The Yellow Submarine

And in the middle of Akihabara, the mother-ship of gaming stores hovers above them all. It is what I would expect to see in such a neo-cyber-metropolis. This store has nothing to do with any kind of ‘local’ atmosphere about it. It is a huge chain store, spread all throughout Japan and have an online presence although they don’t sell single cards online as of yet.

Yellow Submarine Akiharbara <- Wiz Link

Strangely enough, they are listed one the Wizards locator site as ‘イエローサブマリンマジッカーズ★ハイパーアリーナ’ which translates as Yellow Submarine [majjikaazu] Hyper Arena. I’m not sure what ‘majjikaazu’ means; Mixed Cars?,  Serious Cards?, Magic Azu? I’m not sure. Help?

Usually gaming stores are restricted to one floor and tight space due to the high cost of rent in the city. Yellow Submarine has no such restriction.  Their store is three stories high and spans the width of two buildings. That is nothing to cough at considering they are about five minutes walk from Akihabara Station and make their profit selling little bits of cardboard and game products associated with that paper. Well, this store is anyway. They have the support of all their other stores nationwide and are also linked with G-Shop which sells all sorts of model and hobby products. It’s just a couple of blocks walk from Yellow Submarine too.

Yes, they have lots and lots of cards plastered all throughout the store and have hundreds of thousands more stacked on shelves behind the shop counters. They may not be the cheapest card store but they are sure to have the cards you’re after and most likely in every language. Each floor is dedicated to one or more card games; this floor, obviously to Magic the Gathering.

This is something I love to see. Little bundles of ‘junk’ cards for cheap. Here they sell 250 cards for ¥‎180 which is excellent value. It’s a great way to get beginners into magic or to get your children into magic so they can wreck these cards and then start getting them more valuable cards as they grow older and learn to take care of them. It’s also a great way to rock up to the store with a friend, pick up a random pile and have a junk-sealed match on a rainy day.

As you can see, there is plenty of space to have that match. They host magic events often but not often enough. With a store of this caliber, they should be able to host events every day. It’d be better for everyone right?

So, if you’re near here check this place out.

The ‘Local’ Gaming Store

Akihabara is the epicenter of Japan’s electronics, maid cafes, geeks, nerds, freakazoids and gatchapon madness. If cyborgs were among us, this is where they’d hang out. There are bright lights, girls who dress up as school girls or bunnies who lure middle age men to shops, spacies galore,  strange looking people in general and this is a paradise for electronics enthusiasts where they can visit high tech traders who bargain off a plethora of cyber junk goodies.

Of course, all that amazing stuff isn’t what I came here for. I am looking for a ‘local’ gaming store. I’m not looking for a chain store giant that tries to fit all card games into a few square meters. I’m looking for what I found at Hareruya. I’m looking for something privately owned by a Magic The Gathering enthusiast who built the shop around Magic The Gathering. Akihabara. Easy task? Not so. Of the seven shops I visited, the last was my prized scout.

Dream Shop (夢屋)<- Wiz Link

Awesome. The front of the shop is what I’d expect. But is it the front of the shop? No signs, no neon lights, nothing to really indicate that there is even a local gaming store there. Well, lets hope our Wizards locator is as accurate as the directions of the picture saved to my ‘dead’ phone that can miraculously still view pictures from google maps… from.

And Jackpot. This is a gaming and it does have an owner who plays Magic the Gathering and it does have lots of cards and it did meet all my expectations for a magic store and exceeded them. Finally, another store completely dedicated to Magic the Gathering. Do people casually play and have Friday Night Magics?

Yes They do. For some reason, the people that work at the gaming stores that are dedicated to just Magic the Gathering seem to be generally happier and more approachable than that of the bigger stores that offer other trading card games. Again I was approached before I approached the staff. He asked if I played Magic The Gathering and if I’m going to be around tomorrow for a draft. Unfortunately I wasn’t but just that little bit of contact goes such a long way in stores like these. That is why I prefer the ‘local’ ones.

This store with brimming to the teeth with merchandise and has the most rares I have seen stacked into boxes in a single store. They were incredibly cheap and abundant. They had many, many cards in English and Japanese and were sorted beautifully. They had box upon box of ¥19 rares. It had me searching through like it was Christmas.

And here was the form again. I had learnt this time to fill out the set to make it easier for the owner to search. It’s a form that you fill out to get or ‘order’ cards that you see in the glass cabinets. This time though, the store clerk had a sound knowledge of the cards and was able to find the ones I wanted just by the name of the card. Although, noting down the set is important to get the card from the set that you would like eg. Birds of Paradise may set you back a few dimes if grab one from that set (Limited Edition Beta).

Also, something that isn’t common outside of Japan is the ability to browse through bulk rares and pack them all in cute little miniature laundry baskets. ¥19 Clones,  Elite Archanists, Quickens, Tidebinder Mages and Traumatizes are a great way to start off a mono blue deck from M14.

It still amazes me to see cards like a Foil Dark Confidant in a small local gaming store in Japan. Then it occurs to me that the card is slightly overpriced. It retails in the US for about $150 but in this store US$200. Although I’d definitely make the effort and the wait to save the $50 and buy it from overseas sometimes people just need it on the spot and I’m glad that this store provides. Also, in Akihabara, there is plenty of foot traffic that have money to blow.

