Horrible Things are Happening in Nagoya's Osu

 I made a pilgrimage out to the Osu neighborhood in Nagoya, which I've highlighted on this blog before.  It is Nagoya's version of Akihabara in Tokyo or Den Den Town in Osaka - full of electronics, toys, cosplay, manga and other shops including of course retro games.

 I fell in love with the place on my first visit almost 7 years ago, but yesterday I fell out of love with it.  Terrible things are happening there.  The worst of them here:

 Mandarake!  This used to be the best place in Osu to buy retro games.  It never quite matched the shops I visited in my Fukuoka days (during the golden age of cheap Japanese retro game hunting that lasted until about 2012), but I picked up quite a few things there over the years.  They had a cool basket of Famicom carts:

 And back in 2014 this is what their glass showcase had -  loose copies of Gimmick for 12,000 Yen (about 120$) each!  I wish I had bought those!  And in the back you can see the hyper rare Bridgestone and Yasuda Seimei carts.

 They also had beautiful CIB stuff!

Basically until Super Potato opened up 5 years ago, Mandarake was the best place to look for rare and valuable Famicom games in Nagoya (the centre of the Chubu metropolitain area with about 9 million people, this is a big city).

So imagine my dissapointment when I visited yesterday and discovered - Mandarake was still there but their retro games weren't!  They had completely removed their retro game section!  All the Famicom carts from the best store in town gone!  They had expanded their manga section to take over the space formally taken up by retro games (the showcases in the above photos now have vintage comics in them) and they now only stock current generation video games.

This is a huge blow to the Famicom collecting community and I'm not sure if this is limited to the Nagoya Mandarake or if they have stopped stocking retro games at their other locations (if any readers know, please comment!)  I especially fear for my beloved Mandarake in Fukuoka, which I still visit once a year or so when I'm down there and have such fond memories of!

So I had walked into that Mandarake yesterday with a wad of cash that I hoped to spend on some Famicom games for my collection, and devastated by what I discovered I walked out the door, rounded the corner and went straight into the loving arms of Nagoya's Super Potato which is almost next door.  Fortunately they still have retro games (it is basically what they exist for after all) but I was very disappointed by what I found there too.

A Famicom collector never goes into a Super Potato expecting to find bargains, prices there have always been on the high side for Japan.  But you go there for the amazing stuff that you can only find in Super Potato - the hyper rarities and other stuff.  Their showcases are almost like museums.

Or at least they used to be.  I was shocked by how picked over their high end stuff was.  I had noted this in a post I did after a visit a year ago, but its gotten worse since then with a lot of the higher end stuff I noted in that post having sold and not been replaced by anything of similar stature.  Where Super Potato showcases once had stuff like Gold Binary Lands (200 known copies in existence) or Rockman 4s (8 copies), they are now full of a lot more mid-level stuff like CIB copies of Contra or Rockman which, while great, aren't particularly rare or exciting to see.  They didn't even have any copies of Gimmick! or Punch Out Gold.

This is kind of weird.  On the one hand, rare video games are flying off the shelf at Super Potato so fast they can't re-stock them.  On the other, for some reason Mandarake (which had way better prices on retro games) has thrown in the towel on them.  The end result though is that Osu just isn't anywhere near as good a place to hunt for retro games as it was even as recently as a year ago.  Which is really disappointing!

So if you are thinking of coming to Nagoya for some retro game hunting, be forewarned that the pickings continue to get worse and worse!

Went back to Fukuoka, Did some Game Shopping

 I was back in Fukuoka for a few days for some work related stuff a couple weeks ago.  I love that city so much, I can't believe its been 6 years since I left. They added a Godzilla to Canal City since I left:

Of course I had to check out good old Mandarake, which is located in a trendy neighborhood near Akasaka Station:

I got there at about 11:50AM, which is 10 minutes before they open so I had to wait outside the entrance for a bit.  I've never understood Mandarake's ridiculously short operating hours, they are only open 8 hours a day (12 to 8), which rules out both morning visits and late evening visits.  Its not like they are a little mom and pop shop, they are a huge chain with lots of employees!  Open up more!

I couldn't take any pictures inside but it was basically the same layout as I've detailed in previous posts here, which was nice.  The prices, as everywhere, have creeped up to levels much higher than they used to be, which was expected.  I was able to score one game I needed off my Famicom want list though: Star Wars!  Not the Namco version, which is one of my all time favorite Famicom games, but the other one put out by Victor.  Though not quite as quirky as the Namco version, I have wanted the Victor one for years.  I got their version of the Empire Strikes Back at Omocha Souko very early in my collecting days and I loved the game play on it.  But for some reason it took me a very long time to get the Star Wars version.  This is simply because it is a hard to find game (way rarer than the Namco version, which itself isn't super easy to find either) and I couldn't find any good deals.

