Anime and Manga in Japan

Akihabara, one stop north of Tokyo Station on the Yamanote line, grew from a postwar radio market into the world’s best-known otaku district. The main street, Chuo-dori, is lined with multi-storey shops and turns into a pedestrian zone on Sunday afternoons. Start at the Electric Town exit with Radio Kaikan, ten floors of figure, model and trading-card shops, then work the back streets west of Chuo-dori for Mandarake Complex (eight floors of second-hand manga, doujinshi and figures), Surugaya, Animate Akihabara, Kotobukiya and the retro game shop Super Potato.

GiGO and Taito Station arcades fill whole buildings with crane games, rhythm games and purikura photo booths, at 100 to 200 yen a play. The Gachapon Kaikan and the capsule-toy halls around the station hold hundreds of machines at 300 to 500 yen a turn. Most shops open at 10 or 11am and close at 8 or 9pm, so Akihabara is a day district: come late morning and stay until the arcades get busy after work.

Maid cafes are the other Akihabara institution. Expect a cover charge of around 700 to 1,000 yen an hour on top of drinks and food at 600 to 1,500 yen, with photos with a maid sold as extras. Choose a cafe with a shopfront or a listed website, and ignore the women handing out flyers on the street, some of whom recruit for overpriced or adult bars.

Nakano Broadway, a 1960s shopping arcade five minutes from Nakano Station (one stop from Shinjuku on the JR Chuo line rapid service), is where serious collectors go. Its second to fourth floors hold more than two dozen small Mandarake shops, each with a speciality from cel art to vintage tin toys, plus independent figure, idol and watch dealers. Prices for rare items are high, but the stock of 1970s to 1990s goods is unmatched. Shops open around noon, so do not come early.

Ikebukuro is Tokyo’s second anime hub. Animate Ikebukuro, the chain’s flagship, fills a building with manga, light novels, character goods and event spaces. Otome Road, on the east side towards Sunshine City, is lined with shops aimed at women fans, selling boys’ love manga, voice-actor goods and second-hand character merchandise. Sunshine City itself holds the Pokemon Center Mega Tokyo and Namja Town, an indoor theme park that runs anime collaborations. Ikebukuro also hosts a large Halloween cosplay festival each October.

The Ghibli Museum in Mitaka, western Tokyo, was designed by Hayao Miyazaki: a winding building of spiral stairs, a rooftop robot from Castle in the Sky, a cat bus children can climb into, and a small cinema showing a short film made only for the museum. Entry is 1,000 yen (about $7) for adults, and every ticket is for a fixed date and entry time. Tickets go on sale on the 10th of each month for the following month through Lawson Ticket, which has an English site for overseas buyers, and the popular dates and weekends go within hours. It is closed on Tuesdays, and photos are not allowed inside. Walk 15 minutes from Mitaka Station or through Inokashira Park from Kichijoji, or take the yellow community bus from Mitaka.

Ghibli Park, opened in 2022 inside the Expo 2005 park in Nagakute, east of Nagoya, recreates the films at full size across five areas: Ghibli’s Grand Warehouse with its exhibitions and Spirited Away scenes, Hill of Youth, Dondoko Forest with Satsuki and Mei’s House from My Neighbor Totoro, Mononoke Village and the Valley of Witches. The O-sanpo Day Pass bought from overseas costs 3,300 yen on weekdays and 3,800 yen at weekends (about $22 to $25); the Premium pass adds entry to the Grand Warehouse and the building interiors at about double that. Sales open on the 10th of the month, two months ahead. From Nagoya Station, take the Higashiyama subway line to Fujigaoka and the Linimo maglev to Ai-Chikyuhaku-Kinen-Koen, about 50 minutes in all.

Western Tokyo is where most anime studios work, and several run museums. Toei Animation, the studio behind Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon and One Piece, is in Oizumi-gakuen in Nerima ward, where the station and streets have statues of characters from classic Toei series and the studio has a free gallery; check its opening days before you go. The Suginami Animation Museum near Ogikubo Station covers the history and craft of Japanese animation, with hands-on stations where you can try dubbing and drawing, and is free. Kamiigusa Station, near the Sunrise studio that made Mobile Suit Gundam, has a Gundam monument on its forecourt.

The Fujiko F. Fujio Museum in Kawasaki, dedicated to the creator of Doraemon, works like the Ghibli Museum: dated tickets only, sold in advance through Lawson, with a shuttle bus from Noborito Station. The Osamu Tezuka Manga Museum in Takarazuka, between Osaka and Kobe, honours the creator of Astro Boy and is an easy half day from Osaka.

In Kyoto, the Kyoto International Manga Museum occupies a former primary school and holds about 300,000 items, with some 50,000 manga on open shelves that you can take out and read on the lawn. It has a section of translated manga and live drawing demonstrations on some days.

The 19.7 m life-size Unicorn Gundam stands outside the DiverCity Tokyo Plaza mall in Odaiba, free to see, with transformations at set times during the day and light-and-video shows in the evening. Inside DiverCity and in Akihabara you can buy Gunpla model kits at the official stores. The moving 18 m Gundam at Yokohama’s Gundam Factory closed in 2024, so Odaiba is now the place to see one.

