We better bring a pair of shorts.
Yeah I heard they crazy difficult to expect so I wasn’t expecting much. I could have sworn that tickets were available directly through Japanese website but you have to register an account.
Thanks for the tip - if I find a machine I might have a quick look!
Does anyone have some game store suggestions in Tokyo and Osaka? I have some specific used stuff I want to try to look for: City Shrouded in Shadow, some Pokemon GB games, Mother 3. Plus some new release stuff. Where should I be going to find this stuff? I realize prices are going to be crazy no matter what, unfortunately.
Retro TV Game Revival in Namba is a solid spot and prices are pretty normal.
It’s in Den Den Town so there are electronics stores everywhere with newer stuff.
If you’re also looking for anything else that exists, there’s always Yodobashi Camera.
Allow me to recommend this thread: IC Guide to Game Shoppin in Tokyo
City Shrouded in Shadow will be slightly frustrating to find as it is not pricey enough to be in the showcase, so you’ll need to look for it on the shelves. Find a picture of the spine that you can pull up on your phone when browsing so you can recognise the kanji.
Pokemon games are everywhere and I imagine Mother 3 will be as well.
My recommendation for if you just want to get those three and not spend too much time browsing, is to go to Akihabara and hit up Super Potato and Surugaya. You will pay the highest prices there, but I’d be amazed if you don’t come away with all of them from one trip.
If you want to do some more hunting to get better prices, the Surugaya in Shinjuku is good and has become my go to. I also recommend the Mandarake game store in Nakano Broadway (4 minute train ride from Shinjuku). Nakano Broadway is full of cool shops and looks like a SMT dungeon. The stair layout is crazy and it can be tough to find. I think it is on the second floor. Go in the afternoon as a lot of stores don’t open in the morning.
If you have the time and you’re going on day trips, look in Hard Offs outside the main cities for bargains. Book Offs are everywhere in Tokyo and often contain treasure.
For new release stuff, your best bet are any Book Offs, but especially the one opposite the Shinjuku Station West Exit. It is above a suit shop and is rammed with PS4/PS5 and Switch. If you want it to be brand new, go to Yodobashi Camera.
BTW, are you looking for foreigner friendly restaurant advice? I went to Tokyo earlier in the year by myself and can help with that after some good experiences I had.
Shoot I had no idea about that thread, thank you!!
And thanks for the suggestions, the tip about the spine is a good one lol. I might be down to just get stuff at Super Potato, idk. I’m going with my partner and don’t want to spend too much time just browsing because she’s not interested in retro games so would want to be pretty efficient in getting what I want.
Also looking for CDs(Tower Record prolly) and older Capcom art books(Mandarake, Surugaya, Bookoff). That sound right for those?
And yes would love some foreigner friendly food stuff! We’re definitely hitting touristy stuff like Tsukiji and doing some convenience store lunches but otherwise we haven’t done much research into food. If you have an omurice rec that would be super appreciated, that’s one of the things my partner really wants!
Super Potato doesn’t stock PS4 so keep that in mind. If you’re going to Akiba anyway, hit up Super Potato but if you’re not, and you’re going to Shinjuku, try Surugaya there first to see what you can get before going to Super Potato.
For new CDs, Tower is great. For old CDs, my wife found loads of good stuff in the upstairs of the Shinjuku West Book Off I mentioned in my previous post. The CDs are organised by the Japanese alphabet, so if you have a hiragana chart on your phone (or you kow hiragana), you can look for the dividers with those characters on to find them. CDs are the hardest things to pick through because the spines are so so small compared to games.
For Capcom artbooks, Mandarake is probably the best bet. Last trip, I got a bunch of Capcom game guides from Book Offs but I didn’t see any artbooks in them. Might have just been the locations I went to though. Mandarake in Akiba should have some but if not, the Mandarake games in Nakano definitely does.
Okay, for food, what I found out is that most places in the main cities use touch screens now, and all of these have an English option. I found loads of good places to eat just by using Google maps for restaurants in an area, and looking at the reviews. Ones that have touch screens will have lots of English reviews mentioning that.
For specifics, if you want conveyor belt sushi, my recommendation is Sushiro. You don’t need to speak to a human at any point during your visit. You use a touch screen at the entrance, you wait for your table number, and then use a touch screen to order sushi.
Torkizoku is a good, cheap place for izakaya food. Same deal as above.
