While he is excited about the release of Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens, which was partly filmed in Abu Dhabi, next month, he really can't wait for the film's merchandise to hit toy shops in the UAE. But very specific merchandise.
Ueda, 36, is a fanatical collector of memorabilia featuring stormtroopers, the Empire’s front-line fighters.
About 500 of the white-helmeted soldiers have taken over the living room of the flat in Abu Dhabi’s Al Nahyan Camp area where he lives with his wife, Awaka, and their 3-year-old son, Hisa. Each figure, says Ueda, is worth between Dh110 and Dh735.
It’s an impressive collection in its own right – but Awaka points out that it is only actually 10 per cent of her husband’s total stormtrooper haul. They left the rest behind in Tokyo when they moved to the UAE five years ago. “I have a house in Tokyo plus my parents house and a cottage, so there is a lot more,” he says. “I have more-precious ones back in Japan too.”
Ueda’s collection of memorabilia ranges from the odd – such as a Japanese stormtrooper-themed ramen noodles – to ones that hold sentimental value. Ueda holds up a small, simple stormtrooper produced for the release of the first Star Wars film, in 1977.
“This was my first Stormtrooper, which I found in a toy shop in America,” he says. “My parents are diplomats and when I was 10, we moved to Washington and lived there for three years.”
Ueda had never heard of Star Wars before moving to the United States, where his passion for toy collecting began.
“I used to hang out with American schoolkids – I played tennis with them and stuff,” he says. “In Japan, life for kids is very strict – every morning, my teachers would check my hair and cut it if it was too long.
“But in American schools, it was T-shirts, baggy trousers, caps – it was so open, so I had to control a little bit of myself to balance it all out. As I got older, I felt there was nothing to be ashamed of in having a collection. When I went back to Japan, I brought back my collection and it was like I was taking a little bit of America with me.”
Ueda estimates that he has seen the Star Wars films "maybe 100 times. I sit with my son and watch it, as I am guiding him to like Star Wars. He understands now".
Many of the stormtroopers on display are in unopened boxes so that they retain their value. How does he prevent Hisa from ripping open the boxes and playing with the contents, as most young children would be inclined to?
“Surprisingly, I never have that problem,” Ueda says. “I trained him well. He never dares to open any of them. Once he tried to bang on the shelf but that’s it. I guess he understands that these are not toys.”
Awaka admits that the downside of having such a vast and precious collection on display is that she can’t invite friends’ children over to their flat for play-dates.
“I would have to keep saying ‘don’t touch’,” she says.
Awaka, who is from the southern Japanese prefecture of Ehime, met Ueda in 2006 when they were students at Sydney University in Australia.
“I didn’t know how serious the toy collection was when I met him,” Awaka says. “After we got married, I did start to care when it came to how much money he spends on it – but I know it’s a kind of investment, and I can’t stop him.”
“Other guys go for more expensive stuff, such as cars, motorcycles or watches,” says Ueda. “With my hobby, it is expensive, but what I collect is very difficult to find. So when I find something, I feel like I have to buy it.”
He has, nevertheless, scaled his collection down over the years. At first, he collected everything Star Wars-related.
"I sold the rest as soon as I felt it was all getting too much, when I was about 20. I made my decision fast to narrow it down to just stormtroopers because that was what I most liked most from all the Star Wars characters."
One of his lowest moments as a stormtrooper collector came when toy merchandisers started to release models for the redesigned stormtroopers that will appear in the new film. Ueda points out to one of the newer models with a pained expression on his face.
"This one has a new design on the helmet – not very different, but different," he says. "For a toy collector it's a nightmare because it means you have to collect them all again. It makes us collectors cry, because we already have all the old ones." Ueda is surprised that in the UAE, where parts of The Force Awakens were filmed, toy shops have been slow to stock much of the latest merchandise.
“In the rest of the world, they already started simultaneously selling the merchandise, but not here,” he says.
"I have been calling all the toy stores in Abu Dhabi every week. In the worst cases, the staff don't even know that the new Star Wars is coming out soon."
Ueda runs his own production company, Tokyo Toy Films, which produces films, hosts exhibitions and makes commercials. He has already bought his plane ticket to return to Tokyo for the Japanese premier of Star Wars, and has high hopes that he will be able to interview Star Wars director J J Abrams on the red carpet.
It’s a big gamble, as Ueda doesn’t yet know for certain whether there will be a big Japanese premiere, exactly when it will be or who will turn up for the event.
"For my work as a TV presenter, I used to go backstage on the red carpet," he says. "There is a lot of red carpet in Tokyo so I have interviewed Jude Law, Leonardo Di Caprio, many famous people. There should be someone from Star Wars coming to the Japanese premiere, and I hope it is JJ Abrams."
As for the stormtroopers, no matter how full the living room gets, Ueda says he won’t sell them and they will be passed on to his son. Before that happens though, he has grand plans for his troops.
“I want to open a cafe called the Tokyo Toy Café, where I can display these so that everybody can enjoy them, and my collection can stay with me forever,” he says. ”
arts@thenational.ae
