BOOKOff Gardena — Attraction in Gardena

As someone who has been all 11 BOOK-OFF locations in California, this is the one I like the least. Which is unfortunate as I was born and raised in the city of Gardena. My biggest issue is that price drops/reductions almost never happen. There have been items here from late 2023 that have still never been price dropped despite obviously never being wanted. An issue as well is the starting price of some items, this is a problem with other BOOK-OFF locations however it is worst for this location because of the lack of price drops that keep the high starting price for a long time. The selection of items is great but because of the lack of price drops I insist of coming here every 3 months despite me visiting this area at least 2 times a month. A plus I can give this BOOK-OFF is that this is the most "Japanese-like" BOOK-OFF location out of all the locations, yes even more so than BOOK-OFF Little Tokyo. Gardena is a Japanese city after all. This location is also very clean, organized, and has friendly staff. If you frequent this location but agree that the prices never change I would recommend going to the Del Amo, Garden Grove, or Little Tokyo locations. As they are the most consistent with price dropping items that do not sell. Overall this location could be one of the best locations but the price is major part of what makes used book stores unique from other stores and Gardena BOOK-OFF does not succeed in having the benefits of used book-store prices. By the way the parking is good/easy unlike Irvine or Riverside BOOK-OFF. Much love to the city...

For my next review, I've decided to explore one of my (former) favorite used bookstore franchises: BookOff. After recently having gone to visit their newly-opened Monterrey Park location (and having been to their Costa Mesa and Garden Grove locations), I decided to go check out one of the few ones that still buys and sells used manga in Japanese. The store is big and neat, the employees are as helpful as can be, considering the circumstances (one of them helped me check for 4 different titles, to see if they had them in their used manga section), and everything went well. Parking is terrible, since the Plaza (Pacific Square) is so unkempt, and the parking is so chaotic, that it detracts from the experience. But BookOff is not at fault for that. It is also a bit of a drive for me, and the only other BookOff that still does sell manga in the Japanese language is the San Diego location. I don't know what kind of circumstances caused them to make this shift in policy, but it's their call. Ultimately, I ended up buying a Game Boy Color game at a competitive price (and yes, the battery works perfectly), and a used copy of the first volume of a manga series in Japanese that seemed almost like new. All in all, a great location marred by poor parking and a crowded Plaza with lots of potholes in its parking lot, but still...

Gardena Book off has alot of selections but sadly to say, this book off sells majority of their items are in japanese. 85% of the space are in japanese and the rest are in english. If you're not fluent or literate in japanese don't expect alot from this place. This bookoff cater to mostly people who CAN read japanese. So don't waste your time driving here to end up in disappoinment. The staff here are polite and helpful. But the stores isn't worth the long trip if you're expecting anime/manga in english.

Books selection 90% in japanese

Magazines selection: 95% in japanese (have great Gravure/JAV magazine though lol)

Manga: 90% in japanese (They do sell bulk mangas.)

BluerRay/DVD: 80% in English

Anime Figures: ALOT! And some in original boxes too. (It's More Compare to other stores like in Costa Mesa and westminster mall.)

Video Games: 50% English & 50% Japanese *Very small selection of console since they have a thin small display case not alot of consoles they are selling.

Staff associates: polite/helpful (They help some customers find certain dvd in the area when request. Greets you when you come and go.)

Environment:Clean. No books or magazines laying on the ground. Every games and toys are all...