I Rebuilt JAPAN'S TINIEST SHOP!!

this is Tokyo's tiniest electronic shop and I own it now or shimmy Amazon was a legend in Tokyo he had a cult following all of his own he ran his shop for over 43 years under the tracks of Akihabara station but sadly his mother developed dementia and so last year he retired to move her out to the mountains and take care of her and in the process he shut down the shop but not before taking the time to share his story with us and now in the space the shop once was it's an empty Cube mostly because rent for this tiny space here under the trance of Akihabara station is thousands of dollars that's monthly by the way and before shutting things down shimmy Amazon kindly gifted me with a small amount of stock he had left and shortly after he gave me the shop and now nearly a year later it's built into my studio right here which is just down the road from where the shop originally was and what it took to get it here that's where the story gets really interesting foreign up above tonight we're thinking about the shop but it feels so weird to be in here at night with nobody around this is what it looks like at night by the way they just pack everything up like this right now my main goal is to find the security guard so I can figure out where we are supposed to park the truck he has mysteriously disappeared I had originally planned to tear down the entire shop myself but seeing as it was built into that space over half a century ago I thought it might be better than the list the help of local professionals this turned out to be the right choice in almost every single way every single part of the shop had to be meticulously photographed labeled and organized so that we would have the slightest Fighting Chance of actually rebuilding it as close to the original as possible but unfortunately I would later find out that in this process the company I hired managed to skip the seemingly essential task of gathering a full set of measurements and this would end up becoming a problem taking a little bit of a break they are and they are struggling because everything is so old that they're doing everything they can not to break it as they take it apart [Music] there it is completely emptied out that was the light switch that was used to control everything and everything including the wood base is now going to get moved over to my studio it's also a little bit sad to see me Amazon's shop gone but very exciting to know and it's kind of coming back I just hope the shops under here survive like this is such a beautiful place it's just no new tenants are really coming in I hope I hope they do it foreign all right and now it's all right here it has been for about the last month and today today they're coming to put it all together to build the shop I need to I need to clear all this out first though now by the time I started the process of collecting everything from shimana's shop he'd actually already sent back a lot of the parts so many of these are empty and will need to be refilled but the coolest thing that I got in the entire process is that them good morning good morning how are you I think we have a door stopper here oh thank you very much sorry it's like a long time no no no worries come on in is there anything I can help you with let me grab this thank you very much I think we're just gonna bring everything in over here okay with this stuff that's completely fine we're gonna have to do a lot of damage control because you know it's really old so we brought a lot of wood okay so I have a lot of I'll bring you up also these here are sensors that I worked with a friend on building that way as soon as anybody comes in I get notifications here on my phone everything that I always know when someone's at that door now all we had to work on was pictures using those to make the whole room this is kind of tricky I'm gonna have to cut a lot of it they make everything fit so that's going to be a little Hardy I hope it works [Music] [Music] okay so it's about 4 P.M right now I've actually been working on putting together some furniture of my own but nothing in comparison to the it's really coming together it's starting to become so real looking good how's it feel to be in there how does luck does it look it looks very it looks real it doesn't look good [Music] this isn't where it's gonna go this is just the build spot so it's gonna get moved over into its official position we've actually designed it feel it like okay I've already put the gacha right here door's off right now but I had the inside rebuilt to be as close to the original as possible it even sounds the same oh this is amazing it's built pretty sturdy too I'm just like sitting here I'm sitting there are still Parts out there though that need to go on the inside it's here for example actually going here and getting out he's still a challenge today's goal is very simple the shop has been sitting empty now for months as I build out of the studio all of the stuff for the shop is over here and I need to get it all into I need to get all into the shop the best I'm never gonna get it perfect but I do have a few pictures and I made a video once so I should be able to come pretty close to it [Music] this tells me almost no this is gonna be all guesswork [Music] I'm only now realizing that the guys that build this for me may have actually