Ricky Takizawa at the 13th anniversary party for the Popkiller brand. Photo by Andrew McClees.
Popkiller’s Happy 13th
You could be excused for thinking that Pop is a music store. Ricky Takizawa, founder of Pop and Popkiller brands, packaged Pop's T-shirts like vinyl record albums. His stylish, and often music obsessed shoppers loved Pop’s unique packaging for the art, and yes, for the novelty of flipping through the T-shirts like their favorite vinyls. Pop is located at 349 E. 2nd St. in Los Angeles' Little Tokyo.
Takizawa spent the past 13-years as the owner of Popkiller, the parent shop for Pop, where he served as the purveyor of unique T-shirts, often with a Little Tokyo satire on rock icons. (One shirt takes the logo for rock heroes the Ramones, but turns it into Ramens, yuk, yuk.) His neighboring shop, Popkiller, located at 343 E. 2nd St., sells T-shirts, vintage clothes, toys and accessories, also filled with a Japanese pop obsession.
Takizawa has been running Popkiller for 13 years, and he celebrated his lucky 13th anniversary Dec. 1 with a party with DJs, bacon cupcakes and Asahi beer. To enter the 13th anniversary party, many guests were required to wear happy red circle stickers on their cheeks.
