H!P Official Stores in Tokyo

Thursday, 24th January 2008 01:47

This post is really late in coming, I was hoping to type it up whilst out in Japan, that way if anyone had questions or wanted better directions I'd be able to wander back to the stores and find out, but unfortunatly I never had enough time to sit down and get it finished, now being back I've put it off mainly because it brings me down thinking about being back in the UK, back at work and no H!P shopping except via the web. Since coming back from Tokyo I've noticed that for a long while now, I hardly ever by anything from the shops in the UK any more. I wander around the shops and aside from the odd DVD (Super Bad, being the obvious buy this month, such an amazingly funny film), book or DS game I hardly buy anything, and what I do buy on a regular basis are H!P related magazines from the Japan Centre. Since returning I've found it quite depressing to wander around the shops on my lunch break as all I think to myself is, I'm bored, these shops do nothing for me. I miss H!P shopping! When will an H!P Official Store open in the UK, so I can be totally broke but be strangely satisfied!

To make my life easier I took a whole bunch of print outs with me on my trip, I was fairly confident that I would be able to find the majority of the stores I was looking for without them, mainly because I had no problem with wandering the streets until I found them, lol, but it's always best to have a rough idea of where you are going.
The Official H!P website has some very basic maps of where their stores are, but as with every Japanese map I've seen in my lifetime they leave a lot to be desired, tiny little fiddly things...with the main problem of everything being written in Japanese. But thanks to Haropedia I had a better idea of what and where I should be looking. To be honest the three Tokyo based stores I went to were fairly easy to find, so hopefully anyone else trying to find them shouldn't have any problems, but to try and make things a little easier I also took a couple of Google Map print outs with and marked them on there and have now marked them on the online versions, ready to be printed out if anyone needs them.
I'd really recommend that if you're a H!P fan (and you probably are if you're reading this) and you're in Japan, visiting at least one of the Official stores is a must. They really are a great experince and offer so much for us fans to buy, they mailny sell photos, but there are also things like mouse mats, cups, scarfs, binders..the list goes on. The order process is slightly awkward, although no where near as bad I thought it was going to be, but knowing the members and groups really does help as each one is assigned there own range of numbers and each range of numbers are in groups, for example the top row of boxes are all Morning Musume, starting with Aichan and working along in order to LinLin. I'm beginning to wish I'd brought a blank form back with me as it would be much easier to explain if I could scan it in. Once filled in, count the amount of items you're put down and enter it into the box on the back and then get in the queue. You're also supopsed to enter your name on the back on the form so they can call you once all you're items have been collected, luckily for me (I forget how to spell my name in Japanese) I was only asked to do this once, the other times they didn't bother, being the only non-Japanese guy in the shop it was fairly easy for them to spot and wave me over.
When I get a chance I'll get around to taken photos of the things I bought from the stores, I've got all the receipts in my coat pocket from all my visits...I'm too scared to look through them and work out exactly how much I spent :S

Harajuku Store (Google Map)
This was the first store I went to and the one I frequented most. On my first day in Tokyo, after spending far to long stuck in the airport it seemed only right that I should treat myself to a little bit of H!P. I ended up buying quite a few photos, some amazingly cute C-ute photos and some great looking Morning Musume Alo!Hello photos, which disappointingly I'm still one short, I'm missing Mittsi's bikini shot, which is quite upsetting as she looks amazing in it.
One thing I'd like to clarify before going any further, is the post made by Chris awhile back, Holiday Horror for Non H!P Fans. Something that I've learnt on this trip is that Chris doesn't like to be put in situations that make him uncomfortable (good examples would be anything H!P related, Maid Cafes and Karaoke) and when he is, he's pretty much always pulling the face in the photo included in the linked post above, generally in that stance as well, although on the odd occasion he'd be a bit more defensive and have his arms crossed ;p put simply if I worked in one of the H!P store and I saw him standing there like that, I'd be laughing and pointing too. The staff are friendly and helpful and although Chris assured me on a number of occasions that I was getting strange looks, I personally didn't see anything of the sort and the only time I did was when I was waffling in English to the girl behind the desk who spoke as much English as I do Japanese, I was poorly trying to explain I bought the wrong size photo sleeves for my photo folder.
The store is straight forward to find and to be honest I'm surprised I missed it the last time I was in Tokyo as I walked past the street that it's located on so many times. Simply walk down the Takeshita Dori (1st picture below), and then take a left after McDonalds (2nd picture below), walk to the end of the road and that's it. The store has a big window out the front which feature costumes, when Chris was there last it featured costumes worn by C-ute, this time around it has one worn by Morning Musume.


