My First Visit to Akihabara

Here are some pictures from my first visit to Akihabara last year. 

I had been dying to make a pilgrimage to Super Potato ever since my friend Ashley told me about it back in the Spring of 2012. It definitely lived up to the hype, and so did Akiba. Though Super Potato was impressive, it was a bit on the expensive side. 

The variety of consoles that were for sale were a little ridiculous-check out that Apple Pippin on the upper shelf on the far right!

Luckily, there were some more stores with massive selections of used games, so I scored a PS1 CIB for ¥2500 as well as some awesome Bangladeshi lamb curry!

That was a very happy day.

I Found a New Hard Off!

Last weekend I found a Hard Off I didn’t even know existed! It’s actually very close to my apartment. My girlfriend and I found it while we were riding bikes to Costco for some good old fashioned American style pizza. 

My usual Hard Off store is the one in Hachioji, but I’ve gotten a little tired of going there because the selection never seems to change very much. This new one, in Machida Tamasakai, is a combination Hard Off and Off House, and had great selection of 105 yen games in the junk bins.

I’ve had a bad taste in my mouth after lurking in the junk bins in Hachioji, but here the selection was much better. I found games that were actually desirable, like Panzer Dragoon and Persona!

I’ll definitely be visiting there again.

Here is a list of my findings:



A Famicom/Super Famicom RF switch in the box


Virtua Gun/Virtua Cop combo with box


Bahamut Lagoon CIB (SF)


Mortal Kombat II (GB)


Duck Hunt (Famicom)

Saturn:


Sega Touring Car Championship


Virtual Hydlide (laughably terrible but the cover art alone was worth 42 yen)


Shining Wisdom


Flash Sega Saturn Promo Disc


MYST


Christmas Nights


Panzer Dragoon


Sega Rally Championship


Grandia



Playstation:


Choro Q2 (Really fun 2P racing game)


Chase the Express


Saru! Get You! (Ape Escape)


Wild Arms


OverBlood


Vagrant Story


Persona


Ace Combat 3 electrosphere



All for under 3,500 yen!

Oh, I just won my first Yahoo Auctions auction-a non-AV Famicom console and game lot. I’ll post pictures and talk about my experience with Japanese internet auctions when the box arrives. Luckily, one of my students is helping me contact the sellers and transfer funds via ATM. That's one great thing about online auctions in Japan-no Paypal! 

Super Famicom Boxed Games

CIB Super Famicom games are fairly easy to find and usually priced under ¥1000 for the more common titles. I paid between ¥100 and ¥500 each for these when I started collecting last year. I’m not the kind of collector who needs every game to be complete, but if it’s a matter of a few hundred yen, why not?

Throughout my video game purchases in Tokyo, I’ve noticed that games, instructions, promo materials and boxes seem to usually be in very good condition.

Kitano Game Collector

Hello and welcome to my new retro gaming blog! This blog is gonna be awesome! A little about me:
I’m 31 and have been living in eastern Tokyo (Tama City area) since last June, so for about 1 year and 3 months doing the English teaching thing. I’ve always had a thing for retro gaming and decided to continue to add to my collection while I was living in Japan, even though I’m running low on space and will eventually have to ship all this stuff back to Seattle! Oh well, such is life. I hope you enjoy my photos!
Here is a little glimpse of my video game collection in Tokyo: