog at 4:45 am (his earliest walk ever!), I left home extra early to get to the venue in Chiba Prefecture and be in line about 90 minutes before the merchandise store opened at 9:00 am. I rather foolishly thought I’d be done and dusted within an hour or so!

Little did I know that once inside there was another two hour wait. In hindsight I really should’ve given up at that point but without knowing how long it’d take it really is diffcult to leave a queue.

As it turned out, that predicted two hour wait time was rather optimistic and it was actually closer to 3.5 hours!! Meanwhile many other people were watching the Andor and Ahsoka panels on the Celebration stage!! You’ve gotta laugh really! As nice as it was chatting to some Japanese, Aussies and Scandinavians in the line it really is absolute madness to be waiting that long. I hate to think how long those way behind me in the line spent queueing that day. Probably the vast majority of their whole day would’ve been taken up waiting to enter the store where many things had no doubt already sold out!

The store was actually a spacious place doing a roaring trade in all manner of items like clothing, art prints, stationery, lanyards, coins, pins, bags, magnets, posters and even skateboards!

Also available were traditional Japanese items like chopsticks, lanterns, fans, ceramic bottles, soy sauce dishes, tea cup sets, bento boxes, tenugui cloths, lucky charms and so on. Not surprisingly all the Japanese style merchandise was a huge hit with the international visitors. I’ve lived in Tokyo for a long time now but still get excited by such a sight.

What was annoying was that very few items seemed to have prices on them so you basically had to just take the plunge and hope for the best at checkout! I even asked a guy later how much the jacket he was wearing cost but he had absolutely no idea! Put it on the card and worry about it later seemed to be the common philosophy!

Had I not queued for so long I may have just popped in, nosed around and left empty handed. Having waited for such a ridiculous amount of time I really couldn’t do that so felt obliged to buy a few things.

Was it worth the 5 hour wait to get these items?!!

Over in the main hall, I soon came across a store selling some very cool-looking socks but at more than 3000 yen ($21+) a pair I soon moved on! Who pays that for a pair of socks?! Quite a lot of people it seems!

As with Day 1 there were hundreds and hundreds of amazing cosplayers and so here is a selection of some of the best ones I managed to capture on camera on Day 2!

I did think about cosplaying on one of the days but decided against it. Sure, it can be great fun but it is a little troublesome so you really have to appreciate the time and effort so many people put into their outfits. There were of course many, many more fantastic costumes which I sadly never got to see.

In terms of panels, I went to a few in the afternoon beginning with Cantina Japan on the Holonet News Stage which I caught the latter half of. My main interest in this one was hearing about their ForceMap Japan book they’d put together for all the Star Wars related places in Japan.

After that I hung around for Blast Points in the same room. This is a wonderful Star Wars podcast that has been running since about 2016. Hosts Jason and Gabe really delve deep into the slightly quirkier and lesser known side of Star Wars and indeed did a panel the previous afternoon about the George Lucas Super Live Adventure show which was only ever performed in Japan back in the early 1990s. I sadly missed that due to being unable to get back from the animation panel on the Celebration Stage in time but wouldn’t be denied this time.

This session seemed fairly unscripted and laidback as they discussed some of the Star Wars news stories that had broken the previous day. As well as reaction to the likes of Ahsoka, Starfighter and Maul there were also plenty of musings about cakes in Star Wars, Yoda blinking and Spinal Tap! I really enjoyed hearing some of the behind-the-scenes stories about how the podcast is recoreded and it was good to see how well they bounce off each other.

For the last six months or so I’ve been communicating on Instagram a fair bit with Italian collector Jacobo so it was lovely to finally meet up with him, and we had a good chat once the the Blast Points had finished.

After that I went to the Fan Stage to see ‘The Art of Japanese Star Wars vegetable carving’ panel by Oki the vegetable god. I’ve met the guy a fair few times but this was actually my first time to experience him doing his stuff live on stage. This particular stage was generally too big for all the panelists on it but Oki did a great job in trying to keep everyone’s attention with a parade of cosplayers at the start followed by a humorous, entertaining and occasionally moving presentation of his fantastic vegetable carvings in both Japanese and English.

Oki has featured in part on the live coverage of Star Wars Celebration for about a decade on YouTube now but this time his role was far more prominent, and indeed he was carving away in the background on the Live stage for much of the weekend and got to meet all the celebrity guests. I was delighted for him and there’ll be more on that in my Day 3 report.

His special guest was fellow Jedi Order Japan member Yuki Shibaura who is an absolute master of paper cutting craft and her designs are true wonders of art. I’ve communicated with her quite a bit over the years on social media so it was nice to finally introduce myself to her at the conclusion of the panel.

That was pretty much the end of my day but there was enough time to line up (only a few minutes this time!) for a photo at a spot inspired by a traditional Japanese teahouse which  featured handcrafted droids and a variety of characters recreating the world of ‘The Duel‘ from Star Wars Visions Volume 1.

Talking of droids, I had a couple of lovely conversations about the mid-80s cartoon series ‘Droids‘ with random people who saw the t-shirt I was wearing which was really nice, and it really is these short interactions which make Celebration so good as the one thing we all have in common is a love of Star Wars.

So that was how the middle part of my Star Wars Celebration Japan 2025 experience unfolded but there was still one more day remaining and what I did on the final day can be seen here.

Click here to read ‘Star Wars Celebration Japan 2025 Day 1: Ryan Gosling ‘& Sigourney Weaver Up Close, Animation & 90s Panels, Cuteness Overload, Cosplayers & Meeting A Fan Favourite’

Click here to read ‘Reflecting On 15 Years Since Star Wars Celebration Japan & Looking Ahead To The Next One In 2025!’

Click here to read ‘Star Wars Sparks Joy At This Christmas Event Just Outside of Tokyo’ 

Click here to read ‘The Countdown To Star Wars Day 2024 Has Begun With 11 Days of Festivities In Japan’s 2nd Biggest City’