Retro Showa
Showa-era alleys, kissaten, bathhouses and nostalgia shops.
Akihabara
5 placesAkihabara Gachapon Kaikan
秋葉原ガチャポン会館Around 500 capsule-toy machines line the walls of this narrow shop, from floor to the ceiling, dispensing miniature sush…
Akihabara Electric Town
秋葉原電気街Akihabara started as a postwar black market for radio parts and grew, floor by floor, into the capital of Japanese pop c…
Mandarake Complex
まんだらけコンプレックスEight black floors of second-hand manga, toys, animation cels, retro consoles and doujinshi, run by the chain that inven…
Akihabara Radio Kaikan
秋葉原ラジオ会館The Radio Kaikan opened in 1950 as a market for radio tubes and parts, and gave Akihabara its reputation for electronics…
Super Potato
スーパーポテトThree cramped floors above a side street hold the most famous retro game shop in Japan. Famicom and Super Famicom cartri…
Ueno
1 placesNakano
4 placesArai Yakushi Baishoin
新井薬師 梅照院Arai Yakushi is a Shingon Buddhist temple founded in 1586, dedicated to the Healing Buddha and known for curing eye dise…
Mandarake Nakano
まんだらけ中野店Mandarake is Japan's largest dealer in secondhand manga and anime goods, and its original Nakano store is not one shop b…
Nakano Broadway
中野ブロードウェイNakano Broadway is a 1966 shopping complex with apartments on top that became, almost by accident, the world's largest c…
Nakano Sun Mall
中野サンモールSun Mall is the 225-meter covered arcade that links Nakano Station's north exit to Nakano Broadway, under a glass roof a…
Asakusa
3 placesAsakusa Hanayashiki
浅草花やしきJapan's oldest amusement park opened in 1853 as a flower garden and still squeezes a Ferris wheel, a haunted house and t…
Hoppy Street
ホッピー通りA hundred-metre lane west of Senso-ji where open-fronted izakaya spill plastic chairs onto the pavement from lunchtime o…
Kappabashi Kitchen Town
かっぱ橋道具街Eight hundred metres of shops selling everything a restaurant needs, from lacquered bowls and bamboo steamers to neon si…
Harajuku
2 placesCat Street
キャットストリートCat Street is a winding pedestrian lane built over a culverted river, running from the middle of Omotesando south to Miy…
Yoyogi Park
代々木公園Yoyogi Park is 54 hectares of lawns, forest and fountains next to Meiji Jingu, on land that was a parade ground, then Am…
Ginza
1 placesShinjuku
3 placesGolden Gai
ゴールデン街Golden Gai is six narrow alleys holding around 280 bars, each a single room with a counter and a ladder to a sleeping lo…
Kabukicho
歌舞伎町Kabukicho is the largest entertainment district in Japan, a grid of about 3,000 bars, host and hostess clubs, love hotel…
Omoide Yokocho
思い出横丁Omoide Yokocho, "Memory Lane", is two alleys of some sixty yakitori stands wedged between the west exit of Shinjuku Stat…
Shibuya
2 placesHachiko Statue
ハチ公像The bronze Akita in front of Shibuya Station's main exit commemorates Hachiko, the dog who met his owner, a university p…
Nonbei Yokocho
のんべい横丁Nonbei Yokocho, "Drunkard's Alley", is a 1950s row of around forty two-storey bars pressed against the Yamanote tracks a…
Kichijoji
3 placesHarmonica Yokocho
ハモニカ横丁Harmonica Yokocho is a block of alleys a meter wide on the north side of Kichijoji Station, named by a writer who though…
Inokashira Park
井の頭恩賜公園Inokashira Park is a 38-hectare park around a spring-fed pond that supplied Edo with drinking water, opened in 1917 as J…
Satou Menchi-katsu
吉祥寺さとうSatou is a butcher's shop on the edge of Harmonica Yokocho whose minced-beef cutlet, a menchi-katsu made with Matsuzaka…
Shimokitazawa
2 placesHonda Gekijo
本多劇場Honda Gekijo is the 386-seat theater that made Shimokitazawa Japan's small-theater capital. The actor Honda Kazuo opened…
Shimokitazawa Vintage Shops
下北沢の古着屋Shimokitazawa has more secondhand clothing stores per square meter than anywhere in Japan, somewhere above a hundred wit…
Koenji
2 placesKoenji Hikawa Shrine
高円寺氷川神社Koenji Hikawa Shrine is a small neighborhood shrine behind the station's south exit, founded in the Edo period, and it c…
Koenji Vintage Shops
高円寺の古着屋Koenji is where Tokyo's vintage clothing trade keeps its stock. Around seventy secondhand stores line the PAL arcade and…
Yanaka
3 placesSCAI The Bathhouse
スカイザバスハウスA 200-year-old public bathhouse named Kashiwayu, turned in 1993 into one of Tokyo's most respected contemporary art gall…
Yanaka Cemetery
谷中霊園Ten hectares of graves, cherry trees and cats on a ridge between Nippori Station and the temples of Yanaka, laid out in…
Yanaka Ginza
谷中銀座A 170-metre shopping street of sixty small shops that has barely changed since the 1950s, at the heart of a neighbourhoo…
Marunouchi
1 placesRoppongi
1 placesTsukiji & Toyosu
1 placesRelated
Record shops, jazz kissa and live houses in Tokyo
Shibuya's Udagawacho record street, Disk Union's genre shops, listening cafés where silence is the rule, and the live houses of Shimokitazawa and Koenji.
Vintage and streetwear in Tokyo: four districts, one map
Where to buy vintage, archive and Japanese streetwear in Harajuku, Koenji, Shimokitazawa and Daikanyama, with sizing notes and tax-free rules.
Shitamachi: Tokyo's old town in Asakusa, Yanaka and Ueno
Morning walks through Tokyo's low city: Senso-ji before the crowds, Yanaka's temples and sento, Ueno's museums, kissaten and the craft shops of Sumida.