Book Off Mayhem 2013 Part1

Before I start, here's a picture of my current "working place" on my vacation in Japan, and you can also see the treasure, that I found at Hobby Off, my "Jinouga Head"

Doing the preparations for this trip, some spots were only considered because of the aapearance of a Book Off or a small statue, sight, park, event or something like this, so this targets can be combined very easily on one day, without wasting too much time.

Today was a perfect chance to strike some of this spots out the "LIST OF REMAINING SCHEDULES", because the weather is rainy again, as it also may be tomorrow, so 5 Book Off places almost next to each other were chosen:

Kinshicho, Ikebukuro, Meijiro, Takadanobaba, each of these places with one Book Off (2 in Takadanobaba)

A short explaination for this franchise called Book Off, it was founded in 1990 in Japan, they sell preowned books, CDs, DVDs, games, game guides, Anime, Manga, magazines, almost every published printed material. There are more than 900 stores, only a few outside of Japan, e.g. there's one in New York.

The concept works pretty good, because the quality of the articles is really very good, very often the game guides or the artbooks, which are my prefered medium, don't look like used, some seem to be freshly printed, even the games don't have any scratches or so and the workers are awesomely polite and try to satisfy all your needs. The combination off a low price and a good quality of the preowned articles is just big PLUS, so the the articles almost sell theirselves.

Now you know, what a Book Off is.

In the following I will only show you some pictures of the Book Offs I've been to and will tell, what I bought there and rate the Book Offs.

BTW, I always carry my 2 Nintendo 3DS with me, for Streetpass and Spotspass, it's very easy to get 30-50  Streetpass Meetings, because almost everywhere your 3DS meets someone, in Germany there are events needed to get such a high counter. The only thing difficult is to get a counter of 50-100 or even more.
In your Mii Plaza there's only space for 10 people and to meet some new, you have to "welcome" the "waiting" ones first.

If you "empty" your waiting people every 2 hours and 4 times a day you will have your 50 people, for more you need the right spot, just like in front of Yodobashi Akiba or so, because as your own "waiting hall" has a maximum of 10 the halls of other persons have it, too. So you might have met more than 500 people, who's 3DS wanted to connect with yours, but only 50+ in your Plaza because even if you welcome every waiting person, you also need to meet someone, who has not yet met 10 people, since his last welcoming procedure, so he's able to meet you, too.

That's why you need place like Yodobashi Akiba, where many people take a seat at any time, resting a bit, playing a bit and also welcome there met Miis, so your Mii can instantly jump into this freshly empty Mii Plaza, as your partner Mii can do the same with your Mii Plaza - I met around 30 today, because I didn't welcome my Miis regularly.

That's for the Mii Plaza.

I started the Book Off Mayhem (Part 1) with Kinshicho, which is very close to Suitengumae only a few stops away with the Hanzomon Line.

It's on the second floor, they have a good selection of all goods, I bought a CD of TWO-MIX, one of my favorite J-POP Bands, who are famous for many songs for the Gundam Series and also Detective Conan. I also bought a CD of T.M. Revolution, when I started reading Manga and listening to japanese music I loved the Kenshin Manga and the Song Heart of Sword, it very often made my day.

I give this Book Off 3 of 5 STARS, it's good, but there are better ones.

With the Hanzomon Line I went to Otemachi then and changed for the Morunouchi Line to get to Ikebukuro. When you exit the station you can already see a huge sign pointing you to the right direction of the Book Off.

Here it is:

It's a pretty big one with 2 floors, an enormour selection, I needed almost an hour for the game guide and artbook section. They also offered YugiOh cards, years ago I played this Trading Card Game, too, so some good memories returned, when I saw some cards, that I already played.

And right before I was going to leave I noticed many Cosmodes (Cosplay Magazine) and some other similar stuff, like old Super Nintendo and GBA games. This was one of the best Book Offs I've ever seen, I will definitely return again, so it 5/5 STARS, even if I didn't buy anything, just because I already got it.

After that I went to UNIQLO, a shop like H&M or GAP, the cloths are not too expensive, but are not in bad quality, they are good average cloths.

From there I went to the store in Meijiro by foot. I looked at my map app and started walking, I walked for a while not noticing that I went to far, so I asked a police man and he told me my position on my app, so I turned and finally found the third Book Off.

It's a small one, I bought 2 guides for Dragon Quest Monsters 3D, nothing to add, 2 of 5 STARS.

Small one, it smelled kinda strange in there, many books were packed in plastic, to I had to ask someone to open it, to have a look in there, the books also smelled wrong, like they had a water damage. 1/5 STARS

1 Book Off left, I also went there by foot, a very, very small one 1/5 STARS.

After that I went back to the Takadanobaba Metro station to get back to the hotel.
I was weighting all the stuff I already bought to be safe at the airport when I will get back to avoid baggage overweight. Round about 12 kg, so everything is OK.

That's all for now, tomorrow it's time for Roppongi, Roppongi Hills, THI Friday and Hard Rock Café.