Famicomblog

This is going to be the first in a series of posts in which I explore the retro game shops of Fukuoka and uh....write.....stuff. About them.

Fukuoka has a ton of game shops, but its a bit of a challenge to explore them as they are scattered throughout the city and its suburbs. The mission I've set myself is to visit the ones which have a good selection of Famicom games (not all do). The main purpose is just to take pictures of the Famicom sections of these shops and show them off because, as some people have noted (here and here for example), Japanese retro game shops are a rather beautiful thing. EBay is convenient, but you can't wander wide-eyed through its labyrinthine aisles gawking at the wonderful sight that rows upon rows of colorful Famicom carts present. It simply has no labyrinthine aisles in which to do so. Japanese retro game shops on the other hand have them in spades.

A secondary purpose of my mission is to test out something that the scientific half of my mind has long suspected: the market for used Famicom games in Fukuoka's game shops is completely irrational. Let me (briefly) explain. If you are just interested in pictures of the game shop you can probably skip the next few paragraphs.

If you've ever been to Rising Stuff you may have stumbled upon the Famicom price guide that they put together after what must have been some extremely time-consuming (though undoubtedly fun) research. I give them (or possibly just one guy, "Alex" who posted it, I'm not sure) a lot of credit for undertaking that gargantuan task. I think they did quite a good job of it and I sometimes refer to it out of curiousity.

That said, I have to say that the prices in it are not really reflective of the prices charged for games in Fukuoka. That isn't their fault though as NOBODY (yup, all-caps) could make a definitive Famicom price guide for this city. Every shop charges different prices for the same stuff and there is absolutely no logic to any of it that I can determine. A game that one shop puts lovingly into its exclusive glass case with a sizeable price attached to it another one dumps unceremoniously into a junk bin at a blow-out price. And vice-versa.

So just to test this little theory I chose these 6 games that I would like to compare the price of in each of the shops I will visit:
These are all games that were very popular in their day, meaning that there are tons of copies of them out there and I am thus likely to find them at most of the shops in Fukuoka. At the same time, they are games whose continued popularity is quite different from each other. Super Mario Brothers 3 remains immensely popular and most shops charge a premium for that one despite it being extremely easy to find. Moero Pro Yakyuu on the other hand is a game that there are just way too many of: sports games don't generally age as well as platformers and that is one of the games that will inevitably be the cheapest game at any shop. The others fall somewhere in between, with Spartan X, Excitebike and Donkey Kong being a bit more popular like SMB 3 and F-1 Race a bit less.

Anyway, that out of the way with here is today's Fukuoka Famicom shop: 007.
007 is a huge store in a one-story building (not counting the parking lot on the roof). It sells not just games but comics, toys and other novelty items. It has a pretty big retro-game section, the highlight of which is of course the Famicom stuff.

They've got parts of 3 aisles devoted to Famicom games in little plastic bags hung from pegs:
It is pretty colorful in there:
One of the things a lot of people (including me) like about retro game stores here is the hand-written signs describing the game, which 007 puts on some of them. Its such a nice touch:
They have a small selection of boxed Famicom games. Nothing too special, they just take up a little shelf:
Contrast that with the size of the boxed Super Famicom game section:
The part of 007 which I like the best is their glass showcase. They've decorated it with a lot of cut-out letters and pictures, giving it a sort of folk-art feel that is affectingly complemented by the Bladerunner-esque neon blue lighting:
Basically most of the games that they price at over 1000 yen go in there:
And their AV Famicoms which, paradoxically, say "NEW" in English and "USED" (中古) in Japanese:
On either side of the case they have little 14 inch TVs, one hooked up to a Super Famicom and the other to a Famiclone for customers to play:
I always like playing games at shops like this better than I do playing the same games at home. I don't know why but somehow it is always funner that way.

Well those are the pictures. On a personal note I have to say that this is one of my favorite game shops simply because it is where I bought the first Famicom game in my collection: that copy of Clu-Clu Land which graces the banner at the top of this blog. That was quite an exciting purchase, one of the highlights of my Famicom collecting experience. I had just gotten my first Famicom console at another store earlier in the day (kind of an impulse purchase - look at what it has led me to) and my wife took me to 007 late that night to find a game to test it. It was my first time to explore a Famicom game section and I was immediately hooked. She had owned Clu-Clu Land as a kid and I bought it on her suggestion. Getting home it took me about 4 hours of banging to get the Famicom to load Clu Clu Land on our TV but when it worked - crap reception and all - I felt pretty damn good. All thanks to 007.

Anyway, now to look at the secondary purpose of this trip, the prices:

We'll see how these compare to prices in other shops in later posts.

Before signing off I should say thanks to Sketcz for his insightful write up about Famicomblog on the amazing Hardcore Gaming 101. His post and particularly this quote:

"the more layers of gimmickry and unsought complexity you place on something which is intended for recreation, the less interested I become."

has given me food for thought on numerous future posts that I hope to put up here!

