I recently did a toy store tour of Tokyo and created a spreadsheet listing all known toy store locations in Tokyo (with some help from Brian, Andy, Jeremy, and Mike before my trip). It is likely the most up to date list at this time and I will share it with everyone shortly. There were a couple stores I was unable to verify as they were not open during their normal business hours. Can anyone confirm that these are either still open and just flaky or no longer open? 1. Cosmo Knight Alpha - no signage at all, not open during their normal business hours, and phone goes to machine (no idea what the message says since it's in Japanese). Web site appears to still be active, but they might be doing web-only now? 2. Psycho Monsterz - store is still stocked, but not open during business hours (which are posted right on the window in English) and phone goes to machine (in Japanese). 3. Ichiban Boshi - the guy at Star Case says they are still around, so I am guessing they are just flaky unless I hear otherwise. In two trips (2013 and 2017) they have not been open during their business hours. The sad news is 25 stores have closed in the past decade - and that doesn't count stores at Nakano.
Cosmo Knight Alpha is still up and running. I was there on a Tuesday night around 7pm a few weeks ago. Can't speak for the other shops.
A lot of the vintage shops have posted hours but when you show up theres no one there, the only way I get around this is call. Ichi is still open too but he's usually only there for a few hours and its hard to know when he will open and close for the day unless you can ask.
Ichibanboshi is a great store when open. Managed to visit on my last trip back in 2013. Got a few gems on that visit
I tried calling a couple stores before my trip. The ones I called spoke no English. I tried using Google Translate but it was woefully inadequate for a phone conversation. I tried yes/no questions but always got a much longer answer - most likely due to funky translation. We are not quite at the point of Star Trek's universal translator - though I suspect we might be in another 5 years for my next trip.
Would definitely love to download the spreadsheet for my own use. I'm hoping to get over there in the next year or two!
