I know this is a broad topic to kick off with; my brother and I will be traveling to JP very shortly (actually looking forward to the cold weather!!)
My brother has traveled to the country before and has only set foot inside two or three of the Pokemon Centers. Doing my bit of active searching, it seems obvious that Mandarake is a chain that is a must visit for collectables and cards, etc.
Does anyone (even those of you who live there) have any other hot spots, stores or areas that I’d be able to go and see, particularly to do with collectables (Pokemon ideally; even old consoles, gaming stores, etc…). We are visiting Tokyo and also Osaka on the trip.
Also I’m in Japan now and visited osaka a few days ago, there are two Mandrake stores there and make sure you check out ota road, it’s full of card shops (it’s near den den town and namba station).
Thanks heaps for the info fireftw87! Helps heaps. I’ll be sure to visit those places to see what is there! Is there alot of Pokemon specific stores, or alot of random gaming shops?
Probably a bit of both japanime. Pokemon would be great, but even stores that have old gaming, Nintendo/Sega, the 90’s era stuff. I am sure that I’ll find a fair bit by visiting a few different places
Apart from pokemon centre none of the stores are pokemon specific. Most of them only have a small section for pokemon cards so make sure you search around the store. Some do not have any pokemon cards at all!
Also there are definitely stores that have retro gaming stuff. I went to one called super potato which is again near namba station, ota road area check on Google maps! I took a couple of photos, see below:
