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So I'm in Tokyo for work for a week and had Sunday off. I had heard about Japanese hobby shops being pretty incredible so i decided to stop by a couple when I was out and about. After actually finding them with google maps using a combination of the subway system and some walking in circles I found two of them. My first impression was wow, these places are PACKED with stock! I mean the shelves were full, like they had a minimum of 3-5 of everything, including cars (RTRs and kits). Space is a huge premium in Tokyo so every single square inch of the stores was jammed with parts. I think they had more stock than my LHS in maybe 1/3 the space.


The 1st place I went was called RC Champs (I think, lol). It was a single level and had had an impressive collection of cars and quite a few airplanes and some quads, even some boats. Lots of Tamiya and kyosho cars. I also saw some Serpents and Yokomo's. Sorry, no AE Not surprisingly, drift cars appear to be pretty big here, they had lots of car and parts for drift.
The second place I went was 3 levels (I have no idea what the name of it was, the name only showed up in Japanese on google maps). One level was mostly RC, the others were other toys. On the RC level they also had guns that shoot those soft little pellets.


PACKED shelves



I think they must have had every single car Tamiya makes...






Crazy Hornet with pink tires, I think there was a thread on here about this car.. I don't know why anybody would buy this, lol...



I have no idea who this bear is, but he seems to really like driving RC cars I saw at least 3-4 different RC cars available with this bear driving it





Here he is again!



Uhh... not sure what to say about this one, lol





If the bear doesn't do it for you maybe this anime chick driving an RC car will..



Or you can skip the RC car all together and just play with "Lucy"...


BTW, the exchange rate is about 1 Japanese yen = .008 USD. I'm not really up on my prices of Tamiya and Kyosho cars to know if those prices are good or not... $120 USD for Lucy though, she's better be pretty damn good for that much

You brought Lucy home, didnt you

Do I see a toilet4 conversion in the future??

If we can get the porcelain to hold up

GoMachV wrote:You brought Lucy home, didnt you

No, no Lucy for me Jeff, did you want me to pick one up for you?

Lol @ the toilet4 conversion

hey maybe you could bring me back a new spindle for my CNC

gonna suck for a couple weeks

Man, you wore that thing out already? Is that off your big machine or the little one?

Naw that's the China one. $45 spindle motor. The big one uses a router, it won't break. Just too big for my current shed

too big for current shed but pry not too big for kitchen

Todd

mk-Zero wrote:BTW, the exchange rate is about 1 Japanese yen = .008 USD. I'm not really up on my prices of Tamiya and Kyosho cars to know if those prices are good or not... $120 USD for Lucy though, she's better be pretty damn good for that much

Don't be so quick to judge what other people spend on their hobbies when you were in that shop looking at toy cars.

I'm not ashamed to admit I watch and enjoy Fairy Tail. I'm not that much of an otaku that I collect the merchandise but, if I were in Tokyo, I might have left that shop with a Lucy as a trip souvenir. Then again seeing Lucy would have almost certainly got me looking for a Virgo instead.

I also would've left the shop with one of those bears riding the tractor.

Yeah, i have to admit the bear driving the dune buggy was pretty tempting, lol

As i write this reply I'm doing 170 mph on a bullet train headed out of Tokyo. Its so smooth you would never know you were going that fast. The scenery sure whizzes by though!

That would be such a fun trip. Not just the hobby shops though.

I'm pretty lucky i get to travel the world for work, I've been in 10 countries, everywhere from New Zealand to India to Spain to Malaysia. Japan is really nice, this is my second time here.

Great report and thanks for all the pictures! Any vintage consignment sale buggies, like yokomos in that first shop?