I've only been there maybe 7 times in the 5 years I've been in Korea- today I went back to find cheap anime and cheap robot themed games.... I now remember why I have only been there a few times- ITS JUST WAYYY TOOO MUCH and it's the sort of place that brings on a migraine headache because there's too much to see.

If you don't believe me type in "Yongsan Electronics Market" in a search engine and see for yourself. I'm not kidding or exaggerating- there'd be over 6,000 stores selling electronic stuff in the "city within a city" and it's impossible to really navigate thru it all without going bonkers.

I got lost in the Light Emitting Diode section only to then get lost in the fibre optic cable section followed by the transistor section etc etc. There's a method to the madness of hunting/shopping here... don't stay more than 2 hours or you'll vomit from electro-culture shock

In between "doume" (pronounced "do-me" - I kid you not) girls with short skirts screaming non stop into p.a. systems about "Cokeplay", HP, LG flash memory chips or some new computer game etc, one is occasionally able to concentrate on the subject at hand without being distracted....

My task was to locate robot-themed anime dvds and PC games ONLY. I could have taken myriad pix of Playstation, Game Cube and X-box robo games but, I was feeling ill when I stumbled into X-box alley only to be screamed at with ''You wan X-box mod chip?" by hoards of counter sales girls with "me so horny" accents, and so I quickly veered away from a place that could probably induce an epileptic fit in the healthiest of people.

This is a set of 4 Astroboy video cds - look closely though and you'll see its that 1970's copy of Astro called `Mars' or `Marles' in Korea. I don't know much about this guy other than he is obviously unappreciated and is deliberately drawn on cd movie covers to resemble Astro. These were 12,000kw ($10 USD) for the whole set of 4.

Also, check out these 8,000KW ($7 USD) Korean 1970 animation dvds. 3 different movies with some retro looking figures...don't know anything about them other than the price.

Atom game + game rack. The Atom game was 6,000kw ($5 USD) and the game rack here says 3 games for 10,000kw ($8.50).

Street cart selling anime only...look at the size of the catalogue and each page had 5-7 titles. Everything from Getter to Mazinger titles and all at 14,000-17,000kw ($12-15 USD) each. There are a lot carts on the street selling anime in the area...too many in fact.

<p<The other games displayed were from 4,000kw -7,000kw ($3.50 - $6 USD). Unfortunately I didn't see any Mazinger games this time but did see a Capcom look alike game and the usual Pepsiman, DragonballZ etc.. games. Saw a bad Gatchaman bootleg cd but didn't take a pic of it because it was dirty. The other dvds are are 9,000-13,000kw ($8-11 USD).

Now, let me just say that there's no guarantees in Korea with regards to intellectual property / legitimate product when it comes to anything on disc. Try as they might, the Korean Government. and the Chinese Government can't control copying because it's way too prevalent.

This is a place where you can buy blank cds for 5 cents and a nice case for 10 cents, then go to a shop with a color photo copier and copy anything whilst paying someone 80 cents to burn a disc.... you could walk out with every Gundam episode ever made in perfect cases with excellent color inserts and the only thing missing would be the holograph tag (which can be obtained elsewhere anyway).

Don't get me wrong , I'm not advocating or soliciting anything... I'm just saying there are no guarantees of anything being legitimate anymore.