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Disclaimer: This blog is not nearly as epic, well written or interesting as Etter’s Japan blogs.

So I was in Japan for the last 10 days to take care of some personal stuff. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to go pay Mani a visit, but did manage to get some last minute shopping in yesterday. In fact I’m writing this right now in the abyss of Tokyo station waiting for the express train to Narita Airport to arrive.

Although I basically go to Japan once a year it had been a few years since I last went on a serious binge run. To give you some perspective, exploits I’ve done in the past include buying 90+ volumes of manga (and needing a box for space lol) one year, buying 50+ volumes of novels, or getting 12+ games in one go. It’s always a nerve racking experience going through US customs with a ton of stuff like this. Variety of selection + cheap prices makes for a deadly combination. I’ll probably never buy more than 5 volumes of manga at a time anymore though, as I feel that the vast majority of post-2000 series blow serious ass. I digress.

I didn’t really care for buying manga yesterday, as the only series I wanted to finish buying was Trigun Maximum, v13 and v14. I didn’t really want to buy novels either, as I did a bum rush on that two years ago in Kyoto and actually hadn’t even finished reading all of them yet. And so that left the obvious choice of hunting for games. People are all over Shana, Haruhi, Zero no Tsukaima, Index, etc but I have volume 1 for all of these and thought they were mediocre at best so had no interest in buying the rest. They’re just not well written at all, save maybe Index, which has decent action depiction.

Naturally that lead me to the hellpit of Japan, Akihabara, which is home to probably about anywhere from 20-50 used game stores within its confined electronics region. To jump to the conclusion, I milled about the district for about 4 hours yesterday and found every game I was looking for other than Breath of Fire IV (I know I can get the iso – and I have the iso – but I wanted the actual thing to play on console) and one game that my brother asked me to get (but of course the games he wants are obscure as hell so it was a long shot to begin with).

Anyways, here’s the list with approximate prices

PSX:
Valkyrie Profile - $12
Beyond the Beyond - $1
Vagrant Story - $12

PS2
Valkyrie Profile 2 - $20
Shin Megami Tensei 3 Nocturne - $20 (good god the Maniacs version was selling for $150)
La Pucelle - $15
Persona 4 - $40
Persona 3 - $35
Tales of Symphonia - $20
Tales of the Abyss - $24
Front Mission 5 - $15
Disgaea 2 - $20
Phantom Kingdom - $15

I didn’t bother getting the Persona 3 expansion. I didn’t plan on getting Phantom Kingdom or the two VP games, but they were pretty cheap so I made a stab at them. Esp VP, since I had started playing it on emulator like 3 times in the past and could never sustain interest past 2 hours or so. There’s something about emulator sound and graphics that just kills the atmosphere/environment to the extent that I completely lose the desire to play it. I always wanted to try Vagrant Story and Beyond the Beyond, so when I saw them for cheap I said ‘why not~’. TBH I’m not even sure why I bought these games at all, considering I haven’t even finished playing the last batch of games I bought like 3 years ago, including Boku to Maou, Shadow Hearts 1, Shadow Hearts 2, Gun Parade March, Tales of Destiny, Wild Arms Alter Code: F, etc. I wonder how many of these games I’m even going to finish… my guess is going to be the 3 Nipponichi Software games plus Persona 3 and 4.

A guide to Akihabara used game shopping

I doubt you guys would really have any interest or any realistic use for this information, since these stores only sell Japanese region games, but here’s what I learned from yesterday while comparing game selection and prices. Visit the stores in this order.

One
Go to Book Off. I didn’t even know they handle games now, and I visited this place last yesterday when I was just looking for $1 books to buy. Random ass games that really aren’t popular with buyers were on average $5 cheaper than the next best deal. I think I saw VP1 for like $10 instead of the typical $12-15 range. However, the really popular titles tend to be slightly higher than the rest of the stores.

Two
Sofmap main store. The top flop of the main Sofmap store in Akihabara has by far the largest floorspace for games in general, due to the fact that they are one of the main electronics chain stores as well. It seems counterintuitive that the brand name store has a better selection for used games than smaller more niche ones, but when looking for relatively recent / relatively popular games used, this is definitely the choice. There are stores that specialize in really retro games like NES games or even GBA games and stuff, but most people don’t really have interst in these so I recommend you do most of your shopping done here. With only a few few exceptions, every game I was looking for was about $5 cheaper here than Trader or Liberty, two niche’ish used game store chains. (Unfortunately I had already bought like 4 or 5 games at Trader before coming here, so I think I paid like $15 extra).

Three
Trader. Solid game selection but super confined store space. But honestly I think it is inferior to Sofmap in nearly every aspect. Maybe it’s a place to find used versions of really recently released games, I think the new Devil Summoner game that came out about a week ago was cheaper here than at Sofmap.

