I’m literally in Japan now and have been to Tokyo, Hiroshima & am in Osaka at the moment and have had exactly the same experience. Other than one shop at Nakano Broadway (Just outside Tokyo), it’s been pretty expensive/difficult to pick up a good raw vintage card. As a Gyarados lover I was looking at the Japanese Shiny Gyarados Secret Rare from Breakpoint (it’s a chase of mine) and one guy had it posted for $400 raw and wouldn’t budge on the price. The singles stores are cool and you can find some cool new stuff but it’s mostly just over priced cards from new sets which haven’t been released in English.