So when I saw it on Mandarake's shelf for only 2700 Yen (with tax) I jumped all over it!

That would be my only game purchase in Fukuoka on this trip, but I also went to check out the Book Off in front of Hakata Station.

This was actually an unexpectedly pleasant surprise.  In 2011 I wrote a post about that location in which I basically savaged it for having bad games badly priced.  So my expectations were low going in.

Much to my surprise I found that they had completely changed the layout of the place and significantly expanded their toy/game section.  They have a decent little pile of Famicom carts in there, which is increasingly rare to find in Book Offs these days:

There weren't any particular bargain finds in there (oh how I looked) but the prices weren't outrageous either.  And they did have one Famicom bargain, a boxed AV Famicom for only 6300 Yen, which is a really good deal (I didn't buy it so if you are in Fukuoka and looking for one, get over there if its still available).

Anyway, I would add this as a place to check out if you are in Fukuoka since they might update their game pile every now and then and you might catch a deal.  They are right in front of Hakata Station so its pretty easy to hit (which is why I went there)!

Unfortunately I wasn't able to check out any of my other old haunts in Fukuoka to see if they were still in business.  Mainly this is due to my being public transport bound when visiting and a lot of those places need to be reached either by car or bicycle.  Maybe some day!

Retro Game Shopping in Nagoya Part 2: Osu Mandarake

 Part two of my posts on retro game shopping in Nagoya brings us to the Nagoya branch of Mandarake.  Nagoya`s Mandarake is also in the Osu neighborhood and is actually just a couple of minutes walk away from the game shops I visited in my previous post.   

It is a bit tricky to find though since it is on a side street, basically when you are walking down one of the arcade streets and you get to about here (the Ameyokocho building, which is also definitely worth checking out):

You turn onto a side street and blammo, you are right there:

I give the shop a score of minus 1000 in terms of its external appeal.  Whereas pretty much everywhere in Osu is vibrant and colorful, Mandarake is located in the only bit of grey dreariness in the neighborhood, surrounded by ugly parking lots.  And the building itself is an ugly grey blob.  But once you get inside its a different story.

In terms of stuff they have about the same type of selection as the Fukuoka Mandarake that I have featured on here numerous times.  The first floor is video games and comics, while the upper floors are toys and cosplay stuff.

Their Famicom selection isn`t as good as that in the Fukuoka Mandarake (which is surprising given that Nagoya is more than double the size of Fukuoka).  They keep all the loose carts in this basket here.  The prices are probably the best you will find in Osu, though that isn`t necessarily saying much.  They are fair and you might find the odd bargain in there.

 The glass case has some impressive stuff in it, although the selection there also isn`t quite as good as the Fukuoka Mandarake.  They have 3 copies of Gimmick! (12000 yen each, with a note saying they are a bit dirty) and 3 copies of Hitler no Fukkatsu (3800 yen each).  In the back of this photo you can see they have some really rare stuff, but this photo is pretty much everything they have in terms of higher price loose rarities.  Impressive, but not quite as varied as the Fukuoka Mandarake.

 Their valuable CIB stuff is kind of the same.  Again they have 3 copies of Gimmick (42000 yen each) which right there makes up half their selection of CIB stuff.  Actually  going to this store really makes me question just how hard Gimmick is to find if one shop can have six copies of it.

 They did have a decent selection of lower priced CIB Famicom games on a shelf which I wasn`t able to photograph.  The one area they did beat Fukuoka Mandarake on was selection of games for older consoles like the Epoch Cassette Vision and Sega Mark III, which they had a good variety of.  The prices here for most stuff are reasonable so if you are in Nagoya I would say this is probably the best place to visit if you are determined to spend a bit of money!

Return to the Fukuoka Famicom Shops

I just got back from an overnight business trip to the place where this blog began: beautiful Fukuoka!

I was there for a couple of meetings on Tuesday, but Wedensday morning and early afternoon I had to myself and decided to drop by good old Mandarake to see how things have changed there since I left.

I would have loved to have been able to do a thorough revisit to all the Famicom shops I described in loving detail in numerous posts on here back when I lived in Fukuoka but it wasn`t possible to do so with the time I had.  Sadly my favorite shop that I used to visit 3-4 times a week, Omocha Souko, went permanently out of business last year so the one place that more than any I wanted to see on my return could not be paid a visit.

Another issue was simply the fact that as a visitor to Fukuoka I did not have a bicycle, which was really instrumental in allowing me to visit all those awesome retro game shops, many of which were not easily accessible by public transport.

