Basically the title
I went hoping to find at least one or two cool finds, but after nearly 7 hours going through almost every shop I walked away practically empty handed (just found one second hand switch game at a good price).
It feels like 90% of shops are just p*rn figurines and the rest is stuff that you can easily find in regular Japanese retailers or on eBay for the same price. (I’m referring to merch and memorabilia which tend to be Japanese specific, not games and manga, which seemed to have a decent selection but not relevant to me since I can’t read Japanese and many older consoles are region locked). Maybe you agree or disagree- would be curious to know what others think.
In any case, I’m still in Tokyo for another few weeks and I was wondering if anyone had any good recommendations for shops that might actually have some interesting finds.
EDIT: so in the end I just ordered the stuff I was looking for online. There’s less of a thrill compared to finding it in store but it’s just way more efficient. Also, even if it’s online, it’s very much worth doing while on your trip (or just before) since most of these websites, whether secondhand or new, only ship to Japanese addresses and require a Japanese IP address to even access the site. I just spent 60EUR on what would have cost me at least 300EUR from eBay or some other global resale site.
by Default_Dragon
40 comments
That’s because tourists have sadly tapped that resource way too much, but taking too much of an advantage of their low yen, so of course retailers did the most understandable thing possible and raised their prices. You have to go further afield than Akiba these days.
I can’t help but think some have too many weird impressions of what game hunting is like in Japan, based on too many US based content creators going there.
PS are you calling all Anime figures, p*rn?! Which is kinda a bit funny, given how ‘bad’ the stuff behind the adult section curtains are.
If looks like you have a somewhat lax concept of po rn.
If you want cool finds you don’t go to Akihabara. You get the farthest away possible from the central areas of Tokyo.
Have you checked out Nakano Broadway? They have some cool stores that sell collectible items
I would try Nakano, Ikebukuro, and less specifically, certain Books Off may also have second hand anime merch.
But don’t expect a steal, especially in Tokyo.
The only readily available steal is books. I know you said you can’t read Japanese, but there is still value in having a collection on your shelves.
Depending on what you’re looking for Book-Off / Hard-Off might have some treasures.
Nakano Broadway is basically a 3 story Mandarake, seperated into around 20ish shops, each a specialty of the kinds of things Mandarake sells. Like there is a Kaiju / giant robot store, a vintage video game store, ect.
akihabara sucks
7 hours doesn’t seem like a whole lot of time for all the stores. You checked the upper floors and basements right? Nakano is the way to go for the older second-hand stuff.
Is anime porn also available in akhihabara
Is Akhihabara sleazy?..is it just electronic stores
You haven’t mentioned this so apologies if this doesn’t apply , but if you are heading to Osaka later in your trip, save your money and spend it in DenDen Town. I found that there was so much stuff I wanted to buy there , I felt sad there was never going to be enough room in my suitcase to bring it back 🙁
Look at book-off or shop the mandrake online store if you’ll be there for a few weeks. I personally love the combini gacha stuff as there’s always some cool stuff and it is usually pretty cheap
Akihabara is sort of becoming ‘gentrified’ for lack of a better term. They’re replacing all the smaller buildings filled with weird stuff, with generic mixed use buildings. Its not that you can’t find things, its more than Akihabara is slowly no longer the central location for ‘everything’
I found the best second-hand merch from a random store in Kobe during my trip. With that being said, Tokyo is so oversaturated with tourists you won’t find anything decent; the more you branch out, the better stuff you will find.
There are some good figures at much lower prices due to the yen, but now with the yen recovering I agree
Is there anywhere similar in osaka?
I went to akihabara and i liked the vibe but didn’t buy much except for a switch game and a couple of anime figures. Nakano Broadway is different. Price-wise it’s competitive and the selection is, if not better, same as Akihabara.
I hear Ikebukuro is good for merchandise if you’re into newer anime while Nakano Broadway is good for retro stuff. I haven’t been to Nakano but I found a lot of good stuff in Ikebukuro, especially in the various K-Books stores and Lashinbang (although I was mostly looking for manga).
Kind of disagree. However, I think it might depend on the specifics of what you are looking for.
Personally I’m looking for Hololive merch and would focus my search in 7-8 different stores. For new merch, if it’s not collab items, they often have the same selection in different stores while second hand would have much more variety of older items, older collab, things that are “gatcha” style (real gatcha, or random item sold with candy or kuji). For those, no, there is nothing exclusive I could not find on Mercari, but because I do not live in Japan, I would have to use a proxy and pay 300 to 500 yen extra by purchase, making the selection in Akihabara more than reasonable.
