Book OFF - recycled books, CD's, DVD's games and consoles

Apparently Book OFF also has a 'sister' shop called Hard OFF, which specialises in hardware, anything from bicycles, pots and pans to air cons and printers. Book OFF, however, focuses mainly on books and although the smaller shops only really stock Japanese books, the larger ones can have a small selection of foreign books. Despite what their name suggests, they don't only do books. We popped into the Mejiro [目白] branch a couple of weekends ago, after having a personal tour of the neighbouring Gakushuin [学習院] University. The first floor was not very interesting, on account that is was jam packed with Japanese books that we are unable to read. The basement floor below, however, was a different matter. There was a trolley full of nearly new consoles, including the Wii (I think it was priced at 21000yen) and following the shelves around, there were games for the DS, Wii, playstation etc. at very reasonable prices. Around the corner there were Box sets for foreign TV shows; CSI, Sex in the City, Buffy, Ally McBeal...which at some point morphed into movies (foreign and Japanese alike) and music. The music section was pretty well stocked out, with a decent range of genres and more or less half price compared to the RRP in mainstream music shops.

Unable to resist, we bought ourselves some barginous CD's. I was pleasantly surprised at their immaculate condition, having half expected some kind of scratching or signs of use there was not a mark on them.

List of shops in Tokyo, HERE. There are lots, 142 to be precise.