Hachioji Hard Off

After coming home from my volunteering gig, Zack surprised me by taking me to lunch at the same place we had our first dinner off base, Ootoya. Again Sawyer ate all of his Udon Noodles and some of my rice. The soba noodles sure did hit the spot on the cloudy dreary day.  After lunch Zack told me it was time to explore and direct him to a Hard Off-- he is on the hunt for Anime stuff. Hard Off is a chain of secondhand stores. These stores have EVERYTHING and its all affordable, although the collectibles can get expensive if they are rare! After checking out the Hard Off close to base that there was a huge one in Hachioji. We decided to go find it and check it out and we are soooooo glad we did!!!

Amazingness

 

My navigation skills were decent, especially since the map I had was not the best. Parking as usual was a little nerve racking because there isn't a big parking lot instead there are many little parking areas in between houses. The Hard Off stores are split up by Off House, Hobby Off, Mode Off, Hard Off, and Book Off. Off House has clothes, household items, baby items, shoes, accessories, and outdoor recreation items. Hobby Off is your collectibles, games, DVD's, and toys. Mode Off is the name brand and expensive! Hard Off is the electronics portion with musical instruments, video games, gaming systems, cameras, computers and some DVD's. Book Off is just books and movies.

In Hachioji they are not all in one big store and building its split up and HUGE! Our first stop was the Off House. Two separate buildings both two stories, I cannot wait to go back and clothes shop, they even had Kimono's! Also once baby Smith #2 decides to come I will be getting a lot of items from these stores as there stuff is like new with very decent prices!

 

Hard to get it all in the picture!

 

The small toy section in the Off House

 

Zack was itching to get over to the Hobby Off to start looking at "the cool stuff". The remaining four "Off's" were spread out round the department store across the street.

 

We had no clue where we were going but we saw signs!

 

Words and pictures cannot begin to describe how AWESOME and AMAZING Hobby Off is! When we walked in we were speechless, it was everything that Zack was wanting in a store. We were able to find Sawyer a plush Elmo for 100Yen(that he hasn't let go and took to bed with him) and Zack found a CD and two Super Famicom games (Japanese version of Super Nintendo). Next payday we are buying the Super Famicom system! Pictures will better explain the store:

 

1 of 4 car aisles.

"Junk" Games most 100Yen

Zack picked up two Final Fantasy Games

Rows and rows of Pokemon cards!!!

 

Final Fantasy Section

 

We are finding that the anime stuff that is in the stores isn't too much of what Zack is familiar with. We haven't seen any Classic Sailor Moon, Clannad, or Witchblade. Our next stop was the Hard Off to look at game systems and more games, oh and you cant forget the music equipment. Again these stores can just be overwhelming when you step in!

 

In awe of all the games (maybe 1/3 of the store)

Yes these are all game systems!

Some only 3000Y but would sell for $1000 on Ebay!

1 of 4 aisles of guitars

 

Then we checked out Mode Off. Very high class secondhand stuff. There was a sweatshirt that had holes and stains that was still 45000Yen ($576)!!! We also found old US Armed Forces field jackets, Coach purses, and name brand shoes. We decided to skip the Book Off today because Sawyer was ready to head out as he had already been a trooper the whole day.

 

We will be making this trip often! Can't wait to see what kind of treasures we will obtain!

 

Until the next adventure, XOXO.