Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Express Shopping at Mint Ikebukuro and Mint Shibuya


For those that haven't been to Japan, it is a wonderful place to live and visit!  I took another trip to Japan over Spring Break with my family and we spent the last day in Tokyo where I was able to hit up a few card shops, albeit rather quickly as I didn't want to bore the family with my browsing.  We had other fun family things to do so I wanted to limit the amount of time card shopping.  I was able to hit up three stores though: Mint Ikebukuro, Mint Shibuya, and Yellow Submarine in Akihabara.  Dave over at the Japanese Baseball Cards Blog did a great 4-part series on a bunch of card shops in Japan so I won't recapture what he has there, but his stuff in his blog is extremely useful when picking and choosing where you want to spend your card-shopping time.  One of these days, I would love to make a sports-only trip to Japan to watch baseball, basketball, sumo wrestling, and go card shopping.  I think the end of March I could probably hit all those up over a two-week period.



I spent about 20 minutes in Mint Ikebukuro (groan....right?  only 20 minutes...ha!)  I was able to browse their sumo and pack selection and walked away with another box of 2017 BBM B.League Basketball Fast Break 2nd Half as well as an assortment of random packs that I will open up on my next blog post.  The staff was really helpful and we chatted for a few minutes in my horrific Japanese about collecting Brandon Laird, Yuta Tabuse, and Sumo Wrestling.  Unfortunately, they didn't have any older menko cards, but it was a fun browse!






Mint Shibuya was a quick walk from the station and we were mainly here to do the Shibuya Crossing where everyone crosses the street at one time and in force.  It was definitely fun to people watch here and do the crossing.  My son got a kick out of it.  We headed over to Mint Shibuya and I was intrigued about the bar they had in the store to drink while breaking card boxes.  As tempting as it was, I had to resist bellying up the bar to throw one back as I am sure it would have turned into two and three and my son was with me.  The store was a little smaller than I was expecting, but I did walk away with a sweet deal on a 2015 Sumo Wrestling Box and some more packs.

The last store I headed into was Yellow Submarine over in Akihabara.  I actually didn't see a whole lot here and we were in the area for the arcades anyway, but it was pretty neat to check out all the floors.  A lot of gaming and idol cards here and I didn't end up walking away with anything.  Booo, but I did have fun browsing.  No pictures unfortunately.


Here is what I did end up getting in my bag to haul back home.



I was able to fill in most of my Members Card...hopefully I can spend a bit more at some point to get my ¥500 discount......stay tuned for some pack breaks!

6 comments:

  1. Great post, glad that your trip to Japan went well! its cool that you made it to the Shibuya Mint with that bar, I don't blame you for not having a drink but it does look pretty cool!

    I am kind of in the same wagon when travelling - I can't spend time going to card shops because I don't want to force my family to spend time on my hobby!

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    1. Thanks! I'll be back in a year or two so hopefully I can visit some more.

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  2. Mint Shibuya has a bar in their shop? That's the coolest thing I've heard all week! One of these days I'll make it to Tokyo. Hopefully all of these shops are still around when I do.

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    1. You'll be in heaven I am sure. I was really tempted with the bar and a cool concept. I wonder when the "trend" will hit the U.S.??!!

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  3. I appreciate the shout out and I'm glad to have helped you out but the guy who has all the info on card shops in Japan is Ryan over at This Card Is Cool. Ryan's been all over Japan and has been to many more shops than I have - plus his information is much more recent as it's been four years since I've been there.

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    1. Thanks Dave! Ryan definitely does....your 4-part series stuck in my mind, but thanks to the two of you, I'm ready to start planning my next, all-sports trip to Japan.

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