Welcome to my dream place, Hard Off. Most of my leisure time is spent digging through the many shelves of various chuukou (second-hand) stores around Japan. My favorites are Kaihou Souko, Jam, Mandarake, and of course, Hobby/Book/Hard Off. These are some of my favorite finds.
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Item: Thinkpad SL510
Location: Hard Off
Date: April 2025
Description: Thinkpads are amazing machines due to how easily repairable they are. We saw this one for a couple dollars due to not having an OS, and we immediately knew we had to rescue it and put Windows Vista on it to run the Sims 2 (and my old visual novels). I really miss the days when a DVD drive was standard on laptops ;-;
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Item: Crazy Taxi Double Punch
Location: Jam
Date: March 2025
Description: One of my favorite games... On handheld now! Sure, it's a little laggy, the input from the arrow keys is much less reliable than a joystick, and the original soundtrack is nowhere to be found (those cheapskates...), but I can play Crazy Taxi on the train! That's awesome!
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Item: Rhythm Ace FR-81
Location: Hard Off
Date: February 2024
Description: It's finds like this that make Hard Off my dream place... This is a 60s drum machine that is the precursor to the later Roland drum machines. The tag on it claimed it wasn't working, but after a few minutes of toying with it Shane accidentally leaned on it and it started playing. We bought it immediately and later learned the small silver plate on the top left has to be touched (Not flipped, pushed, etc.) to start the rhythm. When I return to my audio equipment I want to recreate it digitally on this page.
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Item: PSP...Again
Location: Hard Off
Date: January 2025
The first PSP I bought here was a 1000. It had frequent battery hiccups, and regularly didn't want to charge. It worked, but for how much I used it and how cheap they are here, I went ahead and bought a spiffy Miku blue 3000.
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Item: Fata Morgana and Umineko
Location: Kaihou Souko
Date: December 2024
Description: The souko (warehouse) is pretty large and overwhelming compared to the humble Hard Off near our town. It's no surprise it took me two months after my search for visual novels began to find the non-18+ visual novels shelf tucked in the corner of the retro video games. These go for a ridiculous price on Steam (even without the DVD Case ;-;), so I was happy to snag them for a few dollars each.
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Item: Hysteric Mini Doll
Location: Jam
Date: December 2024
Description: I'd never seen this figure before, so I was shocked when I stumbled upon it not on Mercari, but at Jam for pennies.
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Item: Planetarian
Location: Jam
Date: November 2024
Description: The exact same day as the last post I found Planetarian by Key. This one was a bit closer to normal pricing, but still cheaper than steam. And just look at that gorgeous box!
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Item: Baldr's Gate and Secret Game
Location: Hard Off
Date: November 2024
Description: I had been interested in visual novels as a way to vary my Japanese learning routine for a while, but I never quite had the push to start. After months of regularly visiting this Hard Off, we finally spotted a tiny 18+ section, where there was a whole shelf of visual novels for pennies each. I guess they just assumed all VNs are 18+. The boxes of software are very nostalgic.
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Item: Real Force Keyboard
Location: Hard Off
Date: October 2024
Description: I've been interested in Topre keyboards, split spacebar keyboards, native Japanese keyboards, and with all of my keyboards being under 75% I had a need for a larger board. Unfortunately Topre is EXPENSIVE, and I didn't want to shell out a bunch of money for an HHKB I wasn't even sure if I was going to like. This keyboard answered all of those problems. Turns out I kind of dislike Topre- I'm very loyal to my Holy Pandas. Maybe one day I'll break them in enough.
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Item: Accordion
Location: Hard Off
Date: September 2024
Description: Ever since I've listened to Neutral Milk Hotel I've wanted an accordion. Unfortunately they're thousands of dollars, but this one I found for about twenty. It's in great condition, the only oddity is that it has no bass keys? But, it sounds great when playing with a bassist. It's been a good little starter accordion.
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Item: Cat's Eyes Guitar
Location: Hard Off
Date: September 2024
Description: We searched all over Tokyo for a cat's eyes for three days to no avail. On our final day, moments before departing for the airport, we check a final Hard Off. The instrument floor was no good. We trek up the fourth flight of stairs to the holy JUNK floor. The final guitar we spot was it: A gorgeous cat's eyes heavily discounted due to some cosmetic damage on the finish.