Amenity Dream

I visited another shop in Shinjuku which was a great find. It’s near one of my favorite Ramen shops in Japan and there is a 24 hour 7-Eleven across the road for snacks. This shop is:

Amenity Dream <- Wiz Link

Amenity Dream is also a chain store with many shops throughout Japan. This one is one of the better ones I have come across. Just like many other trading card game shops, this one was up a narrow staircase and down a skinny hallway. It’s much to be expected due to high rent in Tokyo. When I entered the shop, there was a secret ‘wow’ in my heart. This store has cards.

For some reason I was only focusing my photos on the MTG parts of the shot. But that’s because that’s what I’m focusing this blog on. There were other card games in the store but seemed to be dominated by Magic the Gathering cards.

I had to do what that guy was doing. These boxes are full of goodies and each card is bagged. They have cards going way back to Antiquities and Legends, and of course none of the more expensive ones were sleeved for people to sift through.

Oh baby. ¥19 rare boxes. All of the card boxes were sorted into Set then by rarity. There was no order after that, but that was not a problem. This store has a lot of stock. Sifting through the cards was like playing a slot machine that’s set to win 80% of the time. Only thing is, it gives you cards instead of cash. And soon, my cash would dwindle. But wait! I hadn’t looked in the cabinets yet.

Oh I need all of those dual lands for all of my legacy decks and hey, it’s the power of nine, all in one place, better get them before someone else does. May as well grab that Bazaar of Baghdad too. What?! One million yen?! (about USD$10,000) … Oh well, umm… I guess I’ll just take the Pillarfield Oxen for now. It seem like these guys are one of the trading card hoarding giants out there. I have never seen so many expensive cards in one place.

And they had all the good cards you need to whip up that Legacy deck you’ve been meaning to make. As you notice, a good deal of these cards are in English. I guess because back then, that was the only language they were printed in. I’ve never tried Force of Will or Land Tax because I’ve never owned them but they will all suffer to my Reanimator deck.

And it looks like there is not much room at the front of the shop for workers. Now this is something you wouldn’t see in New Zealand. People may boast that it is such a safe country and what not but you just wouldn’t leave packets of cards displayed openly for little kids to steal. Especially when all of the workers have their heads down sorting through cards 90% of the time. It may seem nice that these shop attendants don’t have to deal with that sort of nonsense but the real thieves in Japan are the Land lords.

This place is busy most of the time, even when there isn’t an event happening. It is near one of the busiest stations in the world. [Factoid: On average, about 4 million people pass through Shinjuku Station every day. New Zealand’s population is about 4 million. The population of NZ passes through Shinjuku Station every day. That blows my mind.] From a fraction of a distant decimal of that population they have room for a 36 player tournament if everyone squishes up.

The staff service I got was not so good as to be expected from such a busy store. It was mostly due to my part in not listing what set the Gideon, Champion of Justice and Frontline Medic came from. I didn’t know how to say Gatecrash in Japanese and before I could write ‘GTC’ on a piece of paper, he went searching for the cards starting from M14 backwards. He didn’t give me the mandatory thank you which triggers the store wide thank you. I had no problem with that. I got my cards in mint condition. I was happy. He was unhappy. But most importantly, I was happy.

Amenity Dream has a web site which lists a few of their products and directions to their shops around Japan. A pity as they could definitely cash in if they made a move on their online presence. They have the stock and the workers.

I wasn’t able to attend a game night but I can recommend this shop to anyone in Shinjuku who wants to shop and play. Good gaming.

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!