So I got home last night from 20 days in Japan, it was not a very card focused type of trip as it was a honeymoon but I got to do a fair amount of card shop browsing.
Everybody and their mothers has done a report like this by now, but I figure some might be interested to see how I went and what I saw.
The main hobby/card shops I visited were Mandarake, Hobby Station and Yellow Submarine, with other ones along the way. Most shops only carried new product and the only 2 shops I saw any sort of old product in was Mandarake and Yellow Submarine. The AmiAmi shop in Akihabara is also worth a mention for how impressive the selection was for their pop culture product in general. The place was always busy as well. Definitely worth visiting just to see the place in action. Mandarake Akihabara had the biggest selection of No Rarity stuff, on our first visit to Tokyo I saw 2 NR Charizards there, one for 32k yen and the other for 298k yen, and by the time I returned to Tokyo at the end of our trip the 298k one had gone.
Others have said it before but Pokemon doesn’t really take up much of the floor space in all the card shops I visited. The shops have these big glass cabinets that have single cards in them and very often there were only 1-3 of these cases that had Pokemon cards in them, and again it was only new/current product.
The most space was taken up by YGO, MTG, Cardfight Vanguard, and another TCG which I think was called Battle Spirits? Or maybe there were multiple TCGs that all looked similar.
Pokemon Centres were an absolute joy to visit, the amount of unique and tempting merch there was really a sight to behold. I visit the Mega Centre in Sunshine City in Tokyo, the Hiroshima store(which I regret not buying any Karp merch from), and the Kyoto store which was only a block away from our hotel in Kyoto.
Thanks Glenn. Pokemon related things was only a small part of the trip, the rest of it was just simply amazing. My favourite place we visited was Mount Koya. The Okunoin Cemetary was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.
Arashiyama is where the famous Bamboo Forest walk is, that portion was a bit diminished because of how crowded it was(to be expected), but once we walked further back past the temples and into the neighbourhoo area it opened up into more greenery and paths winding through the forest and mountainside, ending at a river that could have been a part of Lord of the Rings.
Honourable mention goes to Todaiji Temple in Nara. Beautiful temple with wild freeroaming deer everywhere.
I’ve seen pictures of Arashiyama (the ones lit up at night especially) and it’s one of the reasons why I want to visit Japan. It sounded like you had a deep appreciation for the natural aspect that Japan has to offer versus just wanting to see places like Tokyo. Glad you had a great time with your partner. Congrats again.
Yea mandarakes now have more of the newer items and very few of older stuff. A friend facetimed me when he was at the akibahara and the shibuya locations. very very small things now compared to what I saw back in 2016 but then again pokemon has grown a lot in just a couple of years.
Trust me I know the feeling going into the Mega Tokyo pokemon center in sunshine city mall it was crazy just being inside there. I think i spent like 200 the first night in japan going there LOL
In march i’ll be in japan, do you have any recomended shop to visit for old cards?
do you feel is convenient to buy there? i’ve seen some footage from some Mandarake showing e-series holos ranging from 5 to 40$ which is very similar to europe/USA.
Nothing crazy, i’d like to complete my WOTC sets (especially the e-series) and if I managed with supply/budget Masaki, VS and vending.
I’ve been told to go to akihabara mandarake complex 7th floor, and around ikeburo, especially hobby station and yellow submarine.
