We went on a drive down to Souka City in Saitama Prefecture on Sunday. While the two ladies had their thing to do, I checked out a couple of Hard Off/Hobby Off locations. The street I was driving on said that Ueno was just 13km ahead, so I really was right on the border of Tokyo. I’ve never driven to Tokyo before and the expressway system is a bit confusing in the middle of the city, but at least it was a straight drive along the Kan-etsu Expressway to Souka.
The first place I went to had these expensive Arii Macross kits. The stickers on these say 掲載商品 (keisai shouhin) which means an advertised product. That Spartan for 27,500 yen confuses me… That’s an Imai kit, right? It says it’s 1/72 scale, which would make it by Imai because Arii made the 1/100 version, but the white price tag says that it’s Arii. It’s also a “Macross diorama” kit. The stack on the right are 1/100 variable Valkyrie kits. I didn’t know they go for so much these days.
More obscure Macross kits. “System Fortress” diorama kits. Weird.
I proceeded on to another store location, and it wasn’t very far away.
Lots of legacy Gundam kits from the ’80s at this location.
Here are B-Club resin aftermarket detail parts for 0083 kits. I ended up not really finding anything of interest. I stumbled upon a Surugaya by chance, but there wasn’t anything particularly interesting there either. Lastly I went to the Book Off Super Bazaar in that town, but it was boring.
This is the building with Gunma Leisure Land game center and Mandai Shoten in Takasaki. We went down to Takasaki last Saturday. Mandai doesn’t open until 10, so I spent some time at the game center where I played some shmups like Senjin Aleste, which I wrote about in an earlier post. Then later I checked out Mandai.
Plenty of Macross model kits, old and new.
The Nautilus double set from Nadia. I have the regular submarine Nautilus, but not the nu-Nautilus starship.
The flag of Zeon was hanging overhead. Nice touch.
I didn’t notice these Eggplane Girl resin kits the last time I was here.
The high prices of Saturn games (and all retro games in general) is sad. I really need to sell a bunch of games now hat Ulan is getting braces. It’ll be a tough decision to make which ones I want to keep. I really can’t play any retro games anymore since my new TV has no S-Video inputs. I’d have to see if I have the regular composite inputs, but it looks like ass on a high-def TV. Rats.
There’s a new Neo Geo console coming out that features HDMI output. Neat stuff, but I won’t be buying one. I also found a boxed Sakura Taisen Dreamcast. I bought mine when I first lived in Japan, in December 2000, IIRC. Unfortunately, the plastic has yellowed and the pretty pink color has been ruined. Rats.
Oh yes, and when I was at the game center in the basement level, I got to play Cotton: Rock with You for the first time. You can play as Izuna, the unemployed ninja! I played those two games like crazy on the DS. Her shots are shuriken, and you can slash your sword for up-close damage and to swat enemy bullets away.
Many years ago, I wrote an essay on my history of the plastic model hobby. I mentioned how it was my wife Mayu who got me back into the hobby. Although I had bought a couple of models here and there, she is the one who came home one day in 2005 with an AT-AT from Empire Strikes Back by AMT and asked me to build her a “doggy horse” as she called them. That’s what got me back into the hobby.
I grew up with a local hobby retail chain called Hobby Bench. In fact, this is where Mayu bought the AT-AT, as she went inside while waiting for the next bus to take her home. While they had a decent supply of model kits, supplies and tools, the guys working the counter only seemed to care about radio control stuff. They’d always be talking with other RC hobby enthusiasts, to the point where I felt hesitant to even ask a question. I once asked if it’s possible to mix Testors acrylic paints with Tamiya acrylic paints and the clerk said, “Yeah, they’re both acrylics. Why not?” Well, that turned out to not be a good idea and it just shows their lack of expertise.
Then I discovered Andy’s Hobby Headquarters. I was impressed with both Andy’s knowledge and enthusiasm for the model hobby, and there was no RC stuff in his store at all! His store was focused solely on plastic modeling. His advice was always great and I always enjoyed talking with him.
Before I moved back to Japan, I gave him a huge stack of Hobby Japan ad Dengeki Hobby magazines to share with his modeling club. The last time I saw him was in March 2012, when I bought my 1:537 USS Reliant from Star Trek and the corresponding decals. Then eventually Andy became well-known among the YouTube modeling community.
In my recent trip to Arizona, I stopped by. He wasn’t there, and the man working there seemed used to disappointing people for not being Andy. Andy now spends most of his time at the new Hobby HQ store in Tolleson. The guy working at the original location may as well have a nametag that says, “Hi, I’m NOT Andy. Deal with it.” It was still cool to see how the store has changed, though. Here are some pictures I took.
I was surprised to see a Perfect Grade Millennium Falcon there!
There was this awesome Cylon Raider by Moebius Models hanging from the ceiling. I reached up high to take this photo. There was also an old Kenner X-Wing toy behind it. Notice all the Gunpla on the shelves in the background below.
Lots of Perfect Grade Gundam models.
So many Fujimi car model kits! Years ago when I worked at Aoshima, I had tried to build a relationship with Andy and tried to get him to purchase Aoshima kits directly from me. It didn’t really work out though. I don’t know why. Still, it was great to see all of the Fujimi car kits there.
I was surprised to see so many Hasegawa kits with their old box designs.
Here you can see the new Hasegawa boxes (top) and the old ones (bottom).
I wished I had taken more photos, but I actually ended up talking quite a lot with the store clerk. I know people would’ve liked me to take a video tour of the store, but I was with two friends and we had other places to go. I wasn’t alone. Maybe next time!
