Japan 2023 Day 17: Tachikawa and Shibuya

Off to Tachikawa, where the Showa Memorial Park is. Tachikawa is further West from Shinjuku and Nakano on the Chuo line.

However, my main reason for coming was  manga hunting at Surugaya.  I wanted to go Showa Memorial Park but I was meeting Yukimi in the afternoon and you need at least 3 to 4 hours in the park.

I have to say Surugaya Tachikawa has a treasure trove of games!

More rare games in Akihabara and decently priced! 

Screw Akiba and Shinjuku. I feel like tourists have stripped everything there and you need to travel further out to find good stuff. Of all the Surugayas I have been to, this might be my favourite.

Went to neighbouring book off, still no Mugen no Juunin but I found whole set of Slam Dunk complete edition for 160000 yen. This was what I had been looking for. I lifted it up and it must have been 10kg. Crazy effing heavy 24 volumes. This is the complete edition so its bigger than the normal sized mangas. I would definitely need to upgrade luggage allowance and I could only buy this when going back to Asakusabashi. No plastic bag was going to hold this.

Oops. I did not know that I"s had a complete edition as well. The paper is not regular manga paper and was glossy like so that it would not yellow. I think I should have gotten this instead, maybe. Then again it is the first time I have noticed this so maybe it is not so common.

Walked 25 minutes in the sun to another Book Off.

So many cheap manga complete sets.

20th Century Boys complete for only 2400 yen? So absurdly cheap! Maybe I should buy loads of manga, bring them to the post office and just ship them back.

On the way to the Book Off, I walked past Tonkotsu Ramen Nagahamaya and went in for lunch on way back to Tachikawa station.  It was not bad not can't compare to Nagahama Number 1.

Went to Shibuya Parco.

The main reason was the TorchTorch shop. Early in my trip I had come across a Sekira prosthetic hand t-shirt at Kotobukiya Akihabara which I was interested in but was very expensive and decided not to buy it with the thought that I could take my time deciding since no one like Sekiro anyway.

When I went back to Kotobukiya, the shirt was gone and the Kotobukiya person said to try the main shop in Shibuya. Yukimi said to meet in Shibuya so I could kill two birds with one stone.

The good news is TorchTorch had the prosthetic hand t-shirt I wanted.

The bad news is that they did not have L size. WTF. I was holding an L sized shirt at Kotobukiya at the beginning of the trip and did not buy. And yes, I had checked out every Kotobukiya everywhere I went but non of them had TorchTouch. Most important lesson from Japan, better to regret buying than not buying!

Shibuya Parco is also home to the Pokemon Centre.

and also the Capcom Store! 

Again another Capcom store with no Street Fighter merchandise for sale. For the record, I can't stand Luke. Ugh, they should have put Alex in the game instead.

Monster Hunter picture stage.

Met up with Yukimi who had come down from Osaka to visit friends. We ere walking around looking for a place to sit down and I randomly chose this cafe called Hen na Cafe (strange cafe) in the basement of a building only to find that it was not run by any human beings.

Yes, with ChatGPT and coffee making robots Judgement Day is here. I ordered an ice chocolate and Yukimi got a coffee.

How to order instructions. You order from the vending machine and put QR code to activate robot.

The robot also spoke while doing work. Stuff like please wait a bit, am I looking good etc. Of course the robot wasn't really listening and conversing.... I think.

My ice chocolate was ready and (un)fortunately it was not good. I think robots are not replacing humans at coffee just yet. Yukimi was telling me about her restaurant job and then we got to talking about the white meat tonkatsu place Narikura and I said Narikura had closed down. Yukimi said she didn't know that and I said I had checked because I came to Japan. Just in case, I googled again and Narikura was no longer in Takadanobaba but had moved close to Minami Asagaya station! It was my last night in Japan and I could not be stuffed. Will go to Narikura next time as I still had shopping to do.

I went to Shosen to buy the whole set of the new edition of Slam Dunk. For some reason they did not have volume 20 and I somehow missed volume 8.

Went back to Ichikatsu for dinner.

Taste a let better when not using the sauce and just the mustard.

Normally shops would have an open for business sign saying 営業中 eigyouchuu except this shop is a gyoza shop so as a joke they have replace gyo for business with gyo for gyoza 餃子. I regret not getting gyoza and chahan this trip. I had a gyoza a few times but not with chahan. Too many things to eat and not enough time.

From Surugaya at Tachikawa. Finally found Shin Shino Den after looking all over the country. SSF2 was only 6000 yen which was very cheap. The middle page manual was loose but worth the 2000+ yen discount and I could not resist the DS lite. Surugaya at Tachikawa is my favourite Surugaya of this trip. I then went to Grand Bleu for my last night of drinking in Japan.

