Giant Robot Store

Specialties

Giant Robot features cool items and imports from everywhere. With a slant towards Asian Pop Culture, you’ll see mini figures, vinyl figures, books, graphic novels, comics, cool t-​shirts, stickers, plushes, Uglydolls (yes, Uglydolls started here), and many other items from Asia. Come and have fun, there’s a lot to see.

History

Established in 2001.

Giant Robot store began in 2001. We’ve featured a curated collection of items from all over the world featuring a lot of Asian popular culture goods.

Giant Robot Magazine began in 1994 as the Asian Pop Culture source, we also have a gallery across the street called GR2 where we hold monthly art exhibitions featuring the coolest up and coming artists. Many greats have come through including David Choe, Souther Salazar, and many others. This shop is the one that started it all. Since, there’s been similar stores around the world.

Meet the Business Owner

eric N.

Business Owner

Eric Nakamura is the founder of GIant Robot. He is a Sansei (third generation Japanese American) from Los Angeles, California who grew up in a typical Japanese American household. He attended Japanese school on Saturdays where he learned the basic traditions of Japanese culture. It also played a large role in his identification as Japanese American.

After graduating from University of California at Los Angeles in East Asian Studies, Nakamura worked at Larry Flynt Publications. While working there, he had an idea for publishing a magazine focused on Asian pop culture in the U.S. In 1994, Nakamura and co-​founder Martin Wong photocopied and stapled the first edition of Giant Robot. What began as a zine with a distribution of 240 copies has grown into a full-​fledged magazine with an increasingly international fan base.

Nakamura has built on the success of Giant Robot with stores in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco selling imported art goods from Japan.