All photos taken by Daryl Harding Are you headed to Japan soon? Planning a holiday? Maybe a huge shopping trip for Japan-exclusive merch? We’ve traveled around Tokyo to find out the best place to buy your anime goods in the world’s biggest city! But first things first. Anime fans around the world know the name of one area in Tokyo that is known as the anime oasis, the holy land of otaku, the area where the nerdy stuff is behind every nook and cranny: Akihabara. This episode aired 15 years ago. But the sad truth is that a decade ago, Akihabara was the best place in Tokyo for anime, cosplay gear and retro games. Now, Akiba is a tourist trap with overpriced second-hand items that lack the personality of the anime characters the stores are trying to sell. This steady decline started as the pandemic hit and just never recovered. Gone are the days when Kirino would scream, “AKIHABARA~.” As someone who has lived in Tokyo for the better part of the decade, I’ve discovered some of the best locations to look for merch in 2025. So here's just a taste of my favorite place to pick up anime goods. Featured areas in this article include: Ikebukuro Nakano Broadway Shibuya Tokyo Station Character Street Book Off The Sunshine Area of Ikebukuro On the other side of Tokyo from Akihabara is Ikebukuro , the new heart of the modern anime scene in Tokyo. As seen in My Dress-Up Darling , the area is best known for its cosplay, where you can pick up new or used pieces to complete any type of outfit. That is still the case, with the ACOSTA event still held in the area at regular intervals. When these occur, the whole Sunshine area is lit up with cosplayers having a great time. Seriously, it's so fun seeing the most detailed cosplayer watching the penguins at Sunshine Aquarium. Sunshine City is one of the most enjoyable malls to shop in. Not only does it hold the biggest Pokémon Center in Japan, but there’s also the One Piece Mugiwara Store, Bandai’s massive facility with gachapon machines, card game spaces, an exhibition space and more. There is also a Toys ‘R’ Us with merch and cards, and of course, a Studio Ghibli Donguri store. There’s also a stage in the middle of the mall that holds regular concerts and music events — the fountain show even has music composed by Hiroyuki Sawano! Anime exhibitions are regularly held at the back of the mall, with many that I have covered for Crunchyroll News. Anime collaborations can be found throughout, including at the Sunshine Aquarium and the Observation Deck. And that’s only one location in Ikebukuro. One of the biggest reasons why Ikebukuro has kept its anime culture is Animate. The chain of anime stores has its head office just off Sunshine Street, and over the past few years, they have worked with the local government to spruce up the whole area, including their main location, which is the biggest anime store in the world. Animate helped fix up the park in front of the store and continually holds events in the area. Not including ACOSTA ( which is part of the Animate group ), the company also runs the annual Animate Girls Festival, which celebrates what women anime fans enjoy. Fan groups also hold events in this area to trade items and meet other fans of their favorite works. Ikebukuro is historically the female version of Akihabara, though these days the area caters to everyone. That being said, Otome Road, which is where Ikebukuro got its female-fan lineage, still exists and is thriving. The Mandarake there focuses on Boy’s Love comics, Animate on Otome Road caters to more women-oriented works and has their cosplay store, as well as many other cosplay stores and second-hand goods on show, full of bishonen boys and IDOLiSH 7 stars. And still, Ikebukuro is littered with other anime-related options. The Parco on top of Ikebukuro Station has regular exhibitions as well as a few anime shops, including an Evangelion store. Kyoto Animation has a shop location just off the main street in collaboration with Sofmap, which also holds other niche game stuff. There’s a Don Quiotxe store on each side of the station (though Nishi-Ikebukuro’s store is much larger!) that has anime goods and all the different flavors of Kit-Kats that you'd ever need. And you can't walk through the area without tripping over arcades with crane games, gachapon machines and so much more. You could easily spend days just hanging around Ikebukuro and still not see everything. Nakano Broadway's Retro Mall Another area that regularly gets mentioned for anime goods is Nakano Broadway. The mall was once the center of subculture in Tokyo, full of fashion and youth. This was before the days of Shibuya and Shinjuku. When this change occurred, Nakano Broadway largely became the center for second-hand anime goods, thanks in part to Mandarake and its proximity to where most anime is made. Since then, Nakano Broadway has stayed the same. Walking the halls makes me feel like I’m walking through the Showa era. Mandarake is one of the biggest reasons to head to Nakano Broadway, with the second-hand store sprawled throughout the mall with massive shops catering to manga, figures, production books, toys, basically anything pop-culture related from any part of Japanese pop-culture history. You’ll be able to find copies of Weekly Shonen Jump from the 1980s and even telephone cards featuring the original Sailor Moon . Mandarake locations can be found across Tokyo, but the Nakano branch is the biggest, with 27 storefronts in the complex. It is also the franchise’s oldest as it was the company's first location and still holds its corporate