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Hobby/model shops in Tokyo's Shinjuku area


railsquid

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Popondetta: the Shinjuku branch of Popondetta is tucked away at the back of the 7th floor of the Keio department store. It's a small store with a large rental layout; they have some glass display cases inside and outside the store displaying new N-gauge stock, which is the main attraction for me - many stores keep their stock mainly in its cases so it's hard to just browse. They also have a limited range of 2nd-hand stuff. Prices are not the cheapest, but occasionally I've found stuff like Tomytec buildings slightly cheaper than e.g. at Yodobashi Camera. Google Street View (of the Keio Department Store),

 

Yodobashi Camera: there's a 4-storey (including basement) hobby section ( ゲーム・ホビー館) in a separate building behind the main store (to the left of Starbucks, in front of Seven-Eleven). Model railway stuff is on the 2nd floor; the basement has a wide variety of useful craft tools. Prices are generally pretty good in combination with a point card. Fairly wide range of Kato, Tomix, Microace, Greenmax etc., and an aisle full of track and accessories. No 2nd-hand stuff, of course. The music/announcements-on-a-loop may drive you mad. Google Street View.

 

Hobbyland Pochi: kind of hard-to-find; on the 3rd floor of a typical small commercial building, accessible by a narrow staircase only. Fairly wide range of 2nd-hand stock, and a large-ish selection of junk stock (note they won't allow you to open/test this in the store). Google Street View - the door in the left-hand side is the entrance.

 

Karamatsu: again kind of hard-to-find; more of a railway memorabilia store, with a very limited selection of 2nd-hand stuff which looks like borderline junk. Google Street View - the building with Doutor in (be careful - there's another Doutor on the same street further down); entrance to the stairs / lift is on the left,

Edited by railsquid
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The Hobbyland Pochi is hard to find.  I found it first go with a pre printed map from home.  But these is nothing in the windows and outside the staircase to advertise the shop.

 

I like the Popondetta shops also.  Most are similar across Japan with their store layout/offerings.  The Hakata store had a queue to use the rental layout on the weekends.  Pretty much book out timeslot in advance, pay and some back later.

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The Hobbyland Pochi is hard to find.  I found it first go with a pre printed map from home.  But these is nothing in the windows and outside the staircase to advertise the shop.

 

There's usually a small "sandwich-board"-style sign by the staircase entrance, and a big sign saying "模型鉄道" on the building, albeit both in Japanese only. The "Pochi" logo is on the sign too. But I probably never would have noticed it unless I was specifically looking for it...

 

Anyway I added Google Street View links and additional descriptions .

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No wonder I walked past Pochi several times and couldn't find it.  That is well hidden.

 

Luckily I found plenty of other shops thanks to the links on this forum.

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I had a spare 45 minutes near Shinjuku station yesterday and with the help of Squid's very accurate locations found 3 of the 4 stores listed above. All still at as described in 2016 with reference to surrounding buildings.

 

Popondetta was first as it sounded small, and boy it was cramped but they pack a lot of stuff in the stock, however given the size of the shop (75% of which is a rental layout) there wasn't much in there for me. The akihabara store is much much larger, 4 stories in total and plenty of variety of new and used.

 

Hobby land pochi was a interesting albeit small store but had one set I was after unfortunately however the Kato 10 car Super view Odoriko 251 was a bit out of my price range - if they had the 6 car set that would've been a different story

 

Last I got to was yodobashi camera, I went here last as I expected to spend the most here as I had limited yen remaining and had read about their 5% off with a visa payment and 8% off with presentation of the passport on totals over ¥10800 - so that sounded like a challenge worth accepting to me!

I bought plenty of larger scenery items for my next module, and the staff were able to tell me the Super view odoriko (which we had taken earlier in the day) was out of stock and not being manufactured anymore.

The store though isn't quite as large as other yodobashi's ive been to, (Akihabara) but nevertheless it certainly filled in the time and emptied the wallet just nicely!

 

Thanks again Squid for your detailed info

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The Visa 5% off is still valid for Yodobashi? Wow! That might be their evergreen discount then ~

 

Yes and they have a large selection in their stores, just that their in-store Yodobashi musical chime can drive your nuts when you stay long enough....

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Yes and they have a large selection in their stores, just that their in-store Yodobashi musical chime can drive your nuts when you stay long enough....

 

I make sure I have my earphones in whenever I go there...

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