Tokyo - Nakano Section

Nakano

Most of the stores of interest in Nakano are in the Broadway Arcade, a building situated not far from the JR Nakano station. This means that I can slack on the directions.

How To Get To Nakano

Unlike most of the other places covered in this guide, Nakano is not a stop on the Yamanote line. Instead, you have to get on the Chuo or Sobu line. Check the railway map to get your bearings.

From the JR Nakano Station Take the north exit and go across the crosswalk into the covered shopping street.
Go all the way down until you run into the entrance of a building with a big sign in English saying "Broadway." That's pretty much it. If you can't deal with those directions, then you're beyond my help.

Inside the Broadway Arcade - 1st Floor

As far as I'm concerned, there ain't shit on the first floor. Actually, wait, there is one thing of redeeming value: an arcade. We always have to hit these places, especially if they have combini-catchers. This one had the trendiest of all treasures: an Initial-D lighter. Damn, that lighter was chou-epod. We spent $20 trying to win the damn thing, and came up short. In retrospect, that Initial D lighter was probably just a ploy to get poor gaijins to feed it 100 yen coins, as it was absolutely impossible to get. Ah well, let's go upstairs. (Careful though, they fuck with you on those stairs. One set goes up to the second floor, while another set goes straight to the third floor.)

Inside the Broadway Arcade - 2nd Floor

Basically for the rest of these floors, just wander around until you find the stores. Don't worry, the place ain't that big.

Mandarake
This store is broken up into several sections which are scattered throughout the 2nd though 4th floors of the Arcade. Collectively, I consider it to be one big junk store. Some points worth mentioning are 1)none of the Mandarake sections are open until noon. Unlike myself, some of you freaks actually like to wake up at ungodly hours (i.e. before noon) and go shopping. Well, plan accordingly. 2)some of the Mandarake sections accept credits cards, but I don't know if you need to spend a minimum amount. Anyhow, on to the various stores themselves:

Mandarake New Special Shop
This place carries lots of miscellaneous junk like UFO catchers, figures, keychains, toys, etc. It's pretty much all used merchandise, and the prices are fairly good.
Mandarake Special

Mandarake Gallery
Outside we have several display cases of expensive sketches by famous artists. Whoo-hoo. Inside, however, we have used LDs, CDs, videos, and anime goods like mugs, hankies, and my favorite, a Graduation wall clock. Prices aren't bad. Verge spotted an Ayane's High Kick LD, and contemplated the fact that he could pay for that LD with the change in his pocket. Then he walked on. ^_^

Mandarake Gallery

Mandarake Deep Shop
This place carries used posters, doujinshi, books, magazines, and hentai manga. Prices range from good to slightly less than retail, depending on the item.

Comet Nakano
This extremely small store sells cels and posters.
Pitstop alert: down a ways from Comet Nakano there are lockers and vending machines. Stash your porn and LDs, and power up before continuing your quest to buy even more LDs.
Comitto Nakano

Disk Five
This is a hole-in-the-wall video store that carries a small anime DVD selection. The prices are so-so, although there are some bargains to be had. Plus, tax appeared to be included in the low price. To quote Verge, "Try and import Love Hina on DVD for less than $7 an episode!"

Inside the Broadway Arcade - 3rd Floor

Mandarake Live Shop
God bless Japan for this show of equality. This place carries used doujinshi for women, and interestingly enough, is way bigger than the mens' doujinshi section over at the Deep shop. It's a good guess that most of it is yaoi/slash stuff that Cheap Bastard would never read, but if it does for women what doujinshi porn does for men, then absolute power to them.

Trio
To the left of the Mandarake women's doujinshi section is a small store that sells old entertainment books and magazines, including some related to anime.

Mandarake Manga Store
As you can probably guess, this is the manga section of Mandarake. They carry mostly used (but some new) regular manga for men and women. The pricing on the used manga is not bad, while the new manga is sold at retail price. They did have some nice deals on entire sets of cetain titles. You can even pay by credit card, too. When you are trying to do this at the counter near the entrance, and the cashier is gesturing toward the back, what they are trying to tell you is that they have to process the order at the back of the store. I guess they're too cheap to put the machines up front (shrug).
Mandarake

Anime World Star Alpha
This store has two separate locations on the 3rd floor. One is across from the Mandarake manga section, while the other is on the other side of the floor. This particular section sells cels plus a very small smattering of other stuff like posters, books, trading cards, etc. I don't care for cels at all, so I can't say much about the prices (except that I think they're hella overpriced). This store accepts credit cards with a minimum purchase of 10000 yen. They even have a nice little sign in English asking you to let them check the card before you even think of shopping. Note: I've been informed by one of my partner's in crime that Anime World Star advertises in Newtype, complete with a very small map of the floor it's on. Also, Anime World Star offers grab bags of cels for 1000 yen each, with each bag guaranteed to have one AIC cel. Anime World Star Alpha

Anime World Star
This section of Anime World Star used to sell cels. They still sell a few goods a little somethin' (I think), but otherwise it looks like they turned it into their business offices. Ah well. Cels, seashells, seashore... fuck it. Since a cel collector I am not, I did not bother to look at the prices. I dunno, after I learned that production studios actually pay money to get rid of this shit, I just can't see spending money to collect them. Note: both sections of Anime World Star are closed on Wednesdays. You cannot imagine how annoying it is to find this out on a Wednesday.
Anime World Star Alpha

Fujiya Avic Anime Shop Part 1
Fujiya Avic is broken up into two parts. This section deals entirely with laserdiscs. They have a good selection of individual anime LDs, bundled sets of LDs, and LD box sets. Goddamn, you'd think they were going out of style or something. Last time we were here they had a shitload of LDs that were priced 1900 yen a piece, or 3 for 3000 yen. Hell, I left Verge alone for an hour, and he bought like 18 of them. This time most of the LDs were going for 500 yen a pop. If I didn't have almost every anime LD I've ever wanted, I would have gone into a feeding frenzy. As it was, the sight of all these cheap LDs just brought a weary smile to my face. Fujiya Avic Anime shop 1

Fujiya Avic Anime Shop Part 2
This section of Fujiya Avic sells new and used DVDs, CDs, and some miscellaneous goods. Right outside the shop is a display of dirt-cheap used CDs. At both sections these beautiful people take credit cards with purchases of 5000 yen or more. Fujiya Avic Anime shop 2

Inside the Broadway Arcade - 4th Floor

Mandarake Mania Section
As far as I can tell, this section sells antique manga (well, the shit looked pretty old to me), toys and a mix of other junk like art books, old magazines and cels. Prices run from cheap to obscene, depending on what you're buying. Also on this floor Mandarake has set up more display cases of various anime goods.
Mandarake Mania shop

Zero
This is a small store that sells cels and some other junk like UFO catchers and trading cards.
Zero