Anime & Manga Shopping in Japan: Where We Actually Shopped

If you like anime and manga, shopping in Japan can be a little overwhelming. There are famous stores everywhere, entire neighborhoods known for anime merchandise, and so many secondhand shops that you could easily spend days looking through them.

During our three weeks in Japan, we visited three of the best-known areas for anime and manga shopping: Den Den Town in Osaka, Akihabara in Tokyo, and Nakano Broadway, also in Tokyo.

We weren’t looking for rare collector pieces or anything particularly expensive. Kid 2 was mostly interested in manga and Chiikawa merchandise, while I was always happy to find Sumikko Gurashi.

The three areas turned out to be quite different.

Den Den Town in Osaka

Den Den Town was our first dedicated anime and manga shopping area of the trip.

It is sometimes compared to Akihabara, and there are plenty of anime shops, manga, figures, collectibles, electronics, gashapon machines and arcades in the area.

What stood out most to us, though, was the gashapon.

There were so many machines that we ended up spending more time looking at gashapon than anything else. I was particularly interested in finding Sumikko Gurashi ones.

We also tried some claw machines, but those were much less successful.

One thing we learned quickly was that simply seeing hundreds of machines doesn’t mean you’ll want what is inside them. Most of the gashapon we bought during the trip cost around 200–300 yen, and once a machine reached 400 yen, we generally wanted to like most of the possible prizes before trying it.

Den Den Town was fun to explore, but for us it ended up being more memorable for gashapon than for manga shopping.

Akihabara in Tokyo

Akihabara was probably the place that most closely matched the image we had of a huge anime-shopping district.

There are stores everywhere, and it can be difficult to know where to start.

We visited several shops, including Animate, K-Books, BookOff and Mandarake.

Animate wasn’t particularly successful for us. It is one of the big names you constantly see recommended for anime and manga shopping in Japan, but we simply didn’t find much of what we were looking for.

We had more fun in some of the other shops, especially the ones selling secondhand merchandise.

Kid 2 found some secondhand Chiikawa merchandise in Akihabara, as well as a bundle of manga she wanted. Finding several volumes together secondhand was exactly the kind of thing that made browsing these stores worthwhile for us.

Don’t Ignore BookOff

BookOff is worth mentioning separately because it isn’t limited to Akihabara.

It sells secondhand books and manga, and depending on the location, you can also find games, figures, character goods and other items.

If you already know which manga series you want, it is worth checking BookOff before buying everything new. The selection depends on what is available at that particular location, so there is no guarantee that you will find a specific volume.

It is definitely somewhere we would check again on another trip.

Nakano Broadway

Nakano Broadway was probably the most interesting of the three areas from a treasure-hunting perspective.

Unlike Akihabara, where you are walking around a whole neighborhood from store to store, many of the shops at Nakano Broadway are concentrated inside the same building.

There are lots of small shops selling manga, figures, toys, collectibles and secondhand merchandise. Mandarake also has multiple specialized shops throughout the building rather than feeling like one single store.

We wandered around several shops before eventually walking into a bookstore, where we found stationery and a Sumikko Gurashi origami book.

There were plenty of other things to look at as well, including older collectibles and merchandise that we hadn’t necessarily seen elsewhere.

Nakano Broadway felt less like visiting a few specific stores and more like wandering around to see what we would come across.

For us, that was a good thing.

New vs. Secondhand Anime Shopping

One thing that surprised us was how often we preferred browsing secondhand shops.

There is nothing wrong with Animate or similar stores. If they carry the series or characters you love, having so much new merchandise together in one place can be fantastic.

But secondhand stores can have older merchandise, manga bundles and items that are no longer available in regular stores. Of course, the trade-off is that you can’t count on finding something specific.

For us, the hunt was part of the experience.

Den Den Town, Akihabara or Nakano Broadway?

If you’re visiting both cities anyway, I wouldn’t say that one of these places makes the others unnecessary.

Den Den Town was especially fun for gashapon during our visit. Akihabara gave us the experience of walking through an entire area filled with anime and manga stores. Nakano Broadway put lots of smaller specialty shops together in one building.

Rather than arriving with a long list of exact items I expected to find, I would leave enough time to look around.

Shop for What You Actually Like

Japan has so many anime and manga stores that it is easy to feel as though you need to visit every famous one.

You don’t.

Some of our favorite purchases came from simply looking through stores and seeing what was there. We came home with manga, Chiikawa merchandise, Sumikko Gurashi finds and other little things that appealed to us.

So if you’re planning your own anime and manga shopping in Japan, I wouldn’t worry about checking every famous store off a list. Pick a few areas that interest you and give yourself time to explore.