Shopper's Guide to Chicago Compiled by Enrique Conty jester@ihlpm.att.com This is a quick-and-dirty guide to some decent anime places in or near Chicago. On with the show!! YAOHAN: 110 E. Algonquin Road Arlington Heights open 7 days, 9am - 8pm This is an all-Japanese mall and food court. The most important stores to anime fans are Asahiya Books, JBC Video, and Pony Toy Go-Round. Descriptions follow: ASAHIYA BOOKS: A large excellent Japanese language bookstore with a reasonably large, well priced selection of manga (not as cheap as Nikaku, but within driving range, and one can browse ;) ) as well as Japanese magazines, and normal Japanese books. Asahiya is packed on weekends when all the new shipments arrive. Rusell Rezaian JBC VIDEO: Next to Asahiya is JBC Video, one of the three Chicago area Japanese video places. JBC has a selection of Anime, but mixes the shows on tapes (they keep a weeks worth of stuff on a a tape, and do not compile one show per tape) so that if you are only interested in one show the rest of the tape is pointless. I was a member there, but they raised their prices, and I was getting annoyed at having to spend 2.50 to rent a tape that had one episode of Patlabor that I had to search through two episodes of live action silliness, and one episode of something else to find. Unless you like EVERYTHING there are other places to rent video. Rusell Rezaian PONY TOY GO-ROUND: This is in front of JBC Video. A general Japanese toy store. They have a good stock of Bandai's injection mecha kits (mostly Gundam), the Horizon kits, and even a few garage kits. It doesn't have the arcane selections of a (say) NewType Models, but it will do. Enrique Conty TOKYO VIDEO: One of the other Video rental places in the area is Tokyo Video in the near north section of the city 2616 north Halsted. They charge $10 for a membership, and their rates of rental are cheap. They, like all of the other places, allow 5 day rentals. Tokyo Video compiles their tapes so there are several episodes from one show on one tape. They also have some OVAs. They are located above the Itto Sushi restaurant, parking in the rear for sushi customers... Rusell Rezaian JAPAN BOOKS AND VIDEO: The third video place is Japan Books and Video on Peterson up north. Take Lake Shore Drive to Hollywood, and that to Peterson. They are connected with a Korean book and video place too. Their selection of books and manga isn't as good as Asahiya, but they have an excellent video selection, cheap 5 day rentals, and they get some things earlier than Tokyo Video. Rusell Rezaian The store's address is 3450 W. Peterson, just west of Kimball on the north side of the street. For a more general location, it's just south of Lincolnwood. They did have one laserdisk, Bubblegum Crash 1, but the asking price was $100.50. They also had the music from Mobile Suit Gundam (final something or another in the title) for just over $32. I bought some manga that was price 480 yen on the cover, I ended up paying just under $7 for it. If I read the sign correctly, for the rather expansive tape collection, the going rental rates are $2 for one day, $10 for five. John Yoon SEA RANCH VIDEO: Sea Ranch Video is in Wilmet, north of the city, right of the Edens Highway (94). If you get on the Edens, exit at Lake Road, and there is a little shopping center across from the big Edens shopping center. In this is Sea Ranch grocery (which has a nice selection of video -- taped right off the TV, including commercials) and Sea Ranch fish (a fish/sushi store -- all the Japanese in the area swear that it has the best sushi in town --) For those of you who are in the Northwestern area, or even in the city, it is far quicker to take 94 north, than to travel west to Asahiya. Also, Sea Ranch is in the process of expanding (finally) and I've noticed the video section is growing. Rebecca Radnor GRAHAM CRACKERS: It's at the corner of Chicago and Washington in the center of downtown Naperville (due west from Aurora). A good selection of dubbed/subbed anime and magazines (even a laserdisc or two!!). It's the only place with decent anime supplies that I know of in the far western suburbs. Warning: do not buy their bootleg tapes. They have more than enough legal tapes to choose from... E. Conty LARRY'S COMICS: The place is on Devon, just west of Broadway. No anime per se, but tons of issues of [overpriced] anime magazines and manga. Walking into the place, the first impression that I got was that the place was bound to burn down with all of the magazines and comics piled up all over the place. Driving by, it's easy to overlook the store with the metal screens over the door and window. John Yoon P.S. Feel free to add to this list, as long as you tell me about it (someone has to gather all the info into one place). Your name will be added after your entry, of course.