offices. Outside of Mandarake, the second biggest reason to go to Nakano Broadway is the reselling of anime production materials. Thanks to its proximity to anime production houses in western Tokyo, animators went shopping here when in the heyday of the 1970s and 80s. Thus, they started catering to them both as fans and professionals. I found many stores selling original key animation from Mobile Suit Gundam , as well as more modern series such as Cardcaptor Sakura and Pokémon . There is even a store dedicated to more adult production art — someone must have dumped all the material from High School DxD recently because it was everywhere. Original animation cels are also for sale, though the prices have massively increased since I first went to Nakano Broadway in 2017. Some of the coolest on display were Goku powering up into Super Saiyan for the first time on Namek, Totoro holding Mei on his belly and the original Sailor Moon magical girl transformation. Anime history is on full display here, and you'll be able to purchase most of it. Though a lot of the shops are closed down and boarded up, you can feel the history in the halls of Nakano Broadway, which makes it a must-see stop even if you don’t pick up anything yourself. Fashion Forward Shibuya is Also for Anime Fans Speaking about Shibuya taking subcultures away from other areas, the popular district is actually a pretty decent place to pick up goods from anime and games. And you get to bypass the touristy areas to get there! Tucked behind the famous Shibuya Crossing and towering over the rest of the buildings is Shibuya Parco, one of the newest buildings on the Tokyo skyline. The main reason to go inside the Parco — other than the air conditioning during summer! — is on the sixth floor. This is where you’ll find the Nintendo Store, Pokémon Center Shibuya with exclusive items, a Shonen Jump store with JUJUTSU KAISEN art on display and many other shops. In the next few months, a JOJO WORLD area will open alongside an official SEGA store. It’ll be a trip seeing a Nintendo and SEGA store right next to each other competing for customers. Like the Parco in Ikebukuro, this mall also regularly has anime-related exhibitions, though they are usually more concept-based than the typical showcasings. It also has the high-class Evangelion designer brand store, Radio Eva. Everything is a little fancier in Shibuya. A few streets over from Parco is Shibuya’s Lashinbang second-hand store full of anime goods. There’s a Lashinbang in both Akihabara and Ikebukuro, but the Shibuya store has the same products for a much cheaper price. I was even surprised by some of the deals on display here. The Shibuya Mandarake and Animate are also on the next street over, covering all your bases with maid cafes and arcades for fun, as well. Traveling Through Tokyo Station Character Street Hidden in the depths of Tokyo Station is Character Street, an underground mall full of shops featuring (as the name implies) most of Japan's biggest characters. This includes the likes of Sanrio, Ultraman , Kamen Rider and more. Down here, you'll find a Shonen Jump store, a One Piece Mugiwara store and one of the most interesting Pokémon stores in Tokyo. It's not a Pokémon Center like most branded Pokémon shops are, but a “Pokémon Store,” though it does have exclusive train-based merch. What's fun about Tokyo Station Character Street is the TV station-based shops. This includes Fuji TV, which has a range of items from series that air on that station, like Demon Slayer: Kimitsu no Yaiba , or Nippon TV which airs The Apothecary Diaries . These stops are great for finding things that might not be found at some of the more specialized locations. It's a great little shopping street to pass the time while waiting for a Shinkansen or passing through after lunch in Nihonbashi. Most Japanese people use Tokyo Station to pick up gifts, known as omiyage , for their friends and co-workers, so Tokyo Station Character Street can be that place for you if your friends are nerdy like mine. Book Off? Book On! You'll regularly come across Book Offs across Japan, which is the biggest chain of second-hand bookstores in the country. You'll find a few in all the major centers in Tokyo, as well as in most major cities. While we all love books, Book Off doesn't just sell the paper medium; it also sells anime goods, Blu-rays, video games, figures, trading cards and even clothes in some locations! Every time I walk into a Book Off, I find something interesting. I regularly come across rare anime games from the 2000s sitting on their shelves in pristine condition, as well as physical media relics like 8-cm CDs and VHS tapes. They usually have complete manga series for as little as 100 yen per volume, making for a very cheap but very heavy souvenir. The smaller shops inside metropolitan Tokyo have samples of what Book Off can offer. Their Super Bazaar stores have literally everything you can think of, including snowboards, microwaves and kimono. This is great for travelers as they can also buy back their items. Book Off Super Bazaar can only be found on the outskirts of metro Tokyo, with stores in Tachikawa, Funabashi, Omiya and Kawasaki, just to name just a few. My personal recommendations are the Omiya and Tachikawa stores, as both of these locations seem to have the most interesting items. Outside of the crowded experience of Akihabara, there are a ton of places around Tokyo that scratch that anime shopping itch. Even this list, while covering most bases, is only the tip of the iceberg in Tokyo. Good luck and happy shopping!
