> From: "Gregory Himes" <gdhimes@yahoo.com>
> Just wondering, how difficult would it be to find out 
> if these shops had English speaking staff, 

Almost all do not have English speaking staff.  The target
customers of those shops are domestic Japanese.  Please do
not expect any English speaking staff.

> an English version of a web site, 

Almost all do not have English web site.  Exceptions
are : Mandarake, Kinokuniya. 

> and whether or not they would consider shipping material 
> offshore?

Almost all do not ship internationally.  The target
customers of those shops are domestic Japanese.  

A few online stores not in the list will ship 
internationally.  E.g. Amazon Japan, Hobby Link Japan, 
S-Book, IPS Nippan, FromJP, AMO-Tokyo, Fujisan, Kodansha
Book Club, etc.

> Or is that just too much?

Not too much.  

--
'CuSO4' Yung
cuso4@cuso4.com, cuso4@cuso4.jp, cuso4@manbow.com, cuso4@computer.org