Japan 2023 Day 16: Saitama

Woke up to see Tanihara Shosuke doing morning tv doing news commenary! WTF is he not acting? He's one of my favourite actors and should be in WOWOW shows. In the photo above they were talking about the cost of raising a child from primary to high school.

Ikebukuro book off. I knew what I had to do now. Look for volumes 8 and above of Mugen no Juunin (Blade of the Immortal) and decide which version of Slam Dunk to get.

Walking around Ikebukuro when I noticed a Capcom sign!

Plaza Capcom Ikebukuro is just an arcade and cafe. They don't even have Street Fighter. What sort of stupid Capcom arcade is this?

Cat guy from Monster Hunter. Never played any of them before. Would rather play Dark Souls 3 than try Monster Hunter.

Some Monster Hunter and Street Fighter figures at the counter. Unfortunately no Street Fighter goods. Plaza Capcom was disappointing.

Went to Junkudo in Ikebukuro looking for Mugen no Juunin.

Manga in Japan is labelled according to publishers. You have Square Enix for some reason, Jump, Young champion. Going to so many manga stores I have learned which is which and the publisher for Mugen no Juunin is Gekkan Afternoon who also do Vinland Saga and Knights of Sidonia. I really like how Junkudo has all the publishers on the side of the aisle to make it even easier to search and really appreciate it.

Went to Shinjuku wanting to eat Fuunji before but the wait time was more than an hour so I settled for Yasubee nearly.

The soup was disappointingly light. Got large noodles and the portion was huge. I've eaten tsukemen at Yasubee before and I remember it was not bad.

You can see the tag for Afternoon and lots of the original print of Mugen no Juunin but only Vol 2 of the new edition. After running around so many bookshops it started to dawn on me that trying to find the remaining of the new edition might be an impossible task because it is so not famous, although Kimutaku did a movie about it.

35 Volumes of Gantz for 7000 yen is pretty good.

At Shinjuku Marui I saw a Witcher 3 pop up shop!

Unfortunately the pop up shop starts on my last day. I have not played Witcher 3 yet although I have the Japanese version for Switch.

I saw this at Marui saying that there is going to be a Guts figure! Very weird place to put it but I would very welcome a Guts figure!

Another anime pop up shop I have no idea about. I only watch Vinland Saga.

Arrived in Saitama early afternoon. I am having dinner here but first to continue manga hunting.

It has been a while since I was back in Saitama! I just love getting out of a train station and you are on walkway connecting you to Tokyu Hands and Surugaya.

That Bayonetta Climax Bible is crazy expensive for a book!

Some amibos have really gone up in price.

2nd time I've come across Breath of Fire 2 GBA.

Good thing I did not buy the Trinity Masquerade Edition for Bayonetta 3 because I dislike the game. The fact that the price has gone down shows it is not in demand.

You can see the original Mugen no Juunin at the bottom left. Unfortunately photo missing the first digit. I had to decide whether to throw away my new edition and buy this complete first edition. In the end I decided to I prefer the new edition. Somehow the original edition doesn't look as good.

Slam Dunk original print for 10200 yen. 31 volumes. In the end I calculated getting the new edition is not that much expensive and better to get new manga than half yellow one.

Found this creepy talking and moving tree while going to another bookstore.

This are paperback manga aka manga bunkou. They are smaller than your regular manga size and can fit into your pocket. Similar size to English print of Lone Wolf and Cub.

The paperback version of I"s to coincide with the dorama. The portability and size saving with paperback manga is nice but I feel like its a bit too small to enjoy the art. I'll have to think about it because space is limited. I don't think I would mind paperback for manga like Monster or 20th Century Boys.

I was so happy to finally find Metal Gear Solid the Twin Snakes on Gamecube!

Luckily I turned it around and it said that the disk has a scratch! Noooooooo! Snake!!!! One day I will play Metal Gear Solid 1~5 in Japanese and I think Twin Snakes is only in English.

Met up with Satomi for yakiniku. The last time I met her was together with bframe when he come down for the Mano Erina concert which was a lifetime ago. The name of the place was Hiuchi and it was a bit more of a high class joint. We went for the 5500 yen pp course. It was pretty good I prefer Futago where we went to twice before.

Very happy I found the Triangle Strategy guide because I love the game and want to support it. The box for Fire Emblem Seima no Kouseki is pretty beat up. Maybe I should have spent more money to get a better version. Oh well.

I got I"s for only 1400 yen from Surugaya in Saitama. Absolute steal and the paper is not too yellow. Too good of a deal to miss out. 

Something bad happened to my JR pass the day before in Yokohama. Somewhere a whole got in my JR Pass and I could not use it anymore to pass through the ticket gates! So now I had to show my pass to the station people and have them wave me through which is annoying because some gates don't have staff now.