Videos, man! VIDEOS!
Would love to see videos of your trip there and you bass shopping. I am heading there later this summer (oh, god kill me! The heat and humidity…) and plan on visiting some “Bocchi the Rock” anime locations, catching a concert at Shelter (the venue in Bocchi the Rock) and hitting up Ochanomizu (Guitar Street). I don’t plan on buying a bass (my wife will kill me) but I do want to find a cool bass strap just to say I bought some bass accessories there.
Reveal!
I will try to get something together! I do have some music store slappage videos, and a variety of photos of me being too tall for Japan.
Good luck with the heat, 気おつけて!
I’m here for the silly videos.
And also to learn how to play bass…
ouch
It’s already starting to get humid - still only 25 degrees though which is great.
I can fix that for you
My wife will slaughter me.
My goal is to buy a nice bass strap though. I want to get a nice one in Japan for my Squire PJ bass. Looking for something like those “zero G” thick straps since the Squire is a bit on the heavy side compared to my Ibanez 300 and Jackson Spectra JS2. The strap has got to be a nice shade of dark purple too (to match the pickguard I put on the bass). I know that’s kind of limiting myself but it’s what I want to get. That or a nice set of picks (maybe some Bocchi themed picks if they have them at the store that was featured in Bocchi the Rock).
Do you know if any stores have the “thicker” shoulder straps?
Thats a good question! I’ll have to look.
Several have a large pick selection.
Thanks!
Hey, so I ran through there today and a few shops had decent looking bass straps, most notably Kurosawa Gakki’s accessories shop, but honestly none of them were super impressive. Certainly none were as nice as my Comfort Strapp Pro Bass, which are popular here (and hand-made in California).
For some reason I see Comfort Strapps all over the place here, I wonder if there’s a local that loves them and arranged an import or something. It’s a great strap.
agreed
Hey thanks!
I checked Google Maps and it looks like Kurosawa Gakki is actually pretty close to the guitar store I want to stop at in Omachanomizu. The store is Ishibashi Music which is a block away.
Can’t wait for my trip there in September.
Ishibashi is a chain and is pretty common; I have bought from them before at their Shibuya branch, it’s a good store. However Kurosawa has a way better selection of both bass and guitar.
Cool. I can check out both locations when I go there. I wonder if they have any Bocchi stuff at Ishibashi…
Yeah there’s line nine million stores, give or take a few
In that block is two or three Kurosawa stores, Ishibashi, Shimamura, a couple smaller ones I am forgetting, and a bunch of violin, woodwind, and sax stores. Plus the ESP custom shop around the corner at the end of the block (a must go, go upstairs).
The other side of the street has Shimamura’s second hand store, A few Guitar Planets, a few smaller shops, and ESP BigBoss.
Kurosawa and BigBoss kind of dominate their blocks but it’s all good. Kurosawa’s bass annex is on the ground floor out back, with access from the little alley before the building. It’s probably the best store in the area.
Cool! Thanks!
Before I head over, I will print all of this stuff out so I have it on hand for reference.
Are you familiar with Bocchi the Rock, by chance?
Nah, haven’t been in to anime for a while now. Ironic but true
Ok, no problem.
These places in the show mean a lot to me and I want to make the pilgrimages an awesome, rewarding experience.
If you want to make some cool place associations in games, Persona 5 is set in a thinly veiled Shibuya, and the Yakuza games are often set in a slightly altered Kabukicho
Anyway feel free to drop me a line when you’re here, happy to meet traveling forum folks.
I loved the original dub of Vampire Hunter D and a few others but in general, same.
Yeah, a lot of the stuff out now is pretty much the same stuff retold again and again.
Macross Zero was cool for the first season, or at least the OVA was - dunno if there were subsequent episodes. That’s the last one I watched. Doing a prequel was a great idea.