Magic in Tokyo

Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2006 11:20 am

Hi,
A friend is actually in japan, he want to find a shop to buy cards in Tokyo.
Are they someone who know an adress?
Thx

Raphael

Member Joined: 11 Nov 2003 Posts: 303 Location: Germany

jamesbond wrote:

Hi,
A friend is actually in japan, he want to find a shop to buy cards in Tokyo.
Are they someone who know an adress?
Thx

Raphael

Hi Raphael !
[offtopic]
Haha, let me guess: japanese foils like Welder, Delta and Crucibles?
Good Luck laughing

[/offtopic]
No idea, sorry. Ask Volcanon or Michael French at MOTL (Volc is here too).
Greetings
Jan

EDIT: This shouldn't sound sarcastic, please don't feel offended.

Member Joined: 22 Feb 2006 Posts: 296

Where in Tokyo is he? Its quite a large place and theres a lot of stores.

The Takara MTG website has a listing of all shops that do FNM in Japan. I dont know the link off hand, but anybody with basic japanese and google can find it.

In Ikebukuro there is a sortagood store near the station. There are two near the station in Akihabara, including Yellow Sub, which specializes in foreign board games and card stuff. The other one is across the street (there was some ad for 'maid' accessories on the pillars for the JR raised rails), and across from a Curry restaurant on the 5th or 6th floor. They do drafts for FNM.

If he lives in Chiba (East) I recommend Card Shop Ogre, which is about 3 minutes north of JR Tsudanuma. They do alternating draft/standard for FNM and sealed on the months that have 5 fridays. They also do arena league saturdays, which is always standard. If he goes there tell me, as I know most of the regulars there.
There is also Post Hobby in the Parco from the same station. They do standard on FNM and standard on sunday area (so you can get three days of mtg if you live near there like I did).
Kashiwa has a store too. Not sure about any other details.

Yachiyo, the city I lived in, has a really small shop that does arena like once every two weeks and JJS.

Ito Yokado retails mtg stuff, but it costs more than card shops. Same with Yodabashi and other major department stores.

Perhaps more importantly, if he wants to play magic with foreigners (people who can speak english), there is a VERY casual group of players who meet at the Shakeys near Takadanobaba Station. I believe they have a group at meetup.com or just google "tokyo magic players" or something. They do leagues and such, but don't expect high-level play.

Edit: French lives in Osaka like Macone, so he probably can't help that much, although he did go to nats in Tokyo.

Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2006 8:59 am

Thanks a lot Volcanon wink

Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2006 10:24 am

Volcano>> i might be going to Japan in a feew weeks. If i do i will be looking to complete the japanese part of my collection. What of the stores mentioned is best for buying singels?

Also if anyone know stores in Nagoya i'd appriciate info.

Member Joined: 22 Feb 2006 Posts: 296

Very few japanese stores stock stuff older than T2, and if they do, 99% of it is crap. Can you speak Japanese well enough to be able to use the Postal Money Transfer system (anybody can get an account, I believe)? If you can, then you can use Yahoo Japan to buy cards, which is the eBay of Japan. You can get basically anything ever sold in Japan there.

Although they jacked up their prices, BigWeb (http://www.big-web.tv/new/index.htm) is a "good" online card shop (they had rediculously low prices on some old t1 stuff before I cleaned them out). They take major credit cards and will only ship inside of Japan. Japanese mail is pretty reliable and fast, so expect a maximum of two weeks when buying stuff online.

Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2006 10:26 am

well my japanese is limited to 'arigato' and 'biru' so i think yahoo auctions is not an option.
Also Im not looking for many good cards, i need stalking tiger. :p

Member Joined: 22 Feb 2006 Posts: 296

Stalking Tiger is that 3/3 3G card from Mirage and Portal 3 right?
You will most likely be able to find some in the crap boxes that most japanese stores have.

If you can't at least speak baby talk in Japanese, you'll miss a big part of the experience. Trying to decipher the crappy english of japanese train men AFTER I speak to them in good Japanese is hard. They assume I'm a tourist or something. I've always wondered if they tried to speak bad english to somebody who didnt know english like a russian.

Outside of Tokyo/Osaka, though, most people speak japanese if you show you can understand what they are saying, which is good.

I know a good japanese textbook store in Tokyo (Bonjinsha), they have an office in Osaka, but I dont know about Nagoya. Do yourself a favor and pick up one of those "Japanese for people who dont even know Japan is really Nihon" books. Or you could try any big bookstore, as most of them have a very tiny textbooks/english books section.