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Mandarake is the most famous game and general-otaku goods store in Fukuoka. Its the only one of the "big" Japanese retro game stores that has a branch here. Super Potato for whatever reason has given this burg a miss.
Mandarake is pretty well-known among those of us who are trying to put together the whole Famicom collection because a couple of years ago they put together a complete set of all 1051 carts and offered it for 650,000 yen at their Tokyo main shop.
Unfortunately they've never done that at the Fukuoka store, but nonetheless it is definitely the most prominent Famicom shop in Fukuoka. I love 007 and Omocha Souko, but Mandarake really just blows them out of the water in a number of ways, as I'll show below.
Before moving on, I have to apologize for a bit of a dereliction of my blogging duty. Mandarake is a twin-headed beast for those of us bloggers who like to put a lot of pictures in their posts. It has far and away the biggest concentration of eye-candy for nerds in all of Kyushu. Floor after floor of the stuff, all beautifully laid out in glass showcases and neat shelves. It also, however, has a strictly enforced no photography in the store policy. Signs are everywhere, posted in Japanese, English and Korean. And they have way more staff than most shops and those staff roam the aisles, so it is extraordinarily difficult to sneakily take pictures when nobody is looking. So I have to admit that my photos don't come near to doing the place justice, but that is really their own fault.
I hope you'll all appreciate the fact that I did at least make some effort to surreptitiously photograph the Famicom excellence that was on display.
Anyway, lets start at the glass showcase where they keep all the valuable games. This is located in a corner near the escalators in a bit of a blind spot so when nobody was around I was able to get a few photos of it:
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That glass case is one of two things that really separates Mandarake from the other shops in Fukuoka. Its the only one that has a ton of the real "holy grails" of Famicom collecting. 007 has a small number and Omocha Souko really doesn't have any these days, though it used to have a couple.
The other thing that sets Mandarake apart is its non-glass case Famicom stuff:
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I really wanted to get some close up shots of the above, both the boxed game section and the loose cart section, but they are located right next to the cashier with a ton of people moving about. I became conscious of the fact that my loitering around with an odd look on my face while whipping something (my camera) into my pocket every time someone walked by probably looked exactly like the type of behavior a shoplifter would display, so I decided to call it quits with the pictures then. As you can see, though, they have quite an impressive selection.
Anyway, the outside of the store is quite impressive too:
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Feeling a bit guilty about having thumbed my nose at their no-photography rule, I resolved to buy something from them as a means of atonement. I went over to their video game book/magazine section to see if they had anything interesting. I was pleased to discover that they had a few Famicom guide books, so I picked up this baby for 315 yen:
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They had a few Famicom ones, but most of them were over 1000 yen. I guess the 1942 one might be relatively easy to find. It is also really short, only 32 pages.
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I found 5 of the carts I was comparing and this is what they wanted for them:
Game Title | Price |
Super Mario Brothers 3 | 840 yen |
Donkey Kong | N/A |
Spartan X | 1260 yen |
Excitebike | 630 yen |
F1 Race | 210 yen |
Moero Pro Yakyuu | 105 yen |
Basically SMB3 is cheap, Spartan X is a bit on the high side and the others are about right.
There you have it, Mandarake in Fukuoka. Now I'm off to read my new guidebook and try to top 2 million points on 1942:
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I wonder why they don't want people snapping photos. It's free publicity! Oh, well. Anyway, good for you for snapping some anyway :)
ReplyDeleteThe shop looks awesome, by the way. Although I wish I could be so close to such great shops, I'm also thankful that I'm not so close to such great shops. After all, it would just make me sad that I couldn't buy everything I wanted.
Anyway, enough about me. How is your collection coming along these days? I mean, how many carts do you have at this point?
Yes, it is sometimes hard to resist temptation when it exists so conveniently nearby! And it is somewhat sad to leave empty-handed from a store that has everything you want, though I do enjoy just going there to browse whenever I pass by. Its fun to have around.
ReplyDeleteMy collection is now at 636 carts, thanks for asking! I haven't made much progress recently, only added about 5 or 6 new carts in the past month. It is getting much harder now that I'm past the halfway point. In the early stages I'd walk into a shop and needed just about every game they had.
Now I've got most of them and have to really search to find ones I need.
Mandarake does actually have a lot that I need, but they are on the high-priced side so I'm holding out for them to put a sale on or something. Then I'll strike!
Where exactly was this mandrake shop in Fukuoka? I can't seem to find it through google maps
ReplyDeleteIt was here, just up the street from Tenjin station. Its just a pharmacy now: https://goo.gl/maps/7PysmNaEWHn
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