recently, shops like "yellow submarine" and that robot toy shop in akihabara (with the darth vader on the outside) have had staff come up to me and quite rudely, put their hands infront of my face/camera and block me from taking pics of their tfs for sale. the specific one is question was in the aki shop and the toy was a black beast machines lucky draw cheetor for about 4o,000 yen.

the only reason i spotted it was after i was going to buy a beast wars ravage and a few other special toys in their cabinets (as opposed to regular stuff on the shelves).

when i asked why, they just said policy so i gave them a look of disgust and said that i wouldnt buy anything anymore from them.

obviously a shop can do waht it wishes and many shops have such policies to protect themselves from the competition. however, toy shops in japan normally make profits from word of mouth/interenet places like this with "see it here with pcs" etc.

ive even told them in the psat i will be telling everyone about them online, but they didnt want any links to foreign trade, although pics were ok.

so im still very anoyed about the whole thing. annoyed enuf to walk away from a boxed beast wars ravage for 75 us dollars.

just wanted to vent. perhaps someone can shed light on this? my japanese isnt that good, so if ur in akiba, go in and have a chat !

Let me think, what do you suppose TRU employees would do if I went into their store and took pictures of stuff? I am refering to the US.

If I was working in a store, I wouldn't let people come in and take pictures of things. Seems kinda rude to me.

well, normally in japan its ok.  especially if its in specialist stores where sales are generated by word of mouth.

and it wasnt ust the fact i could taqke pics it was the fact the guy ran up to me and put his hands in front of my face. thats more ruder than wipping out my mobile phone and taking a pic..right?

Yeah, I agree. This is another example of "oh, rules and courteousy don't apply here because I'm from country x" mentality.

Groceries stories won't let you take pictures of produce, let alone specialty stores. Plus, Japan is a protectionist country when it comes to trade. So taking pictures in a store is a.) against store policy like anywhere else in the world, and b.) most likely is posted by the door saying no camera allowed and c.) rude. Plain rude.

If you want to promote the store, that's fine, but abide by the rules and you'll be ok.

If foriegners would ask politely, and say "flash nashi" they wouldnt have this problem.  Instead big fat westerners March in and do whatever the hell they want until someone says no.  Then they get pissed because that person was rude to them...

In general I put more blame on customers than the shops.  They have a no-camera policy for a good reason, or else the rule wouldnt exist...

my frend had this happen to him in china i guess its a more globle thing then just japan

gotta wonder why tho i mean people knowing what you got in stock is not a bad thing to my knoledge

are Brits considered "westerners" now? or are you just using this chance to randomly insult americans?

Yeah! Last time I looked, Brits are considered Asians.




OMG! China has STORES?!?!?! OMG China has STORE POLICIES?!?! OMG China DON'T LIKE STRANGERS COMING INTO THEIR STORES AND START TO TAKE PICTURES?!? OMG China doesn't like people going into their BANKS AND START TAKING NOTES ON WHERE THE WEAK SECURITY POINTS ARE?!?!?!

You get the point. If the rules applies at your country, why won't it apply in another.

I agree with quiktake. When I went to Europe, they don't let you take pictures of their stores' products unless you ask them (OMG THEY DON'T LET YOU TAKE PICTURES!?!?! j/k.) politely and tell them you are a tourist. When I went to a Lego specialty store in Denmark, even when I asked them politely, they said no. It's just store policy, people.

I'm American.  Believe me, in Japan the typical westerner is quite bit bigger than the typical Japanese.  Some foriegners kinda get a sense of entitlement and just push Japanese around more so than they would in thier own countries.  I suppose most of it do to language barriers and culture gaps, but I certainly do notice a fair share of gaijin who think they can get away with anything and dont like to apologize when they should. 

Im not trying to generalize, but it certainly is noticable here after a while.  The Japanese dont act the same way.  To play the game, you gotta follow the rules...

i understand the differences between americans and japanese, i spent a year over there, my thing is you generalized about how an american is over there, and this whole thread is about a British guy

Where exactly did I mention an nationality?  I said westerners.  That means N. Americans and Europeans ,and anyone else who comes from a western based culture.

Yep, the "West" is everything Western Europe and North America.

Holy Ghost beatdown!!!!

