Retro Game Road Maps: The Nagahori Tsurumi-ryokuchi Line (Osaka)

If you haven’t noticed that the station and train line names in the Osaka area are unnecessarily long yet, you’ll definitely notice it after today’s article. This week’s article is the second entry into my “Road Map” series. The purpose is to show people how many retro game stores they can visit on each train line in Japan. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do one about the Kansai area so soon after moving here because I’m not sure if I’ve found everything that is nearby yet, but I was confident enough about today’s train line that I decided it was okay. Just like before, I will linking the shops I’ve already talked about on this blog, as well as the Instagram posts I made of stores that didn’t quite make the cut for this website.

Nagahori Tsurumi-ryokuchi Line

The Nagahori Tsurumi-ryokuchi line (the NTR line from now on, I’m not going to keep writing that out) is a subway line that runs from central Osaka to the eastern side of the city near Tsurumi Ryokuchi park and is actually the reason I started this series. I was visiting shops earlier this year in this area after already checking out a few others in Osaka and I came to the realization that there were a lot on this line. Not only just Book Offs and Hard Offs, but other chains as well populate this subway line. The line stretches from Kadoma-Minami station all the way to Taisho station, crossing a number of other lines that also have a lot of retro game shops. This makes it a great hub for game hunting in Osaka. For today’s article I’ll be working my way from the east into downtown Osaka.

Yokozutsumi Station

The first store on the train line is the Furuichi Tsurumi Ryokuchi store by Yokozutsumi station. It is the 3rd to last stop on the line if you are coming from downtown Osaka on the NRT line, or the 3rd stop if you are coming from Minami-Kodama. I wrote about this store on my blog back in April and felt like it was worth checking out due to the large selection and good prices. It is a 12 minute walk from the station, making it rather easy to access.

Gamo 4-Chome

The next stop on the NRT line should be Gamo 4-Chome. I’ve talked up Ojamakan stores in Kansai a lot, and this is one of the easiest stores to get to. It only takes one minute to walk there from exit 6, and it has great prices on a lot of games. It is more of a local store so the inventory isn’t as good as the bigger Ojamakans, but I really enjoyed my visit there. I hope you don’t fill up on too many games at these first two stops so you have to stop your trip, because there are still a lot more to check out. This store is easily miss-able if you are only looking for Hard Offs and Book Offs in Japan, but you are only shorting yourself if you don’t go. You don’t want to miss the Ojamakan Gamo branch.

Kyobashi

Kyobashi is a major transportation hub and is home to a regular Book Off, but when I visited it last year the prices were a bit high for my tastes and the selection was pretty small. If you are transferring to the Osaka Loop line or the Keihan line at Kyobashi station, it’s worth a look but just don’t expect to find much there. It’s a short walk from the subway station, but if you are coming from the other Kyobashi stations it might be a little longer. I didn’t take any pictures during my visit there since the inventory was so small, so I sadly don’t have any to share for this article.

Shinsaibashi

This is where the Nagahori line gets really, really good. Shinsaibashi station puts you smack-dab in the middle of the famous Osaka covered shopping street that stretches from Hommachi station all the way down to Namba. This puts almost a dozen retro game shops within walking distance if you don’t mind going all the way down to Den Den town. I’ve done articles on a handful already which I will link below, but there are actually a lot more stores that I didn’t talk about in the area because they didn’t meet my standards. Aside from the Surugaya, Furuchi, Super Potato, and Kaitori Max stores in Nipponbashi, there is also a Book Off Plus in Namba, another Book Off in Shinsaibashi, and a 3rd one down near Nankai Namba station as well.

In the Den Den Town area, you can also find a Surugaya outlet store and Retro TV Game Revival too. Selection-wise they were good in their own right, but the prices and quality kept me from wanting to write about them. Retro TV Game Revival seemed more focus on fleecing tourists than selling games, and being an Outlet store you can guess what kind of items show up at that branch of the Surugaya chain. Shinsaibashi is also located on the Midosuji line that crosses it going north and south, so I will be talking more about it in a future article that focuses on that.

(You can see the Surugaya Outlet Store here)

(You can see Retro TV Game Revival here)

(You can see Book Off Plus Namba here)

Taisho

There is actually both a Book off and Hard Off in the Taisho area, but they are nowhere near the station so I haven’t been there yet. I have seen them on the shuttle bus that goes to the Ikea from the station, but unless you take a separate bus or taxi they are pretty hard to get to.

So why the Nagahori Tsurumi-Ryokuchi line?

I hope you can see the reason why this train line inspired me to make this series. Shinsaibashi is a great place to go by itself, but when you add in another few stores worthy of a visit, you have a great plan for a weekend trip. You can knock out a lot of stores in one day, hitting up both the heavily traveled stores in downtown, as well as look for deals at some of the ones outside of town that haven’t been visited by as many retro game hunters. I’m looking forward to doing more of these articles in the future to help people plan their game hunting trips, so be sure to bookmark the page and look for updates every week or so!

But wait, there’s more!

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