Tokyo Shopping Guide: Akihabara
By Marceline | January 3, 2008
As long time Nintendo fans, we were literally aching to go to Akihabara, Tokyo’s electronics/gaming/anime/geek area. Our guide books were utterly useless for this part of our trip only ever mentioning Akihabara for its discount cameras etc. so instead we brought with us some pages torn from an old issue of NGamer magazine which pointed out some of the places worth visiting and off we set.
Akihabara is MENTAL. Even at 2pm on a weekday it was busy busy and full of noise and flashing lights. When it started to get dark and all the neon was turned on it was like being in a movie. Definitely worth a visit just for the atmosphere. The area is a bit of a maze but quite small so you’ll have a hard job getting lost if you wander round the side streets. And that’s the best way really.
Anyway, these were my highlights:
Kotobukiya
our first stop as it is right beside the station exit. The front of the store dragged us in with huge San-X plushies and lots and lots of cute kawaii bits and pieces. There were also cool Nintendo toys and down some stairs at the back they have shelves and shelves of boxed collectibles and, even better, trays of opened ones so you can get the ones you want without buying 20 random boxes! I was delighted to pick up the crazy panda set I was after and a hilarious miniature crocodile bento box set. Each set only costs about £1 or £2 each but they are so addictive! Out the back they have rows and rows of gashapon machines and our special ¥100 coin purses started to empty.
Super Potato
Pretty much heaven for retro gaming fans. It has about 5 floors, each dedicated to a different console/manufacturer. The Nintendo floor is near the top and was crammed with secondhand games for the whole history of Nintendo as well as toys and other merchandise. I was very tempted by the huge squashy Mario & Luigi hats - they were hilarious. We managed to cope with just getting some awesome peg board toys with various Nintendo characters which were reasonably priced at about £5 each. The top floor is the most exciting though, full of arcade machines and vending machines and a great place to stop and rest your poor feet. There was even a huge original Game Boy and a chair made out of game carts. Amazing. It all upstairs so look out for the potato character sign from the street. Japanese website
Aso Bit
There are loads of branches in Akihabara selling everything from kawaii toys and computer games to Pullip/Blythe doll parts and huge Gundam models. Not to mention hundreds of gashapon. We got some great DS accessories, Zelda gashapon figures, more hilarious boxed toys and, yes, a pink cushion of Rilakkuma’s friend dressed as a fuzzy bunny.
Hilarious miniature crocodile bento picnic set
My day’s haul of boxed toys
Super Mario toys from various shops
Adorable Rilakkuma cushion
Super Potato! Old-skool gaming heaven
How to get there
Akihabara is on the JR Yamanote Line and just a few stops away from Tokyo and Ueno stations. Take the Electric Town exit to find all the goodness. There is an excellent interactive Akihabara map on Akihabara Channel - click into your area(s) of interest for a list of shops and information on what they sell in English. They also have a printable version available from the map page.
All other directions are now pointless so just use the map!
(No ‘what else to do’ as it is all in here or the map!)
[gashapon photo by Nicolette]
Topics: Tokyo Shopping Guide |
August 19th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Hi!
I’ve enjoyed your report a lot! I’m travelling to Japan in September and I love dolls and cute toys. I’ve tried the links your mentioned about the map and the Akihabara shopping guide but they don’t work. Can you tell me about any other link of interest?
Thanks a lot!
Yvonne
August 19th, 2008 at 11:52 am
Oh, well spotted. There is a much better map now - I’ll update the post right away!