While I knew that I would only have a few chances to go toy hunting while there, I made sure to plan out our days so that I could atleast hit all of the main spots that I've written about previously. With 2 weeks spread across Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto, I was able see pretty much all of the places on my list and in doing so I came home with this haul.
Yup....that's right, 2 figures. Now mind you, since this was our honeymoon, I wasn't going to spend everyday hunting, BUT we did manage to go to about 10 different stores over the 2 week period and this is literally all I could find. (I already had the Hasbro releases of these figures and part of me feels like I just bought these for the sake of it.)
A few things to note:
1. Most of the stores that sell used Transformers I've noticed have started to get in a lot more 3rd Party figures. The overall G1 selection seems to be pretty scarce now and the inventory that they did have were being priced above what you can get on eBay or Yahoo Japan Auctions.
2. Yodobashi and BIC Camera locations use to have a much larger Transformers section. This time, there were only a few pegs of figures and nothing else. Even more recently released ones were nowhere to be found. Now they may have sold out, but from the looks of the setups, it doesn't seem like some of the stores would have even gotten them in to begin with.
3. Toys R Us, we only went to the Odaiba location and same thing, very small Transformers section with nothing to note.
That said, I can't complain. I've had the fortune to travel to a lot of cities, but Japan has always been my favourite vacation destination regardless of what toys I find. Finding toys there are always an added bonus but the money saved from not buying figures just meant we had some more spending money while we were there.
Like I've told some friends who are going to be going at the end of this year. Transformers wise, it's going to be hit or miss and you shouldn't feel bad going home empty handed. If you're into other toy lines you probably will have better luck, although a LOT of popular products like SH Figuarts stuff sell out the day of release so even then, you may go home empty handed. But with that said, there's just so much to see and do in Japan above toy hunting that you won't get bored and you certainly will not regret going that's for sure.
where did you went hunting? Akihabara? nakano? i was there last year and it was a little dissapointing because of the zillion of americans and chinese people devouring transformers... what you were looking for? did you get something? what were the prices when you stayed there?
ReplyDeleteby the way, congrats for the honey moon
Hi there, thanks for the comment. Unfortunately I did not pick up any vintage Transformers. We went to Nakano and Akihabara while in Tokyo and also did a little hunting in Osaka. For the most part, prices were fairly high and selection wasn't the greatest. I was somewhat disappointed to see the increasing number of 3rd party figures in the display shelves opposed to vintage ones.
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