Also disagree on the amount of what you call porn figurine, yes, many stores do have it, but would not say it’s the majority.
You would need to be more specific on what exactly you are even looking for. People have recommended Nakano Broadway and the fun thing is that I barely saw any of the kind of merch I am looking for there (not sure if I even bought anything) while I found the selection much better in Akihabara. But again, that is really specific to what I am looking for.
Visit small town book/hard offs. Sat/Sun Tokyo racetrack flea market. Akihabara is tourist priced
Get out of Tokyo, if you can get a Shinkansen ticket for Osaka’s Den-Den town you will find more stuff
List any niche interests that you may have, I can probably help you
Akihabara has been like this for a decade at least. I’m not sure why tourists still go there.
Anyway the 2nd hand market got discovered and with the cheap yen the tourists descended and picked it over. Not much left. Any place you have heard of isn’t worth going to since someone else has already found it and picked it over.
Akihabara is a shadow of what it was 20+ years ago. It’s mostly maid cafes and tourist shit these days.
Ikebukuro and Nakano Broadway. Even 8 years ago I rarely found things I wanted in Akihabara; Ikebukuro has always been kind to me.
hard-off/book-off, but i heard that the ones near the city center is shit. i guess the farther away you go the better the selection gets
I keep saying Akihabara is trash, ive been in Japan 6 times, there are so much better things to do in tokyo and japan in general but people dont listen.
Ikebukuro is where you want to go! There are multiple K-books there, each one is for a different genre of media (ie idol series, mobile games, even one for bl/yaoi hahaha) and you can get a ton of great stuff for cheap. Mostly keychain/strap/pin type items but there’s also larger 3d goods!
I like to do a day end diary entry during my trips, and my entry for the day I went to Akihabara was “Akihabara sucks” 😂
I can’t say I know exactly what I was expecting, but there was nothing that caught my eye and I felt like all the second hand stuff was super expensive and could be gotten much cheaper elsewhere.
I found the best 2nd hand stuff at a couple [Surugaya](https://maps.app.goo.gl/VZuJ62dfQsckv7p99?g_st=ic) stores! I found retro gaming stuff, Pokémon, and anime merch. All for better prices than Akihabara.
Man, I love akihabara, idk what kind of experiences everyone else is having. Sounds like it’s cool to hate now.
Find hard off or book off a little away from center street. It’s pure luck what you can find.
Try AmazonJP. I bought a couple of figurines there.
You can check out Animate stores. There’s the main shop in Ikebukuro.
[https://collabo-cafe.com/](https://collabo-cafe.com/) This website lists upcoming merch, anime-themed cafes, and collab events.
Everyone before you has probably picked things clean after the Covid lull.
Ikebukuro is another center, especially for female fans.
Nakano Broadway is the secondhand base. Look in the plastic cubes that individuals can rent to sell their stuff directly. Mandarake is the huge secondhand chain with multiple shops there too.
Nakano Broadway is also ground zero for high end watches
Check out koenji!
I had gone there with high hopes of finding vintage Godzilla figures, I mainly found newer figures that I could buy online, the few vintage ones I found were really expensive 🥲. I do wish I’d done something else with my day since I spent all day looking at stores only to end up empty handed like you OP
If you want the good stuff you’ll have to find a town further outside of central Tokyo, the further away anime shops have the rarer more collectable stuff and not to mention the prices are way better.
heres a nice tip, go to the mandarake in shibuya, its a bit hidden, down a long way in a basement/former bomb shelter. and has the greatest collection of collecters items ive seen.
and yea what others said, nakano broadway is the place where a lot of akiba shops moved. its just one mall though, but you can find good stuff there.
the (book, hobby, hard) off stores are cool, but find ones outside of the big city centres. they are everywhere. also pays to simply ask a maps app for thrift shores and search them out. but only if you have plenty of time to waste.
I mean you only go to Akihabara for the initial vibes but then when that wears off it’s pretty ass.
Not sure if gundams are you thing but I found some steal deals in jungle shop for some second hand models ( unopened but damaged box, or opened but mint otherwise)
I found some inuyasha mini figures in a capsule machine (nothing broadcasting it) in Nakano broadway. I just had limited funds. Fun part was, I got no duplicates 😬¥300 each. Change machine didn’t work though 🫤. There was 4 total.