Shun-chan's Guide to Anime Shopping in New York City
[Updated 04/24/03]
Hello all! This is just for the hell of it since everytime someone asks me where something is, they don't know. So, now you can just access this page and read up, write down the address and get there. Tips on which trains to take too. *wink* Hope this is helpful!

So let's start in Chinatown, the one place in all of New York infamous for having anime! Easily accessible by taking the local 6 subway to Canal Street. Once out of the subway station, head towards Canal Street. Get to the street in between Elizabeth and Canal Street. You'll first find Elizabeth Center there. Take the escalators downstairs for tiny shops, many of which feature either Piyo Piyo, Sanrio, or anime. There's a model shop, two tape shops, and a few variety anime shops. One of the variety anime shops has manga, but it's pricier than normal. It's in Chinese, but I have another place for Chinese manga. Of course, if you don't mind dishing out a few extra bucks, go buy it. The tape shop has a relatively small collection but are pretty fair priced. The other tape shop has a larger selection, but the lady there can only speak Cantonese. ^_^;; And there's also a video game store next to that store that sells lots of SD Gundams. ^_^ Okay, so leave Elizabeth Center now. Next door to it, there's a store that sells a lot of models, posters, wallscrolls, and stationary. They have a bunch of PCs in the back for people to come afterschool to play Counterstrike or War Craft III, so buy from here when school is in session or on the weekends. I highly recommend this place because the the wallscrolls are $15 and the posters are $5, but the nice lady gives you a discount on holidays and the wallscrolls become $10 and the posters become $2.50. They also have a LOT of very good models on sale (ranging from RahXephon to a Tallgeese!) And the posters are all really nice and vary a lot in series as well. ^_^ They sell a lot of stickers from rare series and packs of cards that feature very nice art from whatever series it's featuring as well.

Okay, so out of this store you go across the street to this store that is kind of dark and next to that parking lot place. It sells a lot of anime CDs, video game related wallscrolls, and in the back, they hhave tapes as well. The tapes are in Chinese though (from what I can tell from the labels). And there's also a lot of Trigun wallscrolls. But it's a very expensive store and I don't recommend it unless you really can't find the gaming stuff you're looking for somewhere else. So leave, and make a beeline for Mott Street. When you're there, you should see a large yellow awning for this one store in the middle of the block. There should be a wallscroll on the outside plastered there (and it's most likely of Battousai and Tomoe). Anyway, this place is called Anime Max and the guy there is really nice and can give you recommendations for anime series. One of my friends call him "Great Guy" and another told me that she once bought a lot at his store and he gave her a free tape of "Noir" (which she's never watched before) saying that she will definitely like it (which he gained from seeing what she chose to buy). When I finally dragged myself over to see, my indecisive friend was deciding over what anime to watch and the two of us were talking about RahXephon, One Piece, and Yami no Matsuei. ^^;; The tapes are fairly priced with 4 episodes on each tape, tapes are $3 each. Besides VHS, there's also a large selection of DVDs and 12" figurines. Everything is a pretty fair price, so this place is recommended as well.

Okay, so leaving Chinatown now and heading for the rest of the downtown area. On Broadway and West 4th Avenue, there's a place called Anime Crash that sells both subbed and dubbed anime tapes, anime CDs, translated manga, and Hong Kong imports. They're willing to order stuff for you, but I'm not really sure about the reliability since I've never really wanted to order anything from them. It's fairly expensive and not really recommended. On that same street, head towards 4th Avenue and you'll find a place called Towers Books and Videos. There a huge selection of anime for rent or sale. The magazine section in the back has a lot of the latest anime magazines in English and Japanese available for browsing as well. There's also a huge Barnes and Noble on Union Square, 15th Street, and Broadway. It has a very nice selection of translated manga in the graphic novels section. So now heading a bit more west and north. There's a store called Image Anime on 30th Street, in between 6th and 7th. Anyway, it sells a lot of DVDs, models, and a lot of rare items. Plushies, engraved bookmarks, the like. Very pricey though. But this is where I usually go if I can't find anything elsewhere. From what my friend tells me, they used to sell doujinshi here as well, but they don't anymore. The guy there is also a really nice guy and we chatted about SCRYED and Gundam Seed before. ^_^