Related Posts:
- Fukuoka Famicom Shops V: Don Quixote and Village Vanguard
- Fukuoka Famicom Shops IV: Flea Markets Brought to you by the God of War
- Fukuoka Famicom Shops III: Mandarake
- Fukuoka Famicom Shops II: The Decline and Fall of the Famicom Empire

Thought I'd give a little update on the progress of my collection. I am now at 636 carts, close to 2/3 of the way there.
My current rough estimate is that I have about 500 duplicates in addition to that, so I've got roughly 1100 Famicom carts taking up space in my apartment.
1100 Famicom carts take up a lot of shelf space, as I often complain about. Actually, its not normally as much as these pictures make it seem, I usually store them 3-deep so they only take up one row of shelves. Still though....a whole row of shelf.
I just set them up like this to take some pictures of the whole collection, but if I had the space to spare I'd leave them like this all the time. I like this look. Its like having a wall of colorful buttons or something. I think if Andy Warhol had been active during the Famicom's lifetime, he would have used Famicom carts as a medium.
OK, if you want to really impress me, I have a challenge for you. There are about 1100 Famicom carts on these shelves. There is also ONE Mega Drive cart that accidentally got mixed up with them. If you can spot the Mega Drive cart in this photo, well I won't give you anything tangible but you will have earned my respect:
This shelf unit is also home to my "extra" consoles. These are either broken or awaiting parts:
Someday I'll make them all work. And then.....I'll have nothing to do with them.

This morning I had an appointment downtown. And guess what I brought with me? 5 copies of Excitebike of course.

I like the Famicom Excitebike cart. Bright red cart. Gold label with a flash of blue on it. Couple of random, but excited, dirt bikers. Brilliant. The game ain't bad either.

I have 5 copies of Excitebike. I don't just go out and hunt these things down, mind you. They find me. I like to buy big lots of games (cheaper that way) and I inevitably get duplicates. Which I needed to find something constructive to do with. So, on my way back from my appointment, I took the scenic route home and gave them a little tour of the city.

I figure it is possible that somebody at some point in the past may have photographed a Famicom Excitebike cart somewhere in Fukuoka. But five? Nah, this has to be a first. So I can claim some measure of originality here, even though the general concept of what I did with them is more or less the same thing people do with garden gnomes.

Excitebike is way cooler than garden gnomes though.

Anyway, Tour d'Excitebike began at the moat to Fukuoka castle:
This is in a central part of town next to the courthouse. Its a 17th century castle, though the original wood parts of it are long gone and all that remain are its imposing stone walls:
The top of these walls, which formed the outer defences, is now lined with trees:
And the occasional concrete bench under a cherry tree:
Moving in towards the centre of the defences we come to a stone stairway that samurai in full armor must have had a hell of a time getting up: Its rather a pleasant place now, with lots of greenery up there:
Coming around a corner, more stairs:
That last set of stairs leads up to the site of the castle keep. Its interesting to note that historians aren't sure if Fukuoka castle ever even had a keep or if they just built the massive foundations and left it unfinished, . No contemporary documents refer to the existence of the keep, though it would have been strange to lug all these massive stones up the hill and then not finish the thing. This is what a feudal Japanese castle keep (in Himeji) looks like if you wonder what I am talking about:Anyway, there is a very commanding view of the city from up there, looking out over Ohori park:
If you are ever up there on a windy day and you've got five Famicom Excitebike carts you are trying to line up for a photograph, my advice is to be careful. The second after I snapped the above shot a gust of wind knocked three of them over and they almost fell over the edge into the abyss below.

Coming down from the keep we find some rubble piled at the base of one of the walls. The Red Excitebike carts fit in rather well with the smattering of fallen leaves:
Leaving the castle we head back into the city:
And towards Hakata Bay until we arrive at the docks.

We may for a moment here digress to consider a subject that perhaps only tangentially relates to the Famicom Excitebike cart: Chuck Norris movies that involve lots of kicking. You know those scenes where he kicks a lot of anonymous bad guy thugs? And after the kick, the bad guy flies into a big pile of crates or boxes that are lying stacked up for some reason? I always thought those places were fake - that they just existed in movies. Not so. Fukuoka's port would be the perfect location for a Chuck Norris kicking scene. Lots of empty boxes stacked up for kicked bad guys to land on:
Anyway, to take this digression even further from the topic of Famicom Excitebike, if you are familiar with Japanese history then you know that the above is where, in the 13th century, the Mongol empire under Kublai Khan sent a massive fleet to invade Japan. The fleet landed in Hakata bay in 1274 but the army was driven back by Japanese defenders and the fleet scattered in a storm. 7 years later the Mongols returned with an even larger army, but by then the Japanese had constructed a huge stone defensive wall along the shore and once again defeated the Mongols. That wall once existed near where the above photo was taken but there isn't anything left today. Well, if you go to the suburbs west of town some of the wall remains, but in the city proper its pretty much gone. In fairness though, creating the perfect stage for Chuck Norris to display his kicking prowess is probably a more effective defensive strategy than some stone wall, so I really can't criticize this fact.

No such earth-shattering historic events were in progress during my visit. Smaller ships that ply their trade along the Seto inland sea or around Kyushu are tied up:
While larger, ocean going vessels such as the "Clipper Aki" sit nearby having repairs done:
A massive ocean-going container vessel is being constructed at the Fukuoka shipyards:
And the expressway soars high into the sky above my head:
Heading back inland we pass through the entertainment area of town, Nakasu:
Two Excitebikes brighten up the statue of the three Hakata Ningyo:
And we see the orange buoys laid out for.....what, I don't know. Anyway:
We now stop off at Canal City, the cathedral to consumerism that is one of Fukuoka's most noted sites:
Excitebikes overlooking the ampitheatre:
And in front of the Muji department store:We then leave the clutter of the city and enter the sprawling alleyways of the Shofukuji temple.
Its one of the more tantalizing areas of town. So many beautiful gardens and ancient buildings shut off to the passersby with "not open to the public" signs subtly displayed here and there. The cracks in the doorways give you a hint of the beauty which you aren't allowed to see:
Famicom Excitebikes, the constant lovers of Japanese gardens, wait in vain for the gate to open:
Chastened, they hop into my basket and we head home: