Nowhere else stacks record shops the way Tokyo does. Shinjuku alone runs a vertical corridor of Disk Union floors — jazz, rock, punk, hip-hop, Latin, prog, each in its own building — and the neighbourhood is the single densest square kilometre of vinyl retail on the planet. Shibuya adds Face Records, Coconuts Disk, HMV Record Shop and the Manhattan Records basement; Shimokitazawa runs a full weekend of specialist shops on foot.

Beyond the majors, the real depth is in the little rooms — Waltz in Nakameguro, Ella Records in Meguro, Los Apson? in Naka-Meguro, Big Love in Harajuku, Technique in Shibuya. Then there is the listening-bar tradition — Bar Bonobo, JBS in Shibuya, Bar Martha — which is not a trend here but a fifty-year continuum. The Japanese pressing quality was always market-leading; the audiophile obsession is the culture, not a subculture.