built the table section too narrow so that everything doesn't fit that is 100 what happened and entire extra tray left over so I guess we'll just work with what we got [Music] even a few months after this is the pile of stuff that I have remaining from the shop they basically refuse to reuse any of the lighting equipment or any of the wiring as it was far looked at literally just popped right out saying that it was far too dangerous and that show me Amazon was potentially months if not weeks away from a fire breaking out so good timing on the retirement but pretty much everything that I got from Shima Amazon is now in the shop and it's it's so much less than it looked like when it was all stacked up on the table this the capacity of this little shop is it's actually very impressive at some point I'm likely going to be feeling the rest of the shop with my own stuff so that I have a quick and easy access but that's everything that's everything he gave me [Music] and that's the final piece for now this is the shop it's got a couple problems that we'll cover but it looks amazing and I couldn't possibly be have except for okay except for one thing let me let me show you so we'll do a full tour in a bit but aside from the size being just a little bit too small which made it a huge challenge to fill the trays in the shop itself is just far too empty it might not look that empty when you look at it this way but when you compare it to photos of the shop in its prime it's amazing how much stuff he crammed into this tiny space easily between two five even seven times as much stuff as I have in here right now that might sound like a bit of an exaggeration but if you compare this to the scene from the original video of me being inside the shop you can see a massive noticeable difference not to mention the fact that the trays here are still feeling very lonely and the inside of the shop itself is still basically completely empty how how am I going to show you let's let's do this I still can't believe he did this for 43 years this is just I really do not fit in here this entire space here was not this empty the entire thing was filled up with boxes I still have a whole other tray here that I wasn't able to fit up above and on top of that in front of the shop is still basically completely update except for the robot hi there was a little stand here that I'm now using as a stand for my office this there's just not enough stuff to put in it there were quite a few really interesting items that popped up in the piles of things that he gave me but the real Heartbreaker is what shimmy Amazon said to me the other week when we talked luckily we'd still talk from time to time and I've been trying to get him out to see the shop for a while now he was originally planning to come to Tokyo on a fairly regular basis but due to some unfortunate circumstances he hasn't been able to leave his home even once since moving out there and so he recently agreed to allow me to share a phone call we had together so I'm gonna try to give him a call and see if we can't reach him on the phone what's the most seems we might have gotten disconnected there the first part of our talk was a bit heavy his mother wasn't doing well and he shared just how much work it's been to take care of her but the conversation quickly turned into some of the amazing items that he left behind that I'll show you in a moment and then he said something unexpected that pulled the rug right out from under me boys [Music] [Laughter] muscle hey that man absolutely melts my heart I I love him so much and I miss him but he has asked me to send him as many photos and videos of the shop as I possibly can so that is exactly what I'm gonna do right now I'm gonna take a whole bunch of photos and just just send it off to him I love that man [Music] we chatted back and forth for a bit after the call he really seemed to enjoy it and that made me super happy and he promised that if he's ever in Tokyo he's definitely gonna come and check out the shop but the cool stuff that I found in here and for those who don't know what he sold it was mostly small electronic parts like lights and LED switches and sockets as well as little educational Electronics kits for example this here is a build it yourself intercom kit I bought the same one from him after we shot our original video it comes with a PCB board and all the parts and then you use a soldering iron to solder the entire thing together I've got the one that I built right here in my office I've been using it for the past year or so it picks up a bit of a weird radio signal but I absolutely love it and while tidying things up the other day I noticed that this somewhat special perf board or prototype board as are also known actually says on it he had his own brand of products but quite possibly the best items I have found in here so far were his old scheduling Diaries as well as his original wooden cash register that he gifted with me here while we're cleaning out the shop actually found a whole bunch of change that I'm eventually going to return to him but just the history and these items alone is so exciting I've managed to fill up a lot of the extra space with things like retro gaming systems or going to local thrift stores and unboxing items that I could use to fill this with or even these right here which are called sakuma