Anybody got any recommendations on good places to get prescription eyeglasses? Ideally I need ultra-thin lenses which can often be pretty expensive.
Are you looking for cheap by Japanese standards or western standards? To be honest, I only have New Zealand to compare to, but prescription glasses and lenses in Japan are a fraction of the price that they are in NZ. I would recommend either Bic Camera or Zoff. The examination is free, you pay for the frames and the lenses are free. If you want special lenses it might cost a little more. With regular lenses, you can get brand frames for 6,000 to 10,000yen. From the Zoff website, it says you can select “thin type” (usugata) lenses for an additional 5,000yen. So you can probably get a decent pair for around 12,000yen I’d say.
I checked out Zoff and the prices were pretty good. But frames were not great quality. I ended up going for Jins. Their lens+frames start around 5900yen. The quality is better than Zoff and the big advantage is you can choose any index at no extra cost. For my prescription they could do 1.7 index the same day. Or if I was willing to wait a week they can do 1.74. They included a free eye test with an English speaking optician, and had a test that didn’t need a knowledge of Japanese characters.