Interesting ideas here!

Many japanese actually DO take pics. Some bookstores over here dont want people taking pics of mags and books as many are now just taking pics of parts they want and then sodding off.

thing is, many japanese will just walk into a convinience or book store and stand there reading as much as they like..without any of the staff saying anything, shich to me is as bad as taking the picture and reading it later, right. in the uk, i know some shops will have notices saying taht reading mags extensively is not allowed.

also, ive not had any problems taking pics in that store before. ive been a customer there for 4 years.  Speciality toy stores seem to have many people who want to take pics of toys. its kinds part of the culture of us nerds to want to take pics of toys to show our chums. like glorified window shopping.

and its not just foriegners bullying poor japanese. i didnt bully. the guy ran up to me and threw his hand in my face rather aggressively.  so i went to his boss, told him about it and then told him i wasnt coming back and wasnt going to buy the bundle of expensive toys waiting to be bagged at the counter.

i personally belive in small stores like this, there is no problem.  no new stock/products will be shown before their time (everything is second hand or vintage), no prices will really be undercut (its a speciality store. its like botcon worrying that ur pics of their botcon fig prices will affect the market).

however, my chums and i have been noticing more and more "no pics" signs outside other shops, especially game shops in akihabara.

but trying to stop people from taking mobile phone pics in shops in akihabara is like trying to stop people wearing sandles into beachside shops.

This isnt about japan versus the west. just bad customer service or lack of it.

I took plenty of pics, but you need to do it quickly. I am not stealing an item, if anything when you take pics you are promoting the item and indirectly the store. But hell if they give you sh*t I say frack them, there are other stores that can gain your business. As for taking pics in the US do it all the time and NO one gives me grief. Customer service is a joke and grossly different in JP b/c in general, they do not believe in really helping customers.

well, this is what i said. i mean, for me i was angry with myself for getting annoyed if you get my drift. but i was happy that not even a cheap beast wars ravage would make me give up my values, especially as they were so rude in communicating their rules to me.

just noticed this week that my local TRU has a no photos sign never noticed it befor aswell go fig

Personally, I don't think it's rude for them to stop people taking pictures in their store.  There's good reasons why:

1.  They don't want me taking pics and then selling things before they've even bought it.  If the specialty shop has some items that have been sitting in locked cabinets for a while, it's a pretty good bet that a savvy eBay user could take the pic, sell the item, and then come back to the store to pick it up, without having to risk actually buying the item before they've resold it.

2.  They don't want me taking pictures of what they have, because they'd rather people come to their store themselves.  If someone actually makes the trip to the store, it's that much more likely they'll find something they want and buy it.

3.  Having people shooting pics in a store would naturally irritate the owner unless they knew why you were doing it, and you asked first.  It's somewhat invasive, somewhat like walking up to a stranger and shooting a pic of his face is invasive.

4.  If you don't get #3, you are a classic example of why Americans are considered the the rudest tourists by other countries (although Americans aren't the only guilty ones).

On the other hand, I have to admit that I have also run into bad customer service in otaku stores, even though my approach is as meek and polite as possible. 

In one place, I was asking if they had any of those poster flats (which I usually see stored in bales of 3000 or so, and they're randomly stacked so you have to flip through the whole thing to make sure you haven't missed something you actually want) of Oh My Goddess/Ah Megamisama.  The guys there acted like they'd never heard of it, which vaguely pissed me off because not only did I ask for it by both the American and Japanese names, but it's a big enough name that anyone who is even somewhat in touch with the anime/manga scene would know the name.  I didn't get why they couldn't just say "Nope, sorry, don't have any."

"1.  They don't want me taking pics and then selling things before they've even bought it.  If the specialty shop has some items that have been sitting in locked cabinets for a while, it's a pretty good bet that a savvy eBay user could take the pic, sell the item, and then come back to the store to pick it up, without having to risk actually buying the item before they've resold it."

well, I was thinking about that, but in the end, with a toy so rare, they WOULD HAVE TO BUY IT FROM THE STORE AT SOME POINT, right?  So theyre not really losing out.

i just think that taking pics of things is a typical nerdy thing to do, like when nerds take pics of other nerds models to make copies of themselves..or to give themselves inspiration.  I explained why i was taking them but theye werent interested which gave me the impression of "we like foreign toys to be imported to we japanese but we couldnt care less if you gaijin scum came here or not as there are many other superior japanese customers here..so get lost".