Four
Liberty. Their second floor handled NES games and even Super CD games, making me chuckle. It’s confusing visiting Liberty and Trader stores, because there are seriously about 12 of each in Akihabara since each store has really limited space. Usually each store is specialized, like “Liberty CD store” or “Liberty Hobby Store” (ie figures etc). Basically, try to find everything you’re looking for at Softmap, then move onto the lower parts of the list if you couldn’t find the game you were looking for. If you’re looking for mainstream, relatively recent stuff, Sofmap should cover 99% of your needs.

Five
Messesanoh main store
Yea fuck this place, I think it only sells new games, and on top of that is usually a rip off.

Six
Laox
Another of the main electronics chains in Akihabara. I believe they mainly handle new games, sometimes you can find random ass left over games though so it’s at least worth a visit if you couldn’t find that relatively unpopular game, like my brother requested. (they randomly had it lol)

[h]
Honestly this district becomes worse and worse every time I visit. I’ve been coming here on and off for somewhere around 13 years now, and the place just gets weirder and weirder. It was originally a place for PC/Radio/Electronics nerds to buy parts cheap, (and these stores still exist right next to the JR station) then the number of huge electronics chains increased, then the game stores and hobby stores started popping up, then there were more and more stores handling X-rated PC games and affiliated items, and now, as you probably know, weird Akiba-idol phenomenons and maid cafes (which btw are going out of business fast lol).

In fact I encountered a good 20 random girls in santa skirt outfits or weird maid-ish outfits handing out fliers for their respective cafes. I don’t think they even exist on the main electronics road and are instead in some of the side roads where the rent is cheaper, b/c I don’t recall seeing any signs for them as I milled about the main road. There’s probably some interesting / untapped stores in the side roads but I’m too lazy to figure out what is where etc.

I briefly contemplating stepping into the Akihabara “HEY” arcade but since I have no clue how to play the recent games, and hadn’t played 3s in about a month, and can’t stand cigarette smoke at all (Japanese arcades even come equipped with ask trays), I decided against it. Sry to the regulars of the Fighting games thread, but no I did not see Issay there hahaha.

Oh, there was a fat dude in a santa outfit handing out newspapers saying “Christmas is cancelled~~” which made me laugh. Backstory is that Christmas is a couple’s holiday for some reason in Japan (they say the 6 hours from 9pm of the 24th to 3am on the 25th is the time when pple have the most sex in the country lol). Girls are desperate to find a boyfriend for Christmas, etc. It’s weird, don’t ask me why it’s like this. So yea, it’s kind of an internet joke to “ruin Christmas” or “Cancel Christmas” to spite the couples when you’re under the guise of an unattractive single online persona, as most people are. For instance, クリスマス撲滅委員会 (Christmas Crushers Committee) is a pretty known phrase online. I was just pleasantly(?) surprised that I got to witness the things I read online about hahaha. (Recently there was a guy talking about how he spent last Christmas handing out packets of tissues to couples that had a cardboard sheet on the bottom that said “BREAK UP” hahahahah)

Books

So I was looking for Trigun v13/14, and neither Animate nor the Shosen Book Tower had v14 . I’ve stopped buying every other manga series b/c they’re just not worth the money anymore (I used to buy Tenjo Tenge before it went to utter shitmode, I got tired of Kaiohki and I kinda lost interest in Vagabond). I contemplated buying Moyashimon, but passed on it.

I stopped by Book Off b/c I randomly found it on my way to the Shosen Book Tower, and bought 17 novels iirc, which I didn’t plan on doing at all. It’s hard to resist the allure of $1 books ($5-6 new usually), as well as the rest of them that are about 50% off.

Here is the list: (the ones that start from random numbers is because I already have the preceding volumes back home)

Duan Serk II – v5-8
Akuma no Mikata – v5-10
Symphonia Green – v1
Mamoru-kun ni Megami no Shukufuku wo – v1
Daddyface v2-5

After this I headed to Ginza to go to Yamano Gakki (music + instrument store) to buy a few CDs that my friends asked for, then headed back to the hotel. My back hurt like a motherfucker after 5 hours of walking around with a bag on my shoulder and basically never sitting down X_X.

So now I’m halfway to Narita having boarded the express train. I’ll probably end up writing a few more things (who knows what it will turn out to be, might be BW related, might be more along the lines of a general thread) since I’ll have tons of time at the airport and on the flight.

P.S – one of the weirder things during this trip was that one of my hotel rooms had a PS3 in it… wtf? Oh also I saw a grand total of zero minutes of Japanese TV. Didn’t even touch the remote hahaha. I also reaffirmed my strong disdain for brown dyed hair, especially on females (the lighter the color, the worse).

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