yuri buyfag's incomplete guide to akihabara

I've listed the shops roughly in order of encounter if walking from the left side of the electric town JR exit and up the main street (ducking into a few back streets) toward Suehirocho.

1. K-BOOKS: manga and doujinshi, new and used. Big store, lots of books. I've only been to this location couple times so I can't speak with confidence about yuri availability. They used to be really good for getting old yuri manga releases with special extras, so it might be worth looking around (they got rid of a lot of their used manga for a while and I'm not sure how much they've brought back). You have to go into the RADIOKAIKAN building (look for the doors next to the lighted window sign saying "the Akiba") and up the escalator.

2. GAMERS: manga, new. Some doujin games and music, but I don't believe they stock doujinshi. Decent selection, sometimes have decent special extras.

3. MELON[BOOKS]#1: manga and doujinshi, new. Decent selection of manga given store size (very good selection of yuri doujinshi, only okay selection of original yuri doujinshi), frequently has excellent special extras for new manga. Go in the entrance for HEY! arcade, walk down the hall between the up escalator and the crane machines, and go down the stairs directly "underneath" the escalator. Smells bad, very packed and obnoxious to navigate at peak times, but usually worth it.

4. ZIN (COMIC ZIN): manga and doujinshi, new. ZIN is a small store but has a pretty high concentration of yuri! Lots of little goodies (like postcards) even for old books. Generally they'll package the goodies with the book so you can check before buying, but sometimes you get the extra at the counter for new releases. 1F is new releases, magazines and LNs, 2F is all-ages doujinshi and manga, 3F is 18+ doujinshi and manga. See also: current buyfag thread's OP picture.

5. LASHINBANG "main": manga and doujinshi, used. Pretty small selection of manga, decent selection of doujinshi. My information is most likely to be out of date for this shop, since they've been shuffling a lot between their "main" and "new" store. The new store is a lot bigger and better cared for, so I think it's funny that this is the "main" store. I guess it's just because it came first. You have to go down a dim hallway to access the stairs up to the store. I'm really unsure on whether I took a screenshot of the right exterior door though, I could have sworn it was on the other side of the building (neither looked right in streetview though). I recommend looking around the ground floor of the building for signs.

6. LASHINBANG "new": manga and doujinshi, used. Decent selection, but I'll repeat that they keep changing stuff here so I'm not confident in this information. Don't be too mad at me if there's only music and figs at this location. Or cosplay. Or who knows what else. There's also an animate in this building, but I forgot to put it on the map (I don't know what's in it anyway).

7. MANDARAKE: manga and doujinshi, used (some exceptions). Selection can be hit or miss, since it just depends whether they have copies of what you're looking for. They usually have a special corner on one of the manga floors for volumes with special extras, sometimes there's a yuri one in there.

8. TORA [NO ANA] C: manga and doujinshi, new (if there is used, it wasn't anything I was looking for). This is a fairly small store with a decent concentration of yuri. The street entrance is pretty small and you have to walk down a hallway and go upstairs.

9. MELON#2: doujinshi, not sure about new/used distribution these days. I don't have great luck with this store. They do stock yuri, but it's rarely the yuri I'm looking for. Probably worth checking out, sorry I don't have better intel. The street entrance is just a set of stairs down to a landing that has a door on the right and left. Both sides are melonbooks (at least last time I was there).

10. ANIMATE: manga, new. I'm a little biased against animate, since it's often more crowded than other stores and (in my experience) doesn't really stock any books that the others don't. It does depend on what you're looking for, of course. There's a second animate in the same building as lashinbang "new", but I don't know anything about it.

11. TORA A&B: manga and doujinshi, new and sometimes used (used section keeps appearing and disappearing). A is probably the store you want, B has very little yuri. A is the one next to animate, has a staircase right at the entrance. Has a good yuri manga section (can't remember what floor, 2 or 3 I think?) with a namori plush tagged "なもり神" (pun on namori+deity sounding like "protective deity") watching over the shelves. Nice to have stuff pretty much all in one place. All-ages original yuri doujinshi section is often on the first 18+ floor for some reason, but it moves sometimes. Posters with a floor guide are usually somewhere near the stairs, in case you don't want to browse every floor. Tora B can be worth a quick look -- they have a tiiiny little yuri manga section toward the back stairwell on one of the floors (I can't remember which, I think it's above 4F though?) next to the bara but sometimes it has things that aren't in other stores. Tora's special extras can be pretty great.