Although this post is supposed to be about the Official Store, there is another store within Harajuku that's worth mentioning, Gorakudoh, this is on the 2nd floor of the LOVX building, above an underwear shop (I realise now why people were giving me funny looks as I took a photo of the shop) this is quite a small little shop, actaully maneuvering around inside can be quite a task. Inside are numerous glass cabinets, the majority of which are filled up with concert tickets, and not just H!P related tickets all different JPop related groups, they all stock a number of older photos, DVDs and CDs. The prices on the tickets vary depending on where the seats are, I was hoping to be able to buy some more tickets from this shop and attend another concert, but when I looked prices were quite high, I could certainly afford them but with the potential to have such a huge chunk missing from spending money I went down the sensible route and decide against it. If there's one thing I'd recommend to anyone going to see a concert, try and get a couple of tickets, performances were going about twice a day, so there's always the potential to go see the concert twice in one day, but having left the only thing I wanted to do was to go back in and watch it all over again. Next time I'll attempt to buy a couple of tickets for different times.


Ueno Store (Google Map)
On a quiet evening with not much to do, we decided that a trip down to Ueno would be in order to check out the Official Store there, although it was relatively easy to find it had us stumped for a little while. Finding the building the store was in was the easy part, out of Ueno Station under the railway lines and then a left down an alleyway running parrallel with the tracks, following this down to the end the road splits and directly in front of you is the building where the store is located, the embarassing thing is, we were stumped for a good few minutes as to how we got into the building. It wasn't until we walked around the right side of it we noticed stairs going up to the numerous shops inside. Compared to the other two stores this is the smallest, or at least it appeared to be the smallest. And although the store wasn't busy I was asked to write my name on the order form, with me being one of the most forgetful people in the world I'd totally forgotten how to write my name in Japanese, so my response to the girl behind the desk was 'English OK?', she looked at me and gave a reluctant nod, I jotted my name down on the back of the sheet and handed it back, she looked at it and then out aloud said 'Paul!', I nodded, she cheered, gave a big smile and headed off round to the other side of the shop with a big smile on her face.
To collect your items from the Ueno store you either have to leave via the entrance and walk around to the other side of the shop, or you can squeeze through the little corridor along the side, this brings you to a desk where your items will be shown to you and collected. On this side of the shop an old guy was counting out my items and placing them on the counter for me to look at, he then went through the items with me in English. I think my visit to the Ueno store really goes to show how friendly and helpful the staff are in the shops, I know certainly if we were in England and the roles were reversed, the response in any shop would have been 'No, you'll write your name in English' and then the staff would have been awkward, well at least that what I've noticed from my working in retail.


Shibuya Store (Google Map)
All the stores have their own little features and reasons for going to them, but the Shibuya is the one I'd recommend going to if you want to a little bit more than just shop. Located in the basement of the 109 Building across the road from Shibuya station, you'll have to walk through the most amazing Hello Kitty shop I've ever seen and no doubt you'll also walk away with something Hello Kitty related along with all your H!P photos. As you come down the escalators the store will be directly in front of you. They have all the usual items, but to the side there's a little 'museum', with a collection of outfits, photos and written messages from member of H!P. It'll cost 100yen to get in, but for the price you'll also be able to choose a little photo card (I chose Nono). Wandering around won't take long as in all honesty it's not that big and as I went in there by myself I wasn't longer than 5 minutes, as I scurtanised all the photos and messages, but it's really worth checking out if you're there.
Within the Shibuya store I had my first interaction with Japanese fans. And this is the one time that I saw members of the shop looking and laughing in my general direction, but not at me...well not entirely at me. On my second visit to the store there was a couple of girls rampaging through the store harassing everyone in there, they were running around in quite a hyper state asking who people which member of Morning Musume was there favourite. The staff was watching them run around the store asking their questions...then we made eye contact....They come running over to me as I was jotting down some photo numbers onto my sheet of paper, excitedly they asked in Japanese who was my favourite member, I responded with the obvious answer of Koharu, they chatted and started talking to me about Reina, but unfortunatly I was completely lost and seeing that the conversation wasn't going anywhere they headed off to the next lucky shopper. I believe that even Chris had a run in with them as they left the shop and passed him sitting on the seats outside. Haha, I would have loved to been able to chat to them, although they were hyper and a little scary, it would have been great to speak with some Japanese fans whilst I was out there.



