The Death of Tachiyomi

Tachiyomi is a Japanese term that means reading as you stand, and it’s certainly something you tend to see a lot of when you walk into a convenience store here. Over the years I’ve been seeing more and more stores keep the magazines tied with plastic wrap to prevent reading — or also to keep people from grabbing the goodies that come in a lot of fashion magazines.

I was a bit surprised though when I walked in a 7-11 the other day and found every single magazine on the shelves tied that way — the photo above is of just one section, but all other sections, including comics and women’s magazines, were bound in this way. Now, it could be that just this store’s manager felt that his customers were overdoing it — I’ve been to other 7-11s since and did not see the same thing — but it’s still disappointing to see this, no longer able to flip through a magazine before you buy.