You'll find camcorders slightly cheaper in Japan due to a lower asking price, the strength of the CAD$, and the ability to pay no taxes at purchase. (Remember to bring your passport!) Be sure there's an English menu though. Not all of them have it.

For cameras, most of the electronics shops are camera heaven. I'm not a big camera guy myself but, from speaking with others, you'll be like a kid in a candy shop.

No idea about car electronics. I wouldn't buy PC stuff since the Vancouver shops (NCIX, ATIC, et al) are more than competitive.

I wouldn't buy a Wii console since there's a difference between the different Regions. You'd have to install a mod chip. However, peripherals are dirt cheap (compared to Vancouver).

Actually, I try to stay away from Akihabara for purchasing since the "dedicated overseas electronics" floors/shops price everything higher. For most of the stuff you're looking for, the electronics shops in other places (Shibuya, Harajuku, Shinjuku) may price lower.

One thing you didn't ask was bargaining. And, the answer is no. I've bought thousands of dollars of stuff and they didn't budge. However, they will help you with the points and stagger your purchases so that you can get some discount.


No trip to Akihabara is complete without going to one. ^ It's quite harmless but a unique experience. Unless you're fluent with Japanese, you might miss them calling you "master" all the time.

Beside the tremendous amount of selection, Akihabara has those unique items.

I bought a CF card to 2.5 inch ATA adapter on the backstreet and made my our SSD notebook PC. I bought a single bank 512MB SDRAM DIMM there for my Minolta color printer. Many places wouldn't even know the difference between single bank and dual bank.

For highend camera stuff, Yodobashi in Shinjuku and Bic Camera in Yurakucho are still better.

That was pretty flippin' funny. Had to watch the other commercials.

sioFont & BD: Great info. Thanks.