The Japan Trip Resource Thread!

[QualityChimp]

I met up with Tim Rogers who writes the Japanese column in GamesTM who showed a few backstreet shops.

I also used these three books:


Great, but a little out of date. Found some awesome Gundam shops and the Bandai Museum with this. Good fun!




Heeeeeeey! (/fonzie)

[noobish hat]

why would you want to make out in japanese?

[randombs]

You met TIM ROGERS!?!?! Jesus H! Lucky git!

As for Making Out in Japanese, I've seen that and have one similar, although it's called Beyond Polite Japanese which would probably get less stares on the train, but it's really funky!

[kryss]

I count 2 books there...
Making out in Japanese is a great book for learning everyday, natural Japanese. Only a few pages are actually about dating.

[DCharlie]

It's not the place it was for almost-retro (GC stuff, etc) but I'm still really happy with the newer games at less than half standard retail.
Yodobashi Camera killed Akiba.

i'm not sure that's true really - from about 2001 onwards Aki was suffering a slow painful death. One by one stores were going out of business. With the high rises replacing the old car park/baseball courts, with several other big construction projects happening, the cheap rents in Aki started to climb up wards and it made running small private second hand stores difficult.

Then as each store went they were replaced by either different ventures altogether or , amazingly, restaurants. So what stores survive to this day i don't think we'll see in a few years time or in a much changed form.

we've lost some great stores over time too

Funnily enough, you mention Media land which is a shadow of the store it was 3 years ago, which was itself a shadow of the store it was back in 2000.

So yeah, whilst Akihabara is changing/dying, i don't believe Yodobashi was the sole reason. Akihabara has went from being the stinky place only populated by the terminally geeky to being something approaching "the new shibuya" and it's been one long transformation spanning 7 or so years - and it's not finished yet. I strongly suspect that the games stores will move to somewhere cheaper as Aki becomes more and more expensive - perhaps Nakano Broadway is the next Aki?

[Richard.John]

I liked the old large size Asobit City. I guess Yodobashi kills competition. Like having a monster Tescos in a small village populated by small, family run shops.

[Anpanman]

I agree, first time I visited back in 1994 it was the most incredible place I'd been to, felt like a kid in a toy shop.
There was a knid of market with these tiny stalls, each specialising in usually just one thing, for example one guy would sell CPU fans for PC's - and that was all, he had shedloads out on display. Someone else would sell spares for Gameboy's, different coloured cattery covers etc.

Next time I visited in 2001, it had transformed into LaoxLand and the change of pace seemed to increase as twelve months later lots of the shops I have got stuff from has disappeared and the bigger stores seemed to get bigger.

Not been to Aki since and even though we are going to pop over to friends in Tokyo next year I doubt I'll pay a visit.

[DeathAdder]

it seemed everything had been bought up by the ebay-sellers.

That's true. It's quite sad that collecting game has gone the way of collecting Star Wars toys - instead of being an enthusiast's hobby it is now serious money and hence just about every game listed on ebay has "RARE - LOOK" in the description.

[kryss]

I must admit that the three shops I always go to the most - MediaLand, TokiwaMusen and MesseSanoh haven't changed much since I've been here. They've always had great bargains and that's all I want really.

[teddymeow]

I love Media Land. I remember that's where I got my Resistance and Motostorm from in 2007 and they only cost me about £22 each! PS3 had only been out 3 months!

Messe Sanoh was awesome too. Got a cool Triggerheart Excelica poster when I bought the DC game there.

I quite liked Yamagiwa Soft. Not cheap but that's where I picked up my metallic blue 1000 series PSP. I was sad when I saw they'd closed when I was there this year - replaced with a Sofmap.

Speaking of Sofmap - that was the biggest surprise back in Feb - that the branch Edge always used to show people queuing outside of for big softtware / hardware releases - had shut.

I wonder how different it'll look this coming Feb?

[kryss]

There's a bigger one down the street where the old Yamagiwa housewares shop used to be - you know, the one with the lighting floor that outshone Europe.
The best Softmap for games is just down from Club Sega. Be sure to check out the bargain bins on the 1st and 2nd floors. I saw an Aerosmith Guitar Hero (with controller) there on Wednesday for 4980yen. Also the 3rd floor has one of the best secondhand selections around. I'm using the Jpn/US floor convention to save confusion here.

[teddymeow]

What's the game shop, no bigger than a cupboard, that's opposite Gamers? That place had some mad bargains. I got 4 of the Bit Generations games on GBA for ?700 each!

I hope the currency situation improves before next year. The past 2 trips we got ?200 per ?1 but at the moment it's considered lucky to hit ?160!!

Damn economic crisis.

[kryss]

That would be one of my favourites - TokiwaMusen. Always bargains to be had there.

The exchange rate is great for us in Japan though. Paid off my credit card bill back home no problem.

[Richard.John]

The exchange rate is like swings and roundabouts. My UK savings have lost about 40% of their yen value in the last year or so. Great if you want to visit the UK though, but not so great if you want to come here.

[teddymeow]

I hope the currency situation improves before next year. The past 2 trips we got ?200 per ?1 but at the moment it's considered lucky to hit ?160!!

What's it going to take to get a decent exchange rate? I mean, it's sitting at ?142 per ?1 now.

That makes prices in Japan almost double! I really hope it starts to improve soon.