In Japan, any suggestions for shops? (bought a new one)

  • Thread starter Thread starter itsgoodnow
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Ochanomizu is really cool.

There’s also a fender store in Shibuya worth taking a couple pics in. They have a custom shop on the top floor they let me peek into for a second
 
glpg80 said:
@Code001
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I wonder if anybody has said Ochanomizu yet? :) It's the easiest and most convenient place. But depending on where you're at in Tokyo, some others might be closer.

Ishibashi, Ikebe, and Kurosawsa in Ikebukuro
Ishibashi, Nico-Nico, Music Land KEY, Ikebe in Shibuya
Ishibashi, Shinamura, TC Gakki in Shinjuku

There are others, too. But those are the stores I usually try to hit up when I'm there.
 
Exo-metal said:
Need to hear what happened since yesterday bro!!
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Man! Insane timing, I just got back from the pilgrimage. So, I went to Ochanomizu. An unreal amount of high quality stores. A lot of the stores are multi level and they carry Fender, Gibson, etc and they have a high end floor. Mostly guitars. Not as many amps but a ton of guitars. I just loaded an imgur album of some of the pics so people can see some of what it is like. Most surprising takeaways:
  1. There are so many fucking Suhr guitars here your mind would melt. More than I have ever seen in the United States. Every shop has Suhrs. Rare stuff too--I saw a drip modern just hanging on the wall. Tylers and Andersons as well. Gibsons are everywhere. It is not uncommon for each store to have 30+ gibson guitars. Greco and the like are also abundant but the high end stuff was here.
  2. I supposedly saw a 1959 Les paul in a humidified case. If true that is insane. I'll load a pic of it later.
  3. I saw a 1963 335 in a case as well.
  4. I saw a VHT CLX with a matching cab...for 1300 dollars total. If I saw that in the US I would cartwheel to the buyer.
  5. PRS also was everywhere. First shop I went into was Big Boss. I then went to every shop I could find. Ultimately GAS won and big boss took me for some loot. New PRS Wood Library: below. Shipped it back to myself.
IMG_6004.jpeg


 
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So I guess this has been covered but yea, if you want to see a bunch of guitars in the least amount of space, Ochanomizu is it. But it's eye candy more than it is guitars you'd actually want to buy for the most part, and way full of E-II stuff and not the high end ESP cool stuff.

Apart from that there are a couple places where you can occasionally get decent deals on used stuff, but the scene has really changed over the past couple of years and even with the exchange rate in your favor, I don't find much worth buying from shops. To put it in perspective, I probably buy 50 guitars a year. I have bought from in-person store stock about 3 times in the past 4 years.

I would recommend checking out TC Gakki in shin-okubo as they sometimes get cool used stuff in, but unfortunately they also often have a set period of time before those guitars that you can see in the shop actually go for sale. Hybrid guitars sometimes has cool things. Miyagi guitars is a cool shop, has some metal stuff there. There's musicland key and ESP craft house in shibuya. I personally find those usually have more buyable stock than anything in ochanomizu.

I haven't done much guitar buying outside of Tokyo in a long time, but the chain shops also have a presence in Osaka.

jb44 said:
If you're going to buy gear from a shop, don't haggle the price, it's frowned upon in Japanese culture.
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Well it's okay to ask for a discount, but just don't expect anything significant and don't turn it into a negotiation.
 
@itsgoodnow where's the VHT stuff? I've been thinking about getting a VHT cab for a while, depending on speakers.
 
narad said:
@itsgoodnow where's the VHT stuff? I've been thinking about getting a VHT cab for a while, depending on speakers.
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I believe it was on the second floor of "Shimokura Second Hand Part 2."

IMG_5974.jpeg
 
narad said:
So I guess this has been covered but yea, if you want to see a bunch of guitars in the least amount of space, Ochanomizu is it. But it's eye candy more than it is guitars you'd actually want to buy for the most part, and way full of E-II stuff and not the high end ESP cool stuff.

Apart from that there are a couple places where you can occasionally get decent deals on used stuff, but the scene has really changed over the past couple of years and even with the exchange rate in your favor, I don't find much worth buying from shops. To put it in perspective, I probably buy 50 guitars a year. I have bought from in-person store stock about 3 times in the past 4 years.

I would recommend checking out TC Gakki in shin-okubo as they sometimes get cool used stuff in, but unfortunately they also often have a set period of time before those guitars that you can see in the shop actually go for sale. Hybrid guitars sometimes has cool things. Miyagi guitars is a cool shop, has some metal stuff there. There's musicland key and ESP craft house in shibuya. I personally find those usually have more buyable stock than anything in ochanomizu.

I haven't done much guitar buying outside of Tokyo in a long time, but the chain shops also have a presence in Osaka.



Well it's okay to ask for a discount, but just don't expect anything significant and don't turn it into a negotiation.
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Very cool. I am in Shinjuku until Monday. Then off to Osaka and Kyoto for a bit. I'm going to keep an eye out
 
itsgoodnow said:
I believe it was on the second floor of "Shimokura Second Hand Part 2."

View attachment 347291
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Ah alright, non-EQ model.

But yea, I still enjoy the pics of guitar shops even if they're local for me. But man, you see like 1.7M JPY for a white schmear James Tyler, 1.7M for an old valley arts, 1.6M for a jimburst Tyler. It's like yea, welcome to Japan in 2024. They're pricing everything for foreign markets now so the deals are few and far between. You'd get cheaper guitars locally most of the time.

That said if you're interested in anything in my Reverb store I can do a hand delivery and discount ;-)

https://reverb.com/shop/sugoi-guitars
 
narad said:
Ah alright, non-EQ model.

But yea, I still enjoy the pics of guitar shops even if they're local for me. But man, you see like 1.7M JPY for a white schmear James Tyler, 1.7M for an old valley arts, 1.6M for a jimburst Tyler. It's like yea, welcome to Japan in 2024. They're pricing everything for foreign markets now so the deals are few and far between. You'd get cheaper guitars locally most of the time.

That said if you're interested in anything in my Reverb store I can do a hand delivery and discount ;-)

https://reverb.com/shop/sugoi-guitars
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Yeah the prices definitely seemed geared towards the world market for sure. I am usually pretty picky with my gear but it was really cool to see. Great way to kill an afternoon. I'll take a look for sure!
 
narad said:
Ah alright, non-EQ model.

But yea, I still enjoy the pics of guitar shops even if they're local for me. But man, you see like 1.7M JPY for a white schmear James Tyler, 1.7M for an old valley arts, 1.6M for a jimburst Tyler. It's like yea, welcome to Japan in 2024. They're pricing everything for foreign markets now so the deals are few and far between. You'd get cheaper guitars locally most of the time.

That said if you're interested in anything in my Reverb store I can do a hand delivery and discount ;-)

https://reverb.com/shop/sugoi-guitars
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You are not japanese, are you? I wanna hear how you guys end up ending up halfway the globe frome home haha
 
CrystalSky said:
You are not japanese, are you? I wanna hear how you guys end up ending up halfway the globe frome home haha
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A lot of Americans end up in Japan because of the military, at least thats how most of friends did
 
itsgoodnow said:
It’s kind of interesting. Those tops were for ESP guitars. They had 3 small walls of blanks and tops. They have a booth in the top of it where you can pick your build right there and submit it
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Is there a way to do it on their website?
 
japetus said:
A lot of Americans end up in Japan because of the military, at least thats how most of friends did
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I had that idea in mind, still I love to hear those stories.

Wish I was rich to go and hang out with members and haggle with japanese 😂
 
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