Ahhh, half the thrill of shopping for Re-Ment is the hunt, the search for those missing sets, those secret sets, the special sets you want but can’t seem to find!
I came to Tokyo on a quest, to fill out my collection with older sets to the best of my ability. I came armed with all the cash I could muster for the shopping spree of a lifetime. Who knew what I could find and if there was older Re-Ment to be found???
But, every good Re-Ment hunter needs a secret weapon and I found mine, the best you could have ever imagined… Laura. Known to us Re-Ment Addicts as LauraandCraiginJapan, she made my Re-Ment Shopping Fantasies come true!!
I thought I had done my homework, I came prepared with my list of all the sets I had and what was missing. I had photos of the fronts of the boxes of every set too, so that I could have photos to help match things up.
Okay, so here is where I am a totally lame Re-Ment Fan. I am not very familiar with the older sets of Re-Ment. When you live in the U.S., you have very little exposure to the older sets. Since I have never had the possibility of even walking into a store to shop for older Re-Ment, I was a newbie in this area.
And, my inability to recognize the older sets and not know which set belongs with which bigger set of ten or eight is a huge disadvantage.
This is where having the expertise of a true Re-Ment collector like Laura is invaluable. She not only knows the shops, she knows all the older sets.
I met Laura and her adorable husband Craig and showed them my wish list. Laura was able to quickly page through them and tell me which sets we might find during our hunt and which I would still be dreaming of. Wow, what expertise!
And then, our adventure began! I came optimistically armed with big shopping bags since we were using public transportation. It’s not like here in the States where you can just run to your car and throw your purchases into the trunk and then get back shopping!
Our first stop yielded our first bag full of goodies, I was able to pick up some of the older Disney sets and some not too old Re-Ments. Laura knew the pricing too and could advise if it was a good price or an outrageous price! See the load of Re-Ment on the left!
Then it was time to go to the famed Nakano Broadway, what an exciting area to visit! There are hallways lined with lots of little shops.
Here’s a typical shop that sells older Re-Ment:
Okay, this shop is literally not wider than 15 feet across and full of glass cases. And, towards the back on the left hand side behind a glass door is where the hunt gets going!
And there it is, some plastic bins with individual sets of Re-Ment in plastic bags in it! One by one you go through them, hunting for the ones you don’t have, looking at the prices, seeing if it might be half off! One bin might just have secret sets. The boxes are gone on most of them, you just have the Re-Ment and the paper that came in the box. This might explain why when we buy from overseas, we don’t get the box. It is quite common to sell Re-Ment without the box.
Here’s a typical one:
And then there are the full sets, sometimes with just one box and sometimes more! It’s all in one plastic bag and takes less space than a full set in the box!
Some of the new Re-Ment is sold open here and is marked up a little as well since you don’t have to buy it as a blind box. What fun to see nothing but Re-Ment on the racks!
I got cross-eyed looking at all the Re-Ment. Lucky for me, Laura was keeping track, she would say something like “Robin, for the third time, you already have that set!!”
And, once the salesperson understood what was going on, more stuff starting coming out from behind the counter!
My shopping basket was getting fuller and fuller. Soon I was borrowing money from my cousin and then from Laura and Craig. Then we had to go to an international ATM to get more cash!
It was mind blowing and incredible!
I could not believe all the things that I was able to find and buy thanks mainly to Laura and Craig. If it weren’t for them, I might have found the shop and the Re-Ment, but I would have spent a long time matching up the individual bags to their sets and figuring out what I had and didn’t have. There is no way that I could have found so much so quickly!!
Here is one of my best finds, it is the first sushi Re-Ment set with the secret set! I also got the first Re-Ment set ever with the secret set! Wow! I never thought I would find it!
Thanks to Laura, I also learned about other fun addicting things to collect in Tokyo as well and I spent a lot of free time going to convenience stores to look for other things I started collecting. When you like to collect, it is fun and addicting!
Laura and Craig, I salute you for the best Re-Ment Hunt ever!! Re-Ment Fans are really fun friends too and I really appreciated Laura and Craig giving me their time and expertise and money loaning and bag carrying to make my once-in-a-lifetime Re-Ment Fan Adventure like a dream come true!
