Retro Game Store Reviews: Furuichi Tsurumi Ryokuchi (Osaka)

I’ve visited quite a few Furuhonichiba’s since I’ve moved to Osaka, and while most of them were not bad to “mid” retro game shops, I think that that the Tsurumi Ryokuchi store has just enough to make it worth a visit. Slightly above average stock, prices that were okay to good, and just at the edge of being a walk-able distance from the nearest station. I actually never planned to go to this shop. I had forgotten to put it on my list of their shops in the area (going through all the Kanji on their website is hard), and if it wasn’t for going to a flea market at a nearby park in early spring, I might have missed it all together. Thankfully I didn’t. On my walk back to a different station from the flea market, I came across the store.

The Selection

I know what you’re thinking, “that’s a lot of games!”, and you’re not wrong. There are TONS of games at this store. The problem is that they are spread throughout the entire store and not all one place. This was one of the most unorganized retro game sections I’ve ever seen. You had DS, PS3, and Wii games in a few aisles, the PSP, Gamecube, and PS1 games on the back wall, and then Gameboy Advance and strategy guides in a corner. If you don’t look through this store carefully, you’re bound to miss some of them. It took me a while to find them myself since the set up was very unintuitive.

After taking half of these pictures I was about to leave but had wanted to check out the PS1 game section. No matter which aisle I looked down I couldn’t find them, until I realized they were on the back wall. You can also see that there are boxes full of games in front of some of these shelves too. This store is in dire need of an overhaul and needs to reorganize everything. But DAMN do they have a lot of stuff. And this wasn’t even everything they had. They of course had two more aisles devoted entirely to Switch and Playstation 4/5 games. Aside from all the software you see lining these shelves, they also had a good amount of handhelds and consoles, and the amount of accessories they had wasn’t bad either. It was just a hassle to track them down and find where they are.

The Pricing

With many stores raising their prices in Japan now due to increased traffic from tourism, it was nice to see a place that was more focused on serving locals and selling at local prices. Furuichi isn’t as cheap as those Book Offs and Hard Offs you’ll find deep in the countryside of Japan, but it was much cheaper than those stores you’ll find in the downtown and bigger suburb areas. Take this PSP Tactics Ogre game I picked up. In the city you’ll probably pay between 2000-2500 yen for this, and you might find it for 500 at a smaller store in a rural area, but at Furuichi it’s still a pretty good deal at around 1000 yen. You also have to take into account how much stock they have at their stores. They carry A LOT more retro games than most local Hard Offs/Book Offs. I would even go as far as to say that this chain carries the largest amount of retro games in stock aside from specialty shops like Surugaya and Super Potato (and retro games is only part of what Furuichi stores carry). It’s for that reason that I’m willing to pay a little bit more at their shops. They also have really good deals sometimes. I picked up a copy of Final Fantasy Dissidia on PSP for 100 yen at another location, but for the most part the prices are standard among them all so you won’t see much difference no matter where you go.

Access

There are a couple of stations that are close to this shop, but the closest one is probably Yokozutsumi on the Tsurumi Ryokuchi subway line in Osaka. From the station it is about a 12 minute walk, and there is also a big shopping mall nearby if you want to check it out before (or after) you go. If you’re coming from out of town and you’re starting from either Shin Osaka, Umeda, or Osaka station, be prepared for a lot of transfers. It seems like Kyobashi on the JR line is pretty close to the subway line you need to use to get there, and you should be able to get there from downtown near Namba pretty easily as well

The Verdict

• Selection: 4/5
• Pricing: 4/5
• Ease of Access: 3/5

I can fault the store for being a complete mess, but I can’t fault it for having too much stock that they don’t know what to do with it all. That’s why I scored it as high as I did. The same for the pricing. I was pretty happy with the prices on their games, even though I could find stuff for cheaper if I went further outside of the city. The chain at least has the decency not to fleece their local customers. The Furuichi I talked about before in Namba might be a little on the pricier side, but on the whole you’ll find better deals whenever you walk into one of their stores. This store’s weakest point is its location. It’s not out in the middle of nowhere, but it isn’t easy to get too either and isn’t in a convenient spot if you aren’t a resident of the area. Still, if you’re hitting up a wide variety of retro game stores around town it’s worth a trip.

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