Nakano 中野

Nakano Broadway is a 1966 shopping-and-apartment complex that was already fading when the manga dealer Mandarake opened a single shop on the second floor in 1980. Four decades later Mandarake occupies some thirty units across the building, each one specialized: vintage robots on one floor, animation cels on another, doujinshi, idol photos, Showa-era tin toys and sealed trading cards elsewhere. Around them, independent dealers sell mechanical watches, vinyl, military surplus and figures from the 1970s, and the basement grocers and the eight-flavor soft-serve counter at Daily Chiko serve the apartment residents who still live upstairs.

The approach is half the pleasure. Sun Mall, the covered arcade from the station’s north exit, is 225 meters of drugstores, ramen counters and cheap izakaya, and the alleys that branch off it hold Nakano’s real nightlife: standing bars and yakitori counters full of Chuo line commuters who never bothered to go all the way to Shinjuku. Nakano is Akihabara for people who prefer quiet, dust and a serious price tag on the right 1983 die-cast toy.