What a fun article. Thanks for posting this @Roger ! It really makes me miss Japan. This year marked 10 years since my last visit. I remember visiting Nakano Broadway for the first time in 2012 with @datadub and @Paulkaiju either a few days before or after my wife and I got married. It was a hell of a fun day. Here’s hoping I can visit again for my 11th anniversary.
We fluked a trip in the December '19, right before the 2020 shitshow! Sad to hear Bar Zingaro shut up shop for good and curious to see how the retail landscape has been reformed in the interim. Japan's politicians seem to be strangling tourism to avoid losing those obachan votes!
I spent about a fortnight in Feb 2020 going around Tokyo but visited Nakano Broadway so many times I nearly ran out of spending money
I rarely find anything (mostly cheap random crap and Gachapon), but love the Mandarake mindfuck . . . the thought of unearthing a holy grail for cheap!
Glad you guys enjoyed the article. Sometimes I wonder what it's like to live above those legendary shops. Until recently there was a fantastic Twitter account cataloging the underbelly of Nakano Broadway: https://twitter.com/nakanobroadwayh - shoplifters, seemingly abandoned children, crazies, etc. Related, article about one of the founders and current owner of Mandarake: https://sabukaru.online/articles/the-ruler-of-time-masuzo-furukawa-founder-of-mandarake
Darn. "Suspended" Would love to check out that stuff. Any idea where else that content or portions might be located?
I don't know, I didn't find the tweets on the usual archive sites. Hopefully they can get the account reinstated one day. It was pretty crazy.
I dug around, too; nada. Wonder what got them nuked? Perhaps naked content, or some of the stuff with seemingly abandoned kids.
