The Magic Librarities

I am in Tokyo with my wife for a short stay and I didn't think I would get a chance to do any Magic shopping but we were advised to head to an area call Akihabara. Never seen anything like the place, floors and floors of models and manga books and prize vending machines and card shops.

As I was with my wife I managed to get to see the outside of most shops but didn't see much inside. Most of the card shops only had a small MtG section but I found one called Big Magic


And it had a fair amount of cards all arranged in display cases


There was a rack of booster scans so I figured you just took it to the desk and they picked one from out the back


One cabinet stood out


Big Magic looked to have a small area to play but none of the others did and these places were packed!

Never seen anything like it before. In England we just had a couple of albums or the really good ones were in the shop counter display. Hong Kong had a deal where you went up to the front counter and told them what you wanted and then someone out the back would bring it to the counter.

Hopefully I can go again but the wife really didn't like the area at all so it is looking unlikely :(

Nice, thanks for including the pics

Wow nice find. You'll have to go back one day sans wife

Hayden wrote:Wow nice find. You'll have to go back one day sans wife

I did try! But she is not stupid :(

They had some Lorwyn Boosters in Japanese and if I had gone back to get a set then it would have made a dent in the holiday money, only $150, but try explaining how that is a bargain to a wife who nearly had a heart attack when we were charged $15 for two coffees, they also had a few other sealed boosters I could have added to the collection as well.

Never mind, next time I go back I might bring along some dual lands and see if they will trade.

Really glad I saw this thread, that is pretty awesome. Maybe add some pics of cool vending machines if you get a chance...need to go to Japan (for the dragons, hahaha).

I also enjoyed these pics. Thanks for posting them.

Tav

Favourite vending machine was up at Big Magic, you put in a 1000 Yen note and it spits out a card at random, with the chance of getting a Force of Will. At least that is what I think it was, no instructions and I wasn't game to put in $10 while my wife was watching, though I guess I could tell her that whatever popped out was worth a fortune.

The only vending machine we actually used was the one in the hotel, you could get a can of Asahi beer (in two sizes). I don't drink beer but we gave it a go just for the experience (In Australia you can't buy beer in a supermarket, you have to go next door and buy it in a different shop, even though it is owned by the same company)

Apparently all the really good vending machines were inside buildings, the ones along the roadside were mainly for cold drinks, we did see a few vending machines outside restaurants and it looked like you put your money in and ordered the food and it just spat out a ticket that you took inside to collect your order.

I will thoroughly investigate the vending possibilities if we ever go back though, there were plenty of things we didn't get around to on this trip.

I heard their are toy machines...and they spit oddball dolls and trinkets. Friend said for $10 he got a got a barbie doll, only it was a perverted version that was anatomically fantastic underneath its clothing. Said the machines had all kinds of cool Anime (?sp) swag. Said their were arcade machines that spat out playing cards for doing certain things in game too. All these things sound awesome to me.

implode wrote:I heard their are toy machines...and they spit oddball dolls and trinkets. ...

Everywhere! train stations and shops all seemed to have either one or two, or an entire wall of them.

Anime and Star Wars were common themes along with animals and just about everything else you could imagine, like very big expensive Kinder Eggs but without the chocolate.

I wasn't allowed to buy any of these either but they did awaken the collector in me.