good toy shops in Osaka

can anyone recomend any good toy shops for in Osaka? I`m looking for the hobby sort that sell models (eg Ultra man, Godzilla etc) rather than childrens toys. Any ones that might have any planet of the apes characters especially appreciated!

Go to Den Den Town, the Joshin Super Kids World store should be your first stop. Take the subway to Ebisucho (station K18) on the Sakaisuji line and leave the station via exit 1A. Turn right out of the exit and walk one block north. There are several other smaller toy stores on this street. If you go one more block north from Joshin, then take a left at the junction and walk west for about 5 minutes you will come to the Labi1 Namba store. One of the top two floors has a toy section. You can't really miss the place, it is massive:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Yamada-LABI1-Namba-01.jpg

http://www.yamadalabi.com/labi1/access/index.html

thanks Rob - we`re off to Osaka in the morning so I`ll check it out - much appreciated - Japan is an ace place for toy collectors but finding the shops can be hard when you`re short on time here!

Ok... Well there are your big ones who primarily sell new toys with some second hand stuff bought. Most however buy the toys in bulk open them up and put sets together (Gachapon) The main store that has bloomed over the last five years is The capsule shop Super Positron You will know this store for its hot pink character. (Dinosaur if mind serves correctly.) They are convenient for buying a already made set if you don't like spending a lot of money hunting for the last toy. They went head to head with Mandarake 2 years ago and opened their now 3 level flag ship store. This often has bulk sales compared to the smaller shops so check it out. For my mind though they are a little pricey outside of these. Mandarake deals a lot more in second hand and ex collected goods. Predominate space is taken up with books and other ephereal material. Very interesting though as they are more established and have a greater collection of old stuff. Sometimes you can find a bargain but you can browse most stuff on line at their website of the same title. Then there is Volks who deal in a relatively established medium of rent a cube or box basically acryllic clear cubes that can be rented and you show case the goods you want to sell. You pay a rental fee and 10% i think of the sale price. Sometimes you can find a real bargain here people wanting to get rid of things. You can also often find reasonably priced single characters etc. Other stores that deal this way are Soft Map #1 who also has a great or did before used electronics laws were reviewed second hand game section. Sometimes you can find bargains on their seventh floor. Be careful of the adult only content in some of these boxes though as well as the 5th floor with the games on it is has a large adult video dvd section.

There are smaller shops like these in the back streets. Avoid yellow submarine as its mostly dealing in trading card games.

If you go one street in from the main street. I suggest the route turning right when you see soft map at the main cross road in DEN DEN town not at the start of Den Den. and take the first left after the right. This street all the way down has great smaller shops. Kotobukiya is on this road too and has some great bulk bargain buying power. I got a lot of street fighter chracters for 200 yen each. There use to be a place called HEREOs here but this has moved onto the main street where the yellow foot bridge is. This has a great selection of new and pre collected items and has some unusual ones not found in alot of the other stores. Has some interesting movie paraphanalia.

If you go right to the end and take a right there is another small store that has some sale items they want to get rid of doubles etc i rarely go but have picked up some good priced items i was looking for.

The best bargain place for me though is Psychadelica in Nankai Namba. If you go back along the road where you initially see Softmap and follow this all the way down you will come to a cross roads go to the left side and up to the seocnd level there is a great shop similar to others but very very well priced sometimes a third to even a tenth of the price of those in den den town.

For games there is super potato which merged or bought out retro games
retro is better for game watch and sales
Super potatoe for sheer volume and range but expensive out side of sales.

There are satelite stores of the Super positron store scattered over the area just mentioned.

If you gave me the types of toys you were looking for I could give you a more detailed route to maximise your shop hits.

Hope it helps. Probably too late but maybe for next time.

good day, im in kyoto right now.last year, ive been here also for a business trip in our sister company. Last week I went to Avanti building looking for SOFTMAP near kyoto station but I saw that the building is under renovation. I was hoping that somebody can teach me where did softmap transfered. thank you so much and have a good day.