Tokyo Character Street vs. Sunshine City: Which One Should You Visit?

If you like Japanese characters, both Tokyo Character Street and Sunshine City are tempting places to add to a Tokyo itinerary.

We visited both during our trip, and if you’re trying to decide between them, your choice may depend less on the characters you like and more on what else you want to do that day.

Tokyo Character Street

Tokyo Character Street is part of Tokyo Station First Avenue, directly connected to Tokyo Station. The shops feature many different characters and franchises, including Pokémon, Rilakkuma, Miffy, Crayon Shin-chan and Ultraman. There are also temporary shops, so what you find can change.

By the time we reached Character Street, we didn’t have much time left. I made sure to visit the Sumikko Gurashi shop, but we couldn’t properly browse the whole area.

If character shopping is important to you, I would allow more time than we did. Tokyo Station is enormous, with much more to see than we expected, and Character Street is not something I would leave until the very end of your visit.

Sunshine City

Sunshine City in Ikebukuro is a large shopping and entertainment complex.

One of our shopping stops was Kiddy Land, which includes Kiddy Land, Snoopy Town Shop and Rilakkuma Store in the same area. Instead of focusing on only one character, Kiddy Land carries merchandise from a variety of characters, which makes it fun to browse even when you aren’t looking for anything specific.

There are other character shops throughout Sunshine City as well.

We also visited Sunshine Aquarium and Chiikawa Park, and there are plenty of regular stores and restaurants.

That can be useful if the people travelling together don’t all have the same interests. Someone can be excited about character merchandise while someone else may be more interested in the aquarium or the rest of the mall.

Chiikawa Park

For Chiikawa fans, Sunshine City has one very big advantage.

Chiikawa Park is a permanent indoor attraction in the Sunshine City Annex. It opened in July 2025 and includes exhibits based on the world of Chiikawa, games and exclusive merchandise.

We visited during our trip, and it was one of the reasons we went to Sunshine City in the first place.

You do need to plan ahead. Chiikawa Park uses advance ticketing, so this isn’t something I would assume you can simply add to your day once you arrive.

So Which One Should You Visit?

I would base the decision on the rest of your Tokyo plans.

Tokyo Character Street works particularly well if Tokyo Station is already on your itinerary.

Sunshine City is better suited to a longer visit, especially if Chiikawa Park or Sunshine Aquarium is also on your list.

There’s also no reason you have to choose if your itinerary allows both.

I would happily return to both. We barely scratched the surface of Character Street, and there would still be plenty for us to see at Sunshine City on another visit.

They may both be places for character fans, but our visits to them didn’t feel like two versions of the same experience.