I know that wasnt the case.. though.

i just think that in the end, it made me realise that some toys are not worth it.

I suppose it will take different things for different people to realize when they are more in control of their tf habit than say, in my case, temper!

btw-caps used to highlight rather than irritate...

Was this that very narrow robot shop on the main drag of Akihabara? Has 4 stories. Robots on floor 1, gashapons on 2 and 3 and American toys on the top floor?

If so, last time I was there there were SIGNS requestiong no pictures be taken.

no.  Its on the　main drag. darth vader is outside the first/ground floor, duno whats on the floor above as i never go upstairs.

its pretty big by akiba standards of shops (ie: not a firetrap).

and i couldnt see any notices.

if they do, then akiba has changed recently. even my other regular akiba shoppers only started to notice similar signs outside game shops.

i think akibas just a victim of its own success now perhaps.

cant wait to see it go down and a new, more geek friendly place emerge again.

i heard theere is now a sub area of akiba now specilizing in just collector toy shop.

might be cool eh?

Lots of interesting theories on why stores/people don't want pictures taken.  Most places in the US don't want to be sued or featured in negative news story.  As for rudeness, the people who work there aren't really that concerned about you taking pictures generally, they are concerned with losing their jobs because they let you take pictures.  For the most part once a picture is taken, it's taken, so they feel they have to stop you quickly and emphatically.  Is this cool, no, not really, but I can't say I blame them.

well, the bad news is already out isnt it? the shop staff was jerks.  beware of the shop in akihabara with a darth vader outside!  they is jerks! 

Please, Primal-Convoy, it's people like you who give foreigners a bad name in Japan.
If a store clerck gently asks you not to take pictures, the polite thing to do would be to apologize and put your camera away, NOT giving them mean looks and telling you won't buy there anymore.

It's just common sense ...

I got bored reading the replies, so I'll just throw my "2 cents" in & go.



I'm English & I'd count Britain as part of the "Western" world.

Alot of UK shops have a "No Photography" policy.

The "hand in the face" thing may seem rude, but "fight fire with fire" applies here. You started it.

If you think geeky hobby shop owners are rude there, you should come to the UK! Seriously man, some of them are complete pricks!



I'm not saying I understand why they wouldn't let you take photo's, it seems petty to me. Rules are rules though.

The rule is that you can't take pictures in the store. It's that simple. But I see this from 2 perspectives:

Scenario #1 - From Prime-Convoy - If the sign is in Japanese and PC can't read Japanese, and the clerks were rude to him for that, yeah, then, the staff were pricks (you can't assume every tourist can read Japanese.)

Scenario #2 - From the store's perspective - if the sign in English/some language PC can read, but PC decides to ignore that policy for some reason or another, then PC is the prick.

It's that simple.

BTW, I know most stores in Japan reserves the right to serve any customers (much like the West), so I wouldn't be surprised that the store staff, based on their experience with PC (and most likely put up a post in some forum Starscreaming in a "rude Western tourists" thread) with surveillance pictures of PC, telling other store clerks not to service PC. That would be ironic.


To be honest, PC, if it's scenario #2, you need to go back to that store and apologize to the staff before something worse happens, like you being banzorized from all the hobby stores in the district.

1/ I can read some Japanese. My friends with me can read it better.

2/ There were No signs outside or inside the shop at the time. If they were they were not noticable.

3/ Other videogame stores had signs.

4/ The guy throwing his hands infront of my face (literally an inch or so) was being a typical otaku jerk. no politeness or anything. He got irratable when i asked him.

So i didnt get really angry. I just went up to the desk, put down the collection of toys I was going to buy and simply told them that, due to the rudeness of their staff and/or their policy of not letting pictures be taken, they would lose my custom for that time and possibly hte future.

Both parties have the right to do that. i thought htey were rude and I didnt aggree with their policies. So I left.

I cant exactly make everyone not buy stuff from there. However I decided to share it with you folks. perhaps you wont buy from them. perhaps you will. but know you know about them.