So head back east now, back to Grand Central station, 42nd street. There's a Japanese bookstore on 41st and Madison called Book Off and it sells a lot of second hand manga. You can a LOT of really old or really rare stuff for a low price here. There are chairs here so you can just sit and read all day if you want to because there is no packaging on the books. The most expensive thing I've ever bought from here was $4 (It was the Gundam Wing: Ground Zero manga, I couldn't resist!), but manga is usually $3 to $1 if it's on the bargain shelf. There are also some CDs for sale here for a fair price. The second floor has a lot of magazines and some artbooks. If you're lucky, you'll catch a doujinshi in the back shelf. ^_^ There's a whole lot of doujinshi anthologies in the back shelf, near the shelves of shounen-ai and yaoi stuff too. Also near here is another Japanese bookstore called Asahiya. I usually go to Asahiya en route to Book Off, since it's just the way it is when you get off from the subway. Anyway, Asahiya is on Vanderbilt and 45th. Besides the HUGE selection of manga, they also have artbooks, magazines, anthologies, and calendars. If you ask the sales people for doujinshi, they'll say they don't sell it because those are sold by private companies and they don't want to be sued. But if you look carefully at some of the shelves, you'll find some doujinshi anthologies, released by circle though, so if you don't recognize any, you're screwed. The manga there are all pretty new and restocked pretty often (I got Saiyuki Reload there pretty quickly). There are also some import CDs near the door, but they're really expensive (Ayu's Rainbow was $34 on the day it came out). There are whole sets of translated manga (sold separately) sold near the regular selections of manga. Ask the nice salespeople if you don't know where something is. The older lady's English isn't very good though and she'll reply in either broken English or Japanese. [As of 03/20/03, Asahiya closed down and this information is null and void. It makes me very sad...but I'm going to keep this here because this was the best store in my opinion out of all of them.] Now, head uptown towards Rockefellar Center. There's another Japanese bookstore called Kinokuniya. It has a smaller selection than Asahiya, but it's still fairly large (not to mention more well-known than Asahiya). The prices here are extremely high. Even though Asahiya also sells "legal" and "new," it's cheaper there than here, mainly because Kinokuniya is in a tourist area. It's directly across the Concourse and the NBC Experience store. $5+ for one volume of Kenshin. -_-;; English translated graphic novels are located on the bottom floor with the magazines and the manga are on the second floor with the stationary. There's also a great selection of artbooks, but you have to shuffle through them to find what you want, even if it's supposedly organized alphabetically. The people here speak clear English and there's about two or three security guards wandering around the entrance and exit areas. On the same street, heading away from the Concourse, there's a little Japanese pastry shop that should be tried as well.

You can now leave Manhattan and head towards Queens. Take the 7 to Flushing station and go to Hong Kong supermarket. In the basement floor, there's a store called Hurricane Trading Cards that sells what it's name promises as well as some models. There's also a nameless store here that sells a few Gundam models. Also here is a Chinese manga store. It sells DVDs/VCDs as well as some nice posters and puzzles. The manga varies from old to new and they restock once a month. The store is fairly small, but it's not hard to find. They can order stuff for you if they run out and they can also hold stuff for you when something comes in. A very nice store. ^_^ Anyway, head out of there and head towards Flushing Mall. There's one store in the Marketplace near it's entrance that sells anime DVDs and models. You can haggle with this guy if you have some time and bring down the price considerably. Recommended only as a last resort. Head out of Flushing Mall and over another street farther down, past all the restaurants. On the corner (after passing all the back doors of the restaurants as well and rounding an extremely large bend), there's a place called Comic World. It sells a lot of English graphic novels and only a few Chinese ones. The English ones are $10, but that's about the price they go for. They sell lots of models for multiple series around here and lots of trading cards, English DVDs, and paints. More of a hobby shop type thing.

Anyway, that's my guide to New York City! If you have anything else you can think of or want to suggest that I add, just e-mail me.

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