TAGS [ Hello!Project Official Store Stuff ]
Posted Thursday, 24th January 2008 01:47 | 11206 Reads

Comments

Comment by Raid on Thursday, 24th January 2008 18:13
Wow! Nice pictures! The Shibuya one looks super cool (even the mall looks cool). Do post your purchases soon! =D


Comment by DoubleJ on Thursday, 24th January 2008 18:59
A very useful post for those that wish to visit the stores in Tokyo. I didn't realise you had to pay to get into the Petit Museum. I just walked in and nobody said anything to me, I've done that more than once.


Comment by AC Dragon on Thursday, 24th January 2008 19:46
Hiya Paul, how are you?? Wow, your so lucky to check out so many cool Hello! Project stores, thanks so much for also posting the pictures, this post has so much useful information regarding the stores and the concert tickets store, when I go to Japan this year I hope to check out all these stores. I've also emailed you recently regarding Hello Project concerts, have you received it? Anyways enjoy the rest of the holiday in Japan, i'm totally sure you will have more awesome experiences there, hope to hear from you soon dude. Peace



Comment by Nozofan on Thursday, 24th January 2008 22:20
Just so lucky! >___< I want to go too! I juste look at the picture and I was just like.. Wow!!I want to go!! I said to my mother.. I definitely want to got to Japan and she just respond You better work this summer if you want to go XD! It's because of you taht I want so much to go to Japan! And it's not a bad thing! XD
ILike Raid said, Post your Purchase soon =D



Comment by paul.thomas on Friday, 25th January 2008 17:27
They were all amazing places, but the Shibuya one was nice, especially with the Petit-Museum, it really added to. DoubleJ, you didn't pay? Hmmm, you've got me wondering if I paid 100yen for a Nono photo card rather than entry, lol, I almost certain that you have to pay as there was a guy standing by the entrance when I went and that's who I paid, hahaha, I wonder if it was some fan making a quick 100yen out of a tourist?

AC Dragon, I got your email...I thought I replied to it, but it looks like I didn't, I'll make sure to do it tonight. I hope the maps come in useful, I realised I didn't indicate what the stations are (although it's probably obvious by the title of the stores) I'll put markers on there just in case.

Nozofan, I'm glad my posts have had that sort of an influence on you, Tokyo is an amazing post and I can't recommend it enough. Lol, looks like you'll be working hard this summer then I take it. I'm planning much the same, I can't wait to go again so I'll be working as hard as I can to get some money to go again. I've been looking at the H!O post about their planned trip out there next year, which sounds like it could be a lot of fun.
I'll try to post up my purchases as soon as I get a chance, problem at the moment is finding the time to sit down and listn and watch the DVD/CDs I bought, although I've spent the past two days listening to Koharu's new album....I love it!!

Also, I've just noticed that the site isn't working properly in IE6, I'll try to fix it tonight if I can, sorry if anyones having problems.


Comment by Zaxx on Friday, 25th January 2008 20:20
Hi There

Thanks for pimping our little Wiki once again :-)
There's a picture of the store list on there in the Buying Guide actually:
http://mmquiz.mm.funpic.de/wiki/index.php/Image:Buying_Guide_List.jpg

And I was wondering if I could use some of your photos for the Wiki. Both the store pages and Gorakudoh could use some of them.

Oh, and the Wiki also states it should actually be 200 yen for an adult (100 yen for elementary school). At least I paid that the last time :-) And I'm pretty sure my friend is correct on that in the Wiki. Or maybe they changed it... Last time I went was during Yossi's graduation and I got a piece of paper along with the entrance fee where I could write a message to her.


Comment by John on Saturday, 26th January 2008 03:29
Did you remember to pick up yajima's and abe's single?