Anyway, I made sure that I would at least visit my favorite surviving Fukuoka Famicom shop on this visit and even booked a hotel (the Green Hotel if anyone is interested) that is literally next door to Mandarake.

Despite their no-photography policy I decided to take a few pics this time since even if they kicked me out its not like I visit there that often anymore.

Wall to wall CIB Famicom goodies, no other shop in Fukuoka comes close to matching this.  The blue sign there says they will pay 50,000 yen for a CIB copy of Kung Fu.

A few copies of Thunderbirds and Tomato Princess in the Salad Kingdomthere:

Oh and what is that at the end of the aisle?

Get a little closer:

The glass case with all the good Famicom stuff in it!!

About half of this stuff I remembered from my last visit, loads of CIB games for the Famicom and Super Famicom.  They have a CIB copy of that really rare silver Hot Scramble Z which they are selling for about 900 bucks.

Basically all that stuff was out of my price range, but I did pick up a few Famicom games. Mandarake generally has pretty good prices, at least at their Fukuoka branch, so I am always glad to walk out with a few new purchases.  I picked up CIB copies of Binary Land and Highway Star, which will go nicely with my collection.

The only other Famicom-related place I got a chance to visit was a Book Off next to Hakata Station.  I had actually profiled that one on here a couple of years ago in a post that consisted mainly of complaining about their outrageously high prices.

I was hoping they might have changed that problem and got a bit excited when I saw that they had moved the `old soft` section (which is where all pre-PS2 era games at Book Offs are kept, if they have any) and tidied it up a bit:

Unfortunately despite the facelift the prices were the same as usual.  They even still had the exact same copy of Devil World priced at 1550 yen (about 2-3 times what its worth) that I had complained about in that post 2 years ago:

That will probably always be there!

Anyway, it was nice to go back to Fukuoka, I really do miss the place. 

Kansai Retro Game Shops 4: Mandarake in Osaka`s Amerika Mura

The final retro game store I got to check out during my trip to the Kansai area was Mandarake in Osaka`s Amerika Mura neighborhood.

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!

Japanese Game Shops: Service is Second to None

I was reminded recently of one of the other great things about Japanese game shops: the customer service is incredible.

As I recently posted about, last week I went to Kitakyushu to do some game shopping. One of the things I picked up at the Mandarake there was a loose Sega Mark III console.

The console was in their glass case right next to another old, obscure console - the Bandai Playdia. The cables for each console were in plastic bags seperate from the console.

After returning home the next day I decided to plug in the Mark III to test out a Sega My Card game that I had also purchased. Only when I went to plug it in I discovered this:
A Bandai Playdia AC adaptor!! The horror!

It was a pretty simple and honest mistake, when the staff member took out the Mark III console he accidentally grabbed the Playdia`s cables instead of the Mark III`s.

If this had happened at the Mandarake here in town it wouldn`t have been a problem as I could just go in and exchange it. Since it happened at the one in Kitakyushu though I sure wasn`t going to spend the time and money it took to get out there just for some cables.

So I looked up their website, found an email address for the Kokura store and sent them an email explaining the situation and asking if they could do anything.

Shortly thereafter I received a lengthy and apologetic email with a promise to mail the Mark III cables right to me.

Actions of course speak louder than words and sure enough, the VERY NEXT DAY a delivery man arrived at my door with the cable! They had gone to the expense of sending it courier rather than regular mail!

When I opened the box not only did it have the cables well-packaged in tons of bubble wrap (pictured above) but it also included a one-page letter of apology. This wasn`t a form letter either but one that had been personally written to me by one of the store`s staff.
Gotta love the customer service here. If this had happened in North America I can`t imagine the difficulty I would have had in getting this sorted out.

So that is another big thumbs up for Mandarake!

Mandarake Finds: Kousenjuu SP Gun and Old Japanese Star Wars Stuff

I had a nice stop in at Mandarake this afternoon, replete with purchases. Nothing makes for a nicer day than finding a few bargains. The best part was the Kousenjuu SP Light Gun, complete in its original box!
This is a light gun made by Nintendo in 1970 as the package shows:
About a year ago I found a Kousenjuu SP Electro Safari , which is basically a big target for these light guns:
You just aim the gun at the little light detector on the leopard and if you hit it, the leopard spins around. I never had a gun to test it out with though so I was psyched to find this.

Actually, I still don`t have one. This one doesn`t work, which is kind of too bad. On the other hand though I got it quite cheap and really just wanted it to look at rather than to use so I think it was a cool purchase.

Open the box up and here you go:
It even came with some pretty ancient looking Toshiba batteries.

Anyway, I love the box art:
And check out the pearl handles, John Wayne style:
It is actually quite similar to the original Famicom Light Gun:Not quite the same though, they definetely used different molds for them.

