Amerika Mura is kind of a neat area. It mainly has clothing shops (the name Amerika Mura comes from the fact that stores selling American style clothing were centred in the neighborhood back in the day) and a lot of them are pretty hip.
Mandarake used to have a store in the Den Den town area where all the other retro game shops are but about 5 years ago they closed that one down and moved it to Amerika Mura. The two neighborhoods actually aren`t far from each other and you can walk from one to the other, passing by the famous Dotonbori area with its Bladerunner look (at night at least) on the way:
It actually kind of makes sense that Mandarake relocated given that it sells a ton of clothing (cosplay stuff) as well as games and toys. Anyway, this is what it looks like outside:
The games are on the first floor. The first thing I noticed was that their Famicom shelf also sported a few NES games, which I have never seen in a retro game shop here before:
Their selection was actually quite underwhelming. The Mandarake in Fukuoka actually has a much better Famicom section which is surprsing considering that Osaka is about three times bigger than Fukuoka.
I think the reason for that is Mandarake actually has two stores in Osaka, the one in Amerika Mura I visited and another one in Umeda. Unfortunately I didn`t have time to check out the Umeda one (presumably it has a lot more games).
This brought to a close my Kansai area retro game shopping. It was mostly a window shopping trip as I ended up spending less than 1,000 yen (about $10) on retro games, my only purchases being a CIB copy of Sky Destroyer for the Famicom (I love the box are on it) and a loose copy of Fantasy Zone for the Sega Mark III (which I got at this Mandarake). In general the prices were a bit higher than I was used to in Fukuoka but there were a few reasonable places. Not a place for bargain-hunting but I had a really great time looking at all the pretty goodies!
I stumbled upon this one quite by accident, since I was visiting a retro game bar that's in the same area called Space Station Osaka. I got a few FC/SFC games there - they were cheaper at any place I saw in Den Den Town. I missed the one in Umeda, too.
ReplyDeleteHow many of those Glico neon signs are around Osaka? I just finished playing Yakuza 2, and I saw a parody of it by the river in Dotonbori, which is called Sotenbori in the game. It was near the Don Quijote.
ReplyDeleteMaybe a prayer at one of many Billiken statues in the area could've gotten you quite a lot more Famicom goodies.
Discoalucard - it was actually kind of by accident thatI found it too. You are right about the prices there being pretty good, on average quite a bit cheaper than Super Potato (the only problem being the small size of the selection). I imagine the Umeda one must have most of their games.
ReplyDeleteRidersmasher - as far as I know the Dotonbori one is the only one (at least the only famous one that size). There is a Don Quixote on the other side of the river just 200 metres or so away, which is also an impressive site (it has this ferris wheel type thing on it).
Actually, at that Super Potato in Den Den Town. I found a boxed copy of this GB game called Trip World. It was only about 800 yen. When I got home, I found out how extremely rare it is...so rare that cart-only copies are going for like 27,000 yen on Amazon JP. I could probably sell it and that would've covered my entire shinkansen trip between Tokyo and Kyoto. I still have it, though.
ReplyDeleteIt is nice to find an insane bargain like that. Sometimes those shops get a game they don`t know the value of and....its so awesome!
ReplyDeleteThe game selection at the Umeda Mandarake is surprisingly smaller than the one in Ame Mura. One redeeming feature though is the 100 yen section that gets updated quite often. They even bundle multiple games for 100 yen, if you're lucky!
ReplyDeleteWow, even less games at the Umeda one? That is surprising!
ReplyDeleteHearing that they have a 100 yen section though makes me really regret having missed it, I love looking through bargain bins!!
I want that Famicom Cassete All Catalog! Do you have one?
ReplyDeleteI don`t have a copy of that catalog but it caught my eye too. I`ve seen similar ones in shops before, but there seem to be a few different publishers that have released them over the years.
ReplyDeleteActually I just found a copy of that catalog on Yahoo Auctions, unfortunately it is a bit expensive for a used one:
ReplyDeletehttp://page11.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/n115080745
Maybe in an used book store it would be cheaper, if it can be found. How is the market for used books in Japan? Compared with used games, for example.
ReplyDeleteThere are tons of used book stores in Japan, but finding that book in one of them could take some time!
ReplyDelete