In the past I bought a lot from HJ, but that was when they rarely had any $300 item on their store. It started out as pretty much a disposale service for then-worthless games but now with the retro boom it's become a real money maker.
His asking prices suck, but I still buy from him. You have to be willing to low ball hard, and I imagine it helps if you're buying several titles at once to make it more worth his while.
Yeah pretty much. Back when no one cared about Japanese games HJ was great. Often they would have the only eBay copies of some random herpaderp Dreamcast game I was buying from them. And they would still take offers then too, I think they were just happy to actually sell this shit. Now of course it's changed, with way more interest so it's not terribly surprising they jacked up their asking prices. It won't be me but hell someone just might pay full price sometimes.
Also I did buy a bit from them on offers I want to say last summer, so it's still doable. Sometimes though I just don't feel like dealing with that dance, when there are quite a few reasonable sellers that start their listings a lot lower (and also have obo on).