I picked up a couple of other cool, albeit non-gaming related, things while there. First, this thing, which is awesome:
A partial set of Japanese 1977 Yamakatsu / Topps Star Wars cards. I LOVE original old school Star Wars stuff like this, and I especially love finding Japanese old school Star Wars stuff. This is a little booklet and inside are a bunch of envelopes, each containing one card. A couple have been removed but most are still in there. You can`t see what cards are in the envelopes so I`m not sure which ones I got. These things are insanely rare to find still unopened like this so I`m going to keep it as is for the time being.
I also picked up a copy of the Japanese version of Starlog from 1983. The Return of the Jedi preview issue, complete with a back cover poster ad for the upcoming release:
All in all a great day. Check out Erik`s post here on Before Mario for a bit more info on this old Nintendo light gun. His is in a bit better condition than mine and probably works too!

Related Posts:
- Flea Market Finds: Nintendo Batting Practice with Koichi Tabuchi and Sadaharu Oh
- Nintendo Color TV Game 15
- Mega Bargain of the Day Kousenjuu SP Electro Safari

Bandai Intellivision: This Could Be the Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship

Here she is, my newest console in my constantly-expanding collection: the Bandai Intellivision.

If you are familiar with the Mattel Intellivision then this is basically the exact same thing only in a different box.

I love really early pre-Famicom systems and when I first saw this at Mandarake a few months ago I knew I had to have it. The problem was that it was that it was a bit too pricey for me at the time. It had pride of place in Mandarake`s new location, and this very one was even featured on their store`s website here.

When I went in this week and saw that they had cut the price in half though - that was my cue. Cha-ching!

This thing is awesome on so many levels, I just can`t count them all. When I took it out of the box the thing looked brand new:
I don`t think anyone has ever even played this one before, there wasn`t a scratch on it:
Oh god, look at that wood grain panelling! Just look at it!
I miss the days when all household entertainment devices had false wood grain panelling. They really should bring that back.

Gotta love `em controllers too. Very hard to use but they look so retro that I`m willing to forgive that shortcoming:
The box is amazing too. Its got these two characters:
The guy on the left looks quite skeptical, but look at how much fun the girl on the right is having. She knows what time it is! Its Intellivision time, baby.

It also has screen shots of a couple dozen or so games on the front cover, which is an aweseome thing to put on a box:
The back of the box is a bit less exciting but there it is for you if you were curious:
This thing was REALLY complete in the box. I got the manual:
A 32 page color catalogue of all the games that would have been worth the price of the whole thing just for that photo on the cover:
It has the original warranty card that still hasn`t been filled out:
And an envelope addressed to Bandai head office for the customer to mail the above warranty card to. It is specifically addressed to the Intellivision branch:
For some reason I love the fact that this was still in there!

Anyway, perhaps I should say a few words about the Japanese version of the Intellivision as most people probably don`t know that it was even released in Japan. There is a very good write up about the history of the Bandai Intellivision on Intellivision World. The basic story is that Mattel marketed the system in Japan through Bandai beginning in 1982. The unit price was a whopping 49,800 yen each, and you can imagine what the Famicom`s release a year later with a price of 14,800 yen did to that.

The system never made it off the ground here and today they are quite hard to come by. An Ebay search for the phrase `Bandai Intellivision` turned up exactly zero hits for me just now, and even a search of Yahoo Japan Auctions in Japanese only turned up one console and one game (Q-Bert) for sale. According to Chris Kohler at Wired, these usually sell for about 400$ in Akihabara. I got mine for about 75$, which was a pretty major score.

The only down side is that while I now have a beautiful and complete Bandai Intellivision, I also have exactly zero games to play it with. I asked the guy at Mandarake who sold it to me if they had any games and he just said ¨uh, no¨ with a look that indicated I should have known that before I asked as nobody has games for this thing. D-uh. As with most unsuccesful consoles, the games for this one are extremely rare and expensive.

The up side is that the Japanese Intellivision is 100% compatible with Mattel Intellivision games released in North America. In fact the games released in Japan were actually North American carts packaged with Japanese instructions and they never released any Japan-only games for it.

Thus, in an unusual turning of the tables for someone who is used to being surrounded by mountains of retro games at local shops, I`ve just spent the last hour on Ebay ordering up a few titles from sellers in the US. I bought ten games from one seller who offered decent shipping to Japan. This gives me the distinction of being the first person in the history of mankind to have retro video games sent to Japan from America rather than the other way around.

Related Posts:
- Bringing a New Console Home on the Subway from Mandarake
- About a Virtual Boy
- Mega Bargain of the Day: Sega SG-1000 II