Pokemon Centers are in every big city, with the largest at Sunshine City in Ikebukuro and Pokemon Center DX next to the Pokemon Cafe in Nihonbashi. Nintendo runs official stores at Shibuya Parco in Shibuya, at Daimaru Umeda in Osaka and at Takashimaya in Kyoto. Super Nintendo World inside Universal Studios Japan in Osaka is the biggest Nintendo experience: entry needs both a park ticket and a timed area entry, which you can guarantee with an Express Pass or try for on the day through the park app.

For Hello Kitty, Sanrio Puroland in Tama, in western Tokyo, is an indoor theme park with shows and rides that works in any weather. The Jump Shop, selling Shonen Jump series goods, has branches in Tokyo and Osaka.

Osaka’s anime district is Den Den Town in Nipponbashi, a 10 to 15 minute walk south of Namba. Its main street, Sakaisuji, has the electronics and game shops, and the parallel back street known as Otaroad has the figure shops, doujinshi stores, Animate, Mandarake, Surugaya and maid cafes. It is smaller than Akihabara and often cheaper for second-hand figures. Each March the Nipponbashi Street Festa fills Sakaisuji with cosplayers. Mandarake also has a large branch in Umeda.

Uji, 20 minutes south of Kyoto by JR or Keihan train, is the home of Kyoto Animation and the setting of Sound! Euphonium, whose fans walk the riverbanks and the Uji Bridge from the series. The studio was attacked in an arson fire in 2019 that killed 36 people. Its buildings are not open to visitors, and fans are asked to visit quietly and not to gather outside the studios. Fans of K-On!, another Kyoto Animation series, visit the old Toyosato Elementary School in Shiga, the model for the show’s school, which is open to the public.

Visiting real places from anime is called seichi junrei, “sacred-site pilgrimage”, and many towns now welcome it with maps and stamp rallies. The most visited:

• Your Name: the red-railed stairs of Suga Shrine in Yotsuya, near Shinjuku, from the final scene, and Hida-Furukawa Station and town near Takayama, the model for the film’s rural Itomori.
• Slam Dunk: the railway crossing at Kamakurakokomae Station on the Enoden line in Kamakura, from the opening credits. It is a busy road beside a school and homes: wait on the pavement, do not stand in the road, and move on after a photo.
• Love Live! Sunshine!!: Numazu in Shizuoka, where the bay-side Uchiura district and the shopping arcade are covered with the characters.
• Detective Conan and GeGeGe no Kitaro: Tottori prefecture has both. Hokuei town has the Gosho Aoyama Manga Factory and Conan statues, the airport in Tottori is named Tottori Sand Dunes Conan Airport, and Mizuki Shigeru Road in Sakaiminato is lined with more than 170 bronze yokai statues, reached on a Kitaro-painted train from Yonago.
• One Piece: bronze statues of the Straw Hat crew stand across Kumamoto prefecture, Eiichiro Oda’s home, placed after the 2016 earthquake to draw visitors back. Luffy is outside the prefectural government office in Kumamoto city; the others are spread across towns, so a car helps.

Anime events in Japan are large, crowded and mostly in Japanese, but welcoming to foreign visitors. Dates move a little each year, so check the official sites before you book.

Comiket draws hundreds of thousands of people over two days and now needs advance entry wristbands bought online; queues start before dawn and summer heat is a real risk, so carry water and a towel. AnimeJapan and Jump Festa sell timed tickets in advance.

Collaboration cafes run limited-time menus tied to a current series, usually with a 90-minute slot, a set-price drink and food at 1,200 to 2,000 yen, and random coasters or badges as a bonus. They are booked online and change every few weeks; Animate and the Ikebukuro and Akihabara malls host many of them. The permanent Pokemon Cafe in Nihonbashi, Tokyo, and in Daimaru Shinsaibashi, Osaka, opens reservations 31 days ahead and fills almost at once. Kirby Cafe, Sanrio cafes and the Ghibli Museum’s Straw Hat Cafe follow the same pattern: book early or queue for walk-ins.

New figures in Japan cost about the same as the retail price abroad but appear sooner; the savings are in second-hand goods, Japan-only releases and prize figures from crane games, which shops resell for 1,000 to 3,000 yen. Manga volumes are around 500 to 700 yen new and from 100 yen at Book-Off. Large scale figures sell for 15,000 to 40,000 yen and up, and vintage cels or signed goods go far higher at Mandarake.

Most chains offer tax-free shopping for visitors who show a passport; the rules and thresholds are on our Japan shopping guide. Carry cash for smaller dealers in Nakano Broadway and Den Den Town, although cards and IC cards are now widely accepted. Pack figures in their boxes in carry-on or wrapped in clothes, since collectors value undamaged boxes.

Many anime shops ban photos inside, and signs in English say so; ask before you take out your phone. At events and on the street, always ask cosplayers before photographing them, and never photograph from low angles. In maid cafes, the house rules usually forbid touching the staff, asking for contact details and taking your own photos. At pilgrimage spots in residential areas, keep your voice down, do not block roads or doorways, and do not trespass onto school grounds or private gardens. General manners on trains and in public are covered in our Japanese culture guide, and our Japan nightlife guide covers karaoke and the late-night side of Akihabara.