How to Buy Japanese Retro Games Without Reading Japanese

Getting Started

If you've ever stared at a wall of Japanese game titles — online or on a store shelf — and had no idea where to start, you're not alone. Japanese retro game listings are full of information that's genuinely useful (condition, edition, region) but locked behind kanji, katakana, and a numbering system nobody explains to you.

The good news: you don't need to read Japanese to buy Japanese games. You need to know how to search for them, and how to read just enough of the listing to avoid a bad purchase. That's what this guide — and the tool that started it, Kataban — is built for.

Finding a Game on Kataban

Start with whatever you already know — the English title is usually enough. Kataban's database covers close to 38,000 Japanese game entries, pulled from Japan's official Media Arts Database, so most retro titles you're chasing are already in there.

Type the English name into the search bar, and Kataban shows you the matching entry with:

• The Japanese title, so you can compare it against what you see in a listing or on a shelf
• The kataban (型番) — the product code printed on the game itself, which we'll explain in the next section
• A quick link out to search that title on Buyee and Suruga-ya, so you can jump straight to shopping

You don't need to type in Japanese at any point. The whole point of Kataban is translating your search into the terms a Japanese listing or store actually uses.

Understanding "Kataban" (型番)

Every Japanese game has a product code printed directly on the case and disc — something like SLPS-01234 for a PlayStation game, or HVC-SM for a Famicom cartridge. This code is called a kataban (型番), literally "model number."

Why does this matter to you? Because it's often more reliable than the title itself:

• It's language-independent. A code like T-1234N means the same thing whether the listing is in Japanese or English.
• It disambiguates re-releases and regional versions. Many games were reissued as budget editions ("the Best" versions) or bundled with different covers — same title, different kataban.
• It's what search engines and marketplaces index on. Pasting the exact kataban into a Buyee or Suruga-ya search often surfaces the listing faster and more accurately than the title alone, especially for games with common or hard-to-transliterate names.

On Kataban, every entry shows you this code up front — so once you've found your game, you have a search term that works everywhere, even if you can't read a word of the listing around it.

Choosing Where to Buy: Buyee vs. Suruga-ya

Once you have your game's kataban, you'll generally choose between two paths:

Buyee is a proxy shopping service. It buys items on your behalf from Japanese sites (including Yahoo! Auctions and Mercari) that don't ship overseas, then forwards them to you. This gives you access to the widest possible pool of listings — including one-off auction items and private sellers — but adds a service fee and an extra shipping leg.

Suruga-ya is a used-game retailer with its own international storefront, so you can buy directly without a proxy. Selection is narrower than the full secondhand market Buyee can reach, but the process is simpler and often cheaper for common titles, since there's no proxy fee layered on top.

A practical rule of thumb: check Suruga-ya first for anything reasonably common — if it's there, it's usually the more straightforward buy. Fall back to Buyee for rarer items, auction-only listings, or anything Suruga-ya doesn't carry.

Kataban links out to both from every game entry, so you can compare availability without leaving the page.

A Mini Glossary: Reading Condition Descriptions

Even with a translated title in hand, the condition of a used item is usually still written in Japanese. Here are the terms you'll run into most often:

A quick rule: if a listing says ジャンク (janku), treat it as a for-parts purchase, not a working copy — even if the price looks tempting.

Putting It All Together

Here's the whole flow in short:

1. Search the English title on Kataban
2. Note the Japanese title and the kataban (product code)
3. Use the kataban to search Suruga-ya first, then Buyee if needed
4. Check the listing against the condition glossary above before buying

That's it — no Japanese literacy required, just the right search terms and enough context to read a listing with confidence.

If you're heading to Japan in person rather than shopping online, Kataban also works in the aisles of stores like Book-Off — that's a guide for another post. For now, try searching for a game you're hunting for and see how far the kataban system gets you.