Akihabara is the front door, but Tokyo’s anime, game and idol culture spreads across three districts, each with a different crowd and a different price tag. Here is how to work them.
Akihabara: start at the Electric Town exit
Leave JR Akihabara by the Electric Town exit and you are on Chuo-dori with the big shops in sight. Radio Kaikan, the ten-storey building directly across from the exit, is the best first stop: figure shops, trading-card dealers and the Kaiyodo and Kotobukiya outlets stacked floor on floor. Mandarake Complex, a few blocks north, is eight floors of secondhand everything, from vintage manga to animation cels, and it is where you check prices before buying anything new.
For retro games, Super Potato (on a side street west of Chuo-dori, third to fifth floors) stocks boxed Famicom and Super Famicom cartridges with a small arcade on top. Expect collector prices; the sealed-box shelves are for looking. Most shops open at 11:00 and close around 20:00. On Sunday afternoons Chuo-dori becomes a pedestrian street from 13:00, which is the time to be there if you like people-watching and the wrong time if you want to shop in peace.
Nakano Broadway: where the collectors actually go
Ride the Chuo line five minutes west from Shinjuku to Nakano, leave by the north exit, and walk through the Sun Mall arcade to Nakano Broadway. It is an ageing four-storey shopping complex, and floors two to four hold the densest concentration of specialist shops in Japan. Mandarake began here in 1980 and now runs more than twenty themed stores inside the building: one for cels, one for vintage toys, one for shojo manga, one for doujinshi, and so on.
Around them are independent dealers in model kits, Showa-era robots, idol photos and military miniatures. Prices are lower than Akihabara for the same item, and the stock is deeper. Most shops open around noon and close by 20:00; a fair number take Wednesday off. Bring cash for the smaller counters and allow three hours.
Ikebukuro: Otome Road and the women’s side of fandom
From Ikebukuro’s east exit, walk ten minutes toward Sunshine City. The strip of shops along the way is Otome Road, the center of fandom aimed at women: boys’-love manga, otome games, stage-play merchandise and voice-actor goods. Animate’s flagship store is the anchor; K-Books and Lashinbang nearby handle secondhand. Inside Sunshine City, the Bandai Namco gashapon hall holds thousands of capsule machines under one roof.
Ikebukuro also has the better arcades for rhythm games and crane machines, and a quieter, friendlier crowd than Akihabara’s. If you are travelling with someone who thinks Akihabara is “too much”, this is the district to bring them to.
Gachapon, figures and getting things home
Capsule machines take ¥100 coins only, typically three to five per turn (¥300–500); change machines sit at the end of each row. Figures run from around ¥2,000 for a prize figure to ¥15,000–30,000 for a scale figure, and the secondhand “junk” bins are where bargains hide. Tax-free purchasing applies above ¥5,000 in a single shop; carry your passport. Larger shops will box figures for the flight. Pre-owned shops grade condition carefully: A is like new, B shows wear, and an opened box is clearly marked.
Maid cafés without embarrassment
The cafés along Chuo-dori and its side streets follow the same rules. There is a seating charge, around ¥500–1,000 per person for an hour, and you must order at least one item. Food is simple and overpriced; you are paying for the performance. No photographs of the maids unless you buy a cheki (an instant photo, around ¥500–1,000), which they will sign. No touching, no asking for contact details, no lingering past your time. Say “moe moe kyun” with a straight face when asked. It is theatre, and the maids are professionals working a shift; treat it that way and everyone has a good time.
Idol shows: how to see one
AKB48’s own theatre is on the eighth floor of the Don Quijote on Chuo-dori; tickets go by lottery, so apply online well ahead. Easier are the underground idol shows in small live houses around Akihabara, with entry around ¥1,500–3,000 plus a drink. The real currency is the post-show chekikai: buy a ticket, get a photo with your chosen member and a few seconds of conversation. Learn the wotagei chants by watching the front row, and stand at the back until you do.