Retro Game Store Reviews: Ojamakan Kamishinjo (Osaka)
Since moving to Osaka last year I have visited a good number of thrift stores and retro game specialty shops, but none have really stood out to me. The Book Off Super Bazaars were a little disappointing, the Hard Offs were ok, and while discovering the Furuhon Ichiba (Furuichi) chain gave me a lot more stores to check out in Kansai, I had yet to come across any stores that blew me away. Sure the major retro game specialty stores like Super Potato and Surgaya had extensive inventories, but they all suffered from being too expensive and too picked over because of their vicinity to high traffic tourist areas. I wanted to believe that there were still affordable shops out there with good inventories, that the retro gaming boom hadn’t spread to everywhere in Japan yet. The Furuichi stores I went to were good in terms of prices and inventories, but so many of them are incredibly local and difficult to get to even with public transportation. Then I heard about Ojamakan.
I was impressed by my first visit to the Ojamakan chain of stores when I went to the branch near Gamo-4-Chome station in Osaka. The stock was decent, the location was good, and the prices were affordable and gave places like Furuichi and countryside Hard Offs a run for their money. I ended up researching all of the other stores they had and saw that they had 5 branches in Osaka alone so I made it my mission to check them out. Hopefully one of these stores would hit paydirt but I held my breath. I expected all of the Ojamakan stores to be similar but boy was I wrong, and thankfully so. As unassuming as this branch is in some random Osaka suburb in some area people don’t know about, it is probably the best retro game store in Osaka, if not all of Kansai.
The Selection
Don’t ask me how they fit all this retro game goodness into one small, unassuming store. All I can say is that whoever designed it was an absolute madman: Shelves upon shelves filled with games, crates under the shelves with spillover that didn’t fit on the shelves, related goods and accessories above each of those shelves, thousands of cartridge based games hung from the walls, islands of accessories and handhelds, and multiple showcases filled to the brim with nary an empty space. I was in awe as soon as I walked through the door. I squeeze my body through each aisle, spending time to carefully pore over every inch of inventory they had. There were layers upon layers of games in this store, so much so that if you only give it a once over you’re bound to miss something. I found myself going through each shelf 3 to 4 times and finding new stuff each time I checked.
Aside from massive Nintendo and Sony inventories, the Ojamakan Kamishinjo store has the largest selection of Xbox games I’ve ever seen in Japan. Most places will have one to two rows on a shelf for Microsoft games, but this store game then their own rack with 5 shelves full of games. If you are looking for Xbox stuff in Kansai, you won’t find more than at this store. The only software I didn’t find a lot of in this store was Dreamcast and other Sega products. Perhaps the owner of the chain wasn’t a fan? I can’t really say.
On the hardware side of things, this store had a lot of Gameboys, DS, and 3DS and while you might not be able to see them in the pictures there were a lot of consoles above and below their respective sections in the store as well. There were a lot of boxed systems (both console and handhelds), and that wasn’t the only thing that had boxed. They had some incredibly rare game accessories in boxes too at this store (pics to follow later). I found so many things I was looking for at this store I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Speaking of accessories, most store you go to will treat their accessories like garbage. They will have all of them in one box together, their cables getting twisted up and smaller items getting totally lost at the bottom of it. Not at the Ojamakan Kamishinjo store. Sure there were some accessories in baskets, but the majority of them were individually packaged and hanging from wire racks which made them accessible and easy to look through. Don’t even get me started on the depth and range of accessories either. You’ll just have to see for yourself.
The Pricing
Games? Cheap to affordable. Accessories? Instant buys. Guidebooks? Criminally low in price. When I say that the majority of the items in this store are great deals I’m not lying. As I said above they have some incredibly rare items in this store for sale. I had no idea Sega 3-D glasses even existed, and a BOXED King of Fighters GBA is something you will never see complete at a retro game store anywhere. Those Pokemon Center Gameboy Colors are more common that that one. While those skew more on the pricey side of things, you’ll probably find yourself walking out with a handful of things and a large smile on your face. The only things that were borderline expensive were their handhelds (especially Nintendo ones). The majority of their hardware was in line with places like Hard Off and Book off, but their games were on the low-end of the spectrum. The only other place I had seen as many games at such good prices were at regional shops like Kanteidan in Shizuoka prefecture or the Guruguru chain of stores in Kanto.
Access
I know what you are thinking. This store must be incredibly hard to get to. There is no way a store can have so many things at such good prices and still be located in Osaka proper. Well would you believe me if I said it was less than 15 minutes from Osaka station? Okay so not JR Osaka station, but from Hankyu Osaka-Umeda station (not to be confused with JR Osaka station or Osaka-Umeda station on the Hanshin line). To be honest finding the right starting station from the downtown area is probably going to be the hardest part of your trip to this store. Osaka has 3 major above ground lines: Japan Railway (JR), Hanshin, and Hankyu. Their department stores are all located right near each other smack dab in the middle of downtown Osaka. Once you find the Hankyu department store, Osaka-Umeda station will be right there. After that you can catch a semi-express train towards Kyoto and arrive there 4 stations later. From the northern exit of Kamishinjo station, you’ll walk about 8 minutes and you’ll be there. The store is located right at the corner of an intersection near a residential area.
The Verdict
- Selection: 5/5
- Pricing: 4.5/5
- Ease of Access: 4.5/5
Retro game hunters rejoice. This is the store you’ve been looking for that has the games and game things you want at prices you are more than happy to pay. Honestly the only thing keeping me from giving this store perfect 5/5s all across the board are the high prices of handhelds and the slightly confusing method of transportation (which can get more confusing if you add in another layer of transfers coming from the bullet train at Shin Osaka station). But honestly, if you can only go to one store the entire time you’re in Osaka go to this one. Namba is a waste of time and money, and Hard Offs are hard to get to (even if they have the best selection of handhelds and consoles in Japan). The last time I felt this good about a store was when I went to the Kanteidans in Shimizu and Hamamatsu, and the Surugaya flagship store in Shizuoka (which recently moved to a building nearby the original store and features solely retro games now!).
I don’t think you’ll see any tourists making their way to this store in the near future so I wouldn’t be surprised if their inventory and prices remain this good for a while. Not many people think of Osaka when it comes to retro games and even less people want to go off the beaten path to places that have no sightseeing value whatsoever. Ojamakans have the benefit of being local game stores with local game prices in large metropolitan areas, it’s as simple as that. I want to wish those that make the trip to this store happy hunting and that I hope you find lots of great stuff.
But wait, there’s more!
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