drops and if you've ever seen the Ghibli movie Grave of the fireflies you'll know that these are a really well-known Japanese candy with a super long history and when the company went out of business I bought out as much of the remaining stock as I could but the cash register here kind of makes me realize there's one major aspect I'm probably going to get a lot of questions about when it comes to this entire thing and that is how much did did all this cost even with all the parts in here this didn't actually cost nearly as much as even I expected it to especially if you understand why I did this a little perspective always helps let's head back to where his shop used to be for a second I mentioned me Amazon for the first time over 15 years ago and while I'm sure he won't remember he had a massive impact on my life as I'm sure he probably did for many in my first year in Japan I was new I was nervous my Japanese was subpar at best and I had no money but I would always swing by the area of Akihabara to check things out because it's amazing would always patiently chat with the broke Foreigner with terrible Japanese and I'm so grateful for that that's really big by the way when you move overseas it only takes one or two interactions with the locals to make you feel welcomed and accepted in a new country Amazon did that for me it was going to cost him thousands of dollars to tear down and dispose of that shop and on top of wanting to do something in return for his kindness I also just couldn't bear to see the shop just get torn down and disappear and so I did two things number one I did a live stream from his shop on his final day everybody donated I doubled those donations put them in a tiny envelope and gave it to him as a bit of a retirement gift and number two despite it being his final day I asked him if there were any items he'd be willing to sell or let me take off of his hands let me head back to the studio I was originally just going to use a few of the items to build a bit of a display wall for my studio but admittedly I'd I got a little carried away so the past couple of years Tokyo has lost a lot of iconic spots and locations the odaiba ferris wheel is gone it just no longer exists the Naka gang capsule Tower is another one what an incredibly iconic Tokyo location has just been torn down dismantled and spread all over Japan and other places it was actually one of the things that kind of gave me the idea for this shot because you see when I asked you my Amazon for a couple items he basically just offered to give me everything his entire remaining stock so the items actually cost me nothing it was all free basically and then the tear down rebuild and population of the rest of it cost me less than the camera that I'm using to shoot this video right now which is by no means a small amount but it has been worth it in every imaginable way you see to me this is not a prompt or a set this is a little piece of Tokyo's history preserved just a tiny any bit longer it's a heartfelt thank you to a friend and a man who made me feel welcomed in Japan when I was new and scared and it's a reminder to myself that while this little YouTube channel might be able to bring some entertainment and knowledge to people outside of Japan if used properly with any luck it can also be used to enrich the lives of people right here in Japan as well so from me to you thank you so much for watching also this retro using vegetable machine this is the same brand that was in the space right next to shooting Amazon's shop it is is complete is ready it is still empty though there's nothing in the capsules I I've got to fill it with something the rebuild of this was an adventure all in its own I do want to give it a massive thank you to everybody who took the time to watch this a huge special thank you to the patreon crew who made this entire thing possible none of this would have been possible without you guys you know I will be chatting with you down in the comments and I will see you guys again real soon I almost completely forgot about this part after I did the original video I put up some small things on Instagram and Tick Tock about him giving me the stuff from the shop and I got a lot of DMS from people asking me if I would sell them things from it I'm still building it out right now and I love having people into the studio to check it out I did a patreon event a while back and this stole the show and I love that I think you get by this point how much I love it I don't know how long I'm going to preserve it might be two years might be five might be 10 might be forever if that changes I will put something out there and let you know but for now I'm still building it out and I love it very very much [Music] thank you

Channel: Tokyo Lens

Views: 1,934,463

Keywords: Japan, Tokyo, Vlog, Tokyo Lens, Tokyo Vlog, Japan Vlog, Norm Nakamura, Norm Tokyo Lens, Japanese, Tiny Japan, Japans Tiniest, Japans Tiniest Shop, Tiny Shop, Shimayama, Akihabara, Akihabara Shop, Akihabara man, Tiny Akihabara Shop, I built, I built a tiny, I rebuilt Japan's Tiniest Shop, living in japan, life in japan, Akihabara Tiny Shop, Tiny Shop Tokyo, Tokyo Tiny Shop, Tokyo Lens Tiny Shop, Tiny store Japan, tokyo electronics, electronics market tokyo

Id: nsimPVu1aLU

Length: 19min 18sec (1158 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 20 2023