{"id":147,"date":"2022-05-04T02:10:03","date_gmt":"2022-05-04T02:10:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/?p=147"},"modified":"2025-09-01T18:41:33","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T09:41:33","slug":"a-trip-to-mandai-in-takasaki","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/2022\/05\/04\/a-trip-to-mandai-in-takasaki\/","title":{"rendered":"A trip to Mandai in Takasaki"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We were in Takasaki last night and we stopped by the Mandai there. A few months ago, Mandai relocated from its large two buildings into a smaller building, sharing the location with Gunma Leisure Land game center. It’s confusing, but Mandai is located on the first and third floors, while Gunma Leisure Land is on the basement and second floors. Mandai has its own area of UFO catchers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There were xenomorph figures from Alien in one UFO catcher. I gave it one shot and gave up. Those larger, heavier boxes are difficult to grab. I went into the main store area to look at figures and models while Mayu checked out the dagashiya\/candy store area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Amuro Rey figure, apparently from Char’s Counterattack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A figure of the Serbine. I’m currently working on the Serbine model by Max Factory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Plenty of Gundam models. Unfortunately, my camera wasn’t focusing properly on some of this stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Next I went to the third floor to check out the video game stuff. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neo Geo AES and Mega Drive games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Boxed Super Famicom and Saturn consoles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Here are the Super Famicom Mini and Mega Drive mini consoles, plus plenty of handhelds: Neo Geo Pocket Color, Game Boy Color, Wonderswan, Game Boy Advance, etc. I bought my first NGPC for only 1000 yen about 21 years ago in a cramped shopping alley under the train tracks in Kobe called Motoko. This shopping alley stretches between Sannomiya Station and Kobe Station and is home to many used clothing, used appliances, junk electronics, antiques, and retro game shops. At least that’s how it was when I lived in Hyogo Prefecture at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Check out the prices on these Saturn games. Crows 18,000, Twinkle Star Sprites 10,000, Hyper Duel 60,000, Castlevania SOTN 16,000 (I think), can’t make out the price on Radiant Silvergun, Rockman 15,000, Doom 10,000 (NOT worth it), and I see a loose HuCard Parasol Stars for PC Engine laying in front of Dodonpachi. I really wish I had the chance to get Hyper Duel back in the day, but now it is incredibly expensive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I guess not all retrogaming is terribly expensive. Here are Arkanoid, Arkanoid II, and After Burner for the Famicom, cart only, for decent prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I decided to check out their anime soundtracks and found several records for sale: Castle of Cagliostro, Urusei Yatsura, Ashita no Joe, Macross, and Gundam. Pretty cheap, too. I guess the hipsters are leaving the retro record market alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At Leisure Land, I played some air hockey with Ulan. There are two lonely Sega Astro City cabinets in the back corner with Shanghai games running on them. 100 yen gives you two credits, so I played this one. Shanghai III was next to it, but an older woman there playing on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So what did I buy that night? I bought this nice figure of Mai from King of Fighters, loose, for 1700 yen. It was a fun night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We were in Takasaki last night and we stopped by the Mandai there. A few months ago, Mandai relocated from its large two buildings into a smaller building, sharing the location with Gunma Leisure Land game center. It’s confusing, but Mandai is located on the first and third floors, while Gunma Leisure Land is on … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “A trip to Mandai in Takasaki”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,17,4,7,2],"tags":[21,10,20,12],"class_list":["post-147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anime-manga","category-japan","category-modeling","category-neat-crap","category-video-games","tag-game-center","tag-gaming","tag-mandai","tag-retrogaming"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2465,"url":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/2025\/09\/01\/a-trip-to-mandai-in-takasaki-august-2025\/","url_meta":{"origin":147,"position":0},"title":"A trip to Mandai in Takasaki, August 2025","date":"2025-09-01","format":false,"excerpt":"So a couple of weekends ago, I had the opportunity to visit the Mandai in Takasaki and look at the neat stuff there. I first checked out the plastic model section. Here's an Imai kit of the Big Mighty from Mighty Jack. Mystery Science Theater 3000 fans will know about\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "anime\/manga"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_1852.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1448,"url":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/2024\/04\/28\/famicom-gachapon-at-mandai\/","url_meta":{"origin":147,"position":1},"title":"Famicom gachapon at Mandai","date":"2024-04-28","format":false,"excerpt":"The Mandai Shoten store in Maebashi has a Famicom gachapon machine. For 200 yen, you can receive a random Famicom game. You never know what you will get! How exciting! What could it be? Pac Man? 1943? Arkanoid? Dragon Quest? Tetris? ZANAC? My friend Lou got Derby Stallion, the boring-as-hell\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "video games"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/KIMG2068-rotated.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1111,"url":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/2023\/07\/27\/paper-lanterns-for-takasaki-matsuri\/","url_meta":{"origin":147,"position":2},"title":"Paper lanterns for Takasaki Matsuri","date":"2023-07-27","format":false,"excerpt":"I took this picture last week at the east exit of Takasaki Station. These lanterns were put up for the Takasaki summer festival, which is for the last weekend in August, the 26th and 27th. I love Japanese paper lanterns.","rel":"","context":"In "Japan"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/KIMG1740-rotated.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1346,"url":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/2024\/03\/05\/ulan-enjoyed-drawing-pictures\/","url_meta":{"origin":147,"position":3},"title":"Ulan enjoyed drawing pictures","date":"2024-03-05","format":false,"excerpt":"I was recently asked to prepare an activity for junior high-level English classes to have students use gerund phrases as modifiers for verbs. I took an idea from my coworker to have the students use whiteboards draw pictures which describe sentences that they put together by drawing cards at random.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "humor"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/KIMG1995-2-rotated.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":836,"url":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/2023\/04\/23\/spy-family-artwork-on-display-at-numata-city-hall\/","url_meta":{"origin":147,"position":4},"title":"Spy Family artwork on display at Numata City Hall","date":"2023-04-23","format":false,"excerpt":"I was in Numata Terrace, the city hall for Numata, Gunma Prefecture last week. On the 2nd floor is an art gallery for local artists. I saw some neat Spy family art from students on display. My daughter Ulan and I have enjoyed this anime series.","rel":"","context":"In "anime\/manga"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/KIMG1648-rotated.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1744,"url":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/2024\/10\/17\/a-rare-7-11-appears\/","url_meta":{"origin":147,"position":5},"title":"A rare 7-11 appears!","date":"2024-10-17","format":false,"excerpt":"A new 7-11 opened recently in Kawaba, Gunma Prefecture and perhaps due to local town ordinances or something, this 7-11 has wood paneling and the sign is brown. It's the only one in Japan, apparently. My wife Mayu said it's just like the turquoise-colored McDonalds in Sedona, AZ---the only one\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Japan"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/KIMG2339-rotated.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":162,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions\/162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}