One thing I really wanted to try was a Japanese breakfast set meal. You can get these for very cheap as Yoshioya. They have touch screens for ordering and when you want to pay, just stand up at the end, hold your bill and say “sumimasen” and a staff member will sort you out immediately. Yoshinoya is fine but not great so I found Shinpachi Shokudo Shinjuku. This does fish and rice set meals. They’re cheap, have a touch screen and you pay the bill as above. I went there twice because it was good.
For omurice, it has been 11 years since I had it, but one of the restaurants in the top floors of the department stores near Shinjuku station did a decent omurice. In general, if you’re worried about going into smaller places, department store restaurants are very foreigner friendly.
I know what it is like to be nervous and unsure about going into the smaller restaurants but it has gotten easier and easier over the years. If you’re in a city, you can pretty much go into anywhere and the staff will be able to accommodate you no problem. Google translate on your phone is amazing now. If there isn’t a touch screen, just point at something and say “Onegaishimasu” and you’ll get it.
Hope that helps and let me know if I can help with anything else!
This is all so good, thank you!! I really appreciate the practical advice and stuff, a lot of guidebooks and stuff miss that I feel. I got the book that CakesWithFaces, who I think you’ve plugged here before, wrote and it has been similarly really helpful to my partner and I preparing. I bought shinkansen tickets the other day using it lol
For cds, disc union! There’s also a recofan in akihabara so you can do everything in one place maybe.
For art books and all, mandarake is gonna be the place. There’s one of those in akihabara as well.
oh disc union looks gooooooood, thank you! I’m mostly looking for jp punk discs. Stuff like Blue Hearts should be easy to find new and used(I assume at least) but for stuff like The Stalin maybe I’ll have to look a little harder.
i know you asked for tokyo/osaka, but in case you or anyone lurking is going to hiroshima, there’s a place called misery/bloodsucker in hiroshima that is just insane for hc/punk stuff.
This is probably a fools errand kind of question but I’ll try anyway: how much of a hop-on hop-off situation is the train from Tokyo to Kyoto (assuming it’s not a super local one)? There’s a record store in Nagoya called Stiff Slack records I’d like to stop at, but it would involve me separating from the group I’ll be with (since I don’t think anyone else would want to go) - is it pretty high frequency (say 1 train an hour on the weekdays)? I’d like to just hop off, check it out for an hour, then hop back on if possible, but I know it’s probably too optimistic.
Also bonus question: I was thinking of trying to find some museums/centers devoted to left wing history/activism in the Tokyo/Kyoto/Osaka areas, but the only thing I could find was the recently closed (RIP) Liberty Osaka; it’s probably more of a stretch but has anyone found anything close to that description?
If you’re talking about taking the shinkansen (bullet train), pretty much every train from Tokyo to Kyoto stops at Nagoya Station. About 90 minutes from Tokyo to Nagoya, then about 30 minutes from Nagoya to Kyoto. At peak periods on a weekday, there’s a shinkansen going from Tokyo to Kyoto like every ten minutes. Super doable.
Dang thank you! Every 10 minutes? Coming from the US that sounds unfathomable lol
Nothing can really prepare you for the smooth wonder that is shinkansen travel.
We’re going for the first time in May so this is all good stuff!
Due to a variety of reasons, I missed my 8am shinkansen Tokyo-Nagoya train. Thankfully the ticket office clerk was able to transfer our tickets to the 8:12am journey for no charge (we figured the 8:06am trip would be too tight a squeeze to reach the platform on time). It really is another world.
Any tips for traveling Japan when it’s raining lol seems like it’s gonna be very wet for the next few weeks while I’m there.
If you want to fit in with the locals, don’t take a “eh, well I guess I’ll just be wet shrug” attitude! Get a good umbrella, some waterproof shoes/boots, and a raincoat. I’m surprised at how many (non-local) people here just “tough it out.” Since you don’t want to spend all your time indoors, I’d recommend making your time in the rain as comfortable as you can! Luckily the temperatures will fiiiiinally be dropping below 30 in the next few days (can’t wait), so wearing that extra gear hopefully won’t be too unbearable.
Be aware that smoothness aside it will cost you about $250 and several hours to do this! You’re basically traveling the length of san francisco to los angeles (if that makes sense to you), about 4-500 miles. I would advise to just find another cool record store that’s closer to where you’re going.
I have never found any significant leftist museums out here, but if there were I’d imagine it’d be in tokyo, rather than the more nationalist south.
@sabertoothalex yeah it’s raining off and on right now. just get a clear umbrella and do your best! It’ll still be hot so you’ll get to have the odd experience of walking around in the rain while also sweating.
Heh. See, so there you go. That’s the two different opinions you’ll find on the “how to deal with rain” dilemma lol.