If you’ve got some good cards handy, these guys will give you cash. Unfortunately I left my stack of Foil Jace, the Mind Sculpters at home so I had none to spare. This board get updated daily according to what the staff are after at the time.

And for reference they post their sanctioned events on the whiteboard at the front of their shop. They have events every day at 7pm and on Saturdays at 1pm. This is a ‘local’ gaming store and the store clerk said that they have no intention taking their store online. It’s great that they wish to keep the store local but I guess I can only buy the cards if I make the 10+ hour trip to Tokyo. Well, I guess that is what a ‘local’ gaming store is all about. Nothing beats meeting people face to face and being in an environment that people can share the game they love.

Thank you Yume-Ya and Magic the Gathering!

Hallelujah!

So I went around Japan for a bit looking for some shops where I could either buy or play Magic The Gathering. The places I looked were in Tokyo; Akihabara, Shinjuku, Shibuya and Takadanobaba. I also went to Osaka; Nara and Shigino. It was my little magic tour of the two big cities in Japan.

Now I know there are more and possibly greater stores out there but I just didn’t get the chance to visit them due to the time frame. What I was looking for mostly were cards and atmosphere. Finding shops in the big cities is no easy task when 1. Japanese is not my native language 2. I don’t have a working phone and 3. it’s averaging 33 degrees celsius with 87 percent humidity at night.

The first place I went to was Card Shop Hareruya. If you’re just looking for directions, scroll down to the bottom for details. In a previous post I mentioned this shop’s name was a play on the English word Hallelujah and the Japanese word Sunny Shop. That’s what first bought on interest. I bought a duel deck from here. Divine Vs Demonic:

for ¥8000 or roughly US$80. For me this was exciting. It was something I thought, did not exist any more. This shop also sells singles online which is relatively rare in Japan. By the way, that was a link to their shop. The package arrived the next day in the outbacks. It was also Sunday. Amazing. I still haven’t opened. Sign of a true geek.

I had to go there. I lived in Takadanobaba for around a year and this place was under my nose the whole time. I would have walked past it every day, twice. Unfortunately I wasn’t into Magic back then. Revisiting the place was nothing less than nostalgic and filled with great and heavy memories.

So upon entering the place I can make an educated guess that there are frequenters here that play competitively. Upon closer inspection I noticed that this store has Magic The Gathering cards and accessories, and nothing else. This store is completely and utterly dedicated to Magic the Gathering. Jackpot!

There are some lovely cards in that cabinet. You’ll have to go there to see it for yourself. I was met by one of the shop staff that asked if I wanted to be entered into tonight’s FNM. It wasn’t what I planned but what the hey. I had a stinky Boros deck and ¥500 to spare so I signed up.

At the start of the match the games-man lays numbers on the tables then sticks the match-ups on the wall for everyone to see. All you have to do is find your name and number then find the matching number on the table and sit. This was startlingly simple as when travelling through Canada, most shops would call out everyone’s names and their opponents then there’d be ten minutes of chop sui name yelling and musical chairs. Not here. It was super organised and everyone knew what they were doing, even me (for a change). The announcer then announces details of the match much like an announcer would at a notched down boxing match then everyone bows and wishes everyone to ‘do well’ (yoroshiku onegaishimasu). Wow, I felt like I was at school again. It was starting to get exciting.

My first match up was noticeably more nervous than I was. I lost quite completely. He played what seemed to be a Grixis Vampires deck. I won the second round due to a fantastic draw of three Wojec Halberdiers two Muggings, a Plains and a mountain which is most likely the best the deck could offer. But that would be the only round I’d win that night. The second guy used a Blood Artist  sacrificing combo. And the third guy was a ‘Bye’. For the uninitiated – that is when there is an odd number of players and you’re randomly put on standby for the match. It counts as a win though so not all is lost.

At the end of the night, the prizes were announced and I won a pack of cards. Amazing. He even gave me a pack of cards printed in English. Later I opened them up to discover a Boros Reckoner and a Boros Charm in the same pack! That was icing on the cake for a fun night. From that, I have anointed Card Shop Hareruya to be the best Magic the Gathering shop in in Japan. Well at least until I visit more. At a cafe, I took a photo of my winnings:

Maybe you noticed like I did that this pull is suspiciously geared for the Boros family. Arrows of Justice, Boros Elite, Boros Charm, Boros Reckoner, a foily Sunhome Guildmage and to top with a Boros Token… did they have the foresight to predict that I was to come to this shop randomly this night and to tailor order this pack especially for me because my Boros deck sucks and needs a boost? Either way, this shop rocks. It definitely gets my thumbs up. Go there if you’re in the area. They hold tournaments every day and post the timetable outside the door and here.

As of 2013, Hareruya is the biggest Magic the Gathering dealer in Japan. They have an enormous  tournament centre not far from their main shop. Because they deal with only Magic the Gathering and they are not a franchise, they are never too busy to help you. Oh what a wonderful place to be. Hareruya!