Comment by paul.thomas on Saturday, 26th January 2008 11:05
Zaxx, Haropedia is a great site, it really put my mind at rest, having the store details meant that there was no worry of not finding the stores. As for using the photos, feel free to use which ever ones you want, glad to help.
You're right about the entrance fee to the museum, I've just checked the back of the card and it says I paid 200yen rather then 100. The message to Yossie is a really nice idea, and actually reminds me of something I forgot to write about, the birthday card boxes. Each store had a box where you could put in Birthday cards, whilst I was out there they were collecting for MIttsi's, I really should of have written one and put it in the box, but I kept forgetting to get a card :(

John, it came out a couple of days after I returned home...although I still haven't put an order in for online, come to think of it I haven't even heard or seen the PV for it yet, so I've no idea what it's like. I'll have to check it out.


Comment by Paul Slattery on Saturday, 26th January 2008 14:51
cool post and pics
i visited the Harajuku Store when i was over there last week, i did the stupid thing and not take directions with me before i left the UK, and walked around for hours trying to find it and never did, then i used wap on my phone and went back again the next day, and so many times i had walked past that street the day before lol i went early and was only 2 people in there, so i managed to get my order quick :)

before i went to the shop i asked at my hotel how to write my name in japanese and then i showed the girl behind the counter of the H!P store as i didn't know what box to sign and she wrote it in for me :), they are very friendly and helpful :)
Paul did you manage to change the size of the sleeves in the end?
and yeah Koharu's new album is amazing :), i listen to it nearly everyday :)
be great to see pics of what you purchased when you get a chance :)
Out of the 3 stores what would you say was the best one?


Comment by namida on Monday, 28th January 2008 07:41
Hi, Paul: I totally understand what you were saying in the first paragraph. I used to visit a nearby mall about twice a week, but after my first trip to Japan, I stopped going completely! This was many years ago and I still haven't gone back. Being surrounded by the things that I like over there, I felt that the goods in the malls were so boring and not well made. Why bother spending, when I could save for my next trip. I would look at a price tag and say, well, I could spend a day at Nikko, or buy a fancy dinner in Tokyo, or get a J-pop album for this amount. When I do buy, it is on CD Japan or other web sites that sell Japanese goods. However, nothing can curb the general gloominess that lingers on after returning from a trip. Bye.


Comment by Zaxx on Monday, 28th January 2008 08:53
heh, yeah... Sometimes you almost wish to be a bit more mainstream... D:
I had quite an awesome experience when I was in Japan last year during Yossi's graduation and of course Kanashimi Twilight's release. For once I didn't preorder the single online, but I actually reserved it at a local store where I lived. While I could have ordered it online with free shipping and without the need to pay taxes (billing address outside of Japan), I wanted to support that store with it's lovely H!P section and their reservation tickets.
It was quite a nice section, near the entrance and the same size as and right next to the charts/main new releases section.
Oh, and that section wasn't the only thing that reminded me once more that H!P isn't nearly as dead as some of the doomsayers all around the world want us to believe :-)


Comment by Mr Waffle on Wednesday, 13th February 2008 12:55
Hi hi, just noticed this mention of the haropedia- we've got a new url for it,

http://haropedia.mrwaffle.org/

Still updating of course (the process will never end!)


Comment by paul.thomas on Wednesday, 13th February 2008 13:04
I'll update the links right away. Thanks for doing the site by the way, it helped me out so much when I was over in Tokyo, really took the worry out of trying to find the stores.


Comment by popjapanese on Friday, 10th October 2008 19:51
Yay that was a very good shop !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Comment by jyesta on Tuesday, 20th January 2009 04:33
yaaaayy!!
i went to the stores in shibuya, the petit museum because it's the only h!p official store i know..maybe you should say that the shop is located in Shibuya 109-2, accross the shibuya 109 building..because i was lost and went to the wrong building..haha!
first i met the clerk which can speak a little english, though she mixed it with japanesse, i can still understand..but after i finished enjoying my time inside the mini museum, the clerk 'which can speak a little english' had her 'off time'..(dont know how to say it in english, sorry :p) so i was facing the clerks that dont understand english at all and it's really depressing me..tried to buy the items with 'tarzan language'..i think it was so funny,,
after reading your blog, i really want to visit the other stores you mentioned..but i dont know when i got the chance to visit japan again..
sorry if my english is so mess up..:p

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