Osaka's otaku district is a single walkable strip, so one day genuinely covers it. Open early at Joshin and Surugaya (10:00), hit Mandarake and Volks from 12:00, and finish on Otaroad — all between Ebisucho and Namba.
Start late. Otome Road's secondhand shops open at 12:00, so an 11:00 start at animate and a midday sweep of K-BOOKS, Mandarake LaLaLa and Lashinbang fits a full day into one walkable loop from Ikebukuro's East Exit.
The rule that surprises everyone: you cannot travel to an event in costume. Japanese events run on change-on-site, designated changing rooms only, no toilets, and photography strictly by individual consent.
There is no free walk-in entry any more — Comiket runs on paid wristband admission, and most types must be bought in advance. Queueing overnight is banned, changing in toilets is banned, and arriving in costume is banned.
Gachapon Kaikan in Akihabara is the highest-density stop with around 500 machines. Bring ¥100 coins — most machines take coins only, most don't give change, and you cannot choose which figure you get.
Super Potato, Surugaya, Trader and Mandarake cover the whole retro market between them. Before you spend anything, settle the compatibility question: a Japanese Famicom cartridge will not fit an American NES, and a Super Famicom cartridge will not fit a US SNES.
Outside Comiket, doujinshi is a year-round shop purchase: Melonbooks and Toranoana for new, Mandarake and Lashinbang for out-of-print. The two things that catch foreign buyers out are the R18 age check and the fact that most doujin shops won't ship abroad.
Decide new or secondhand first — it changes which street you walk down. New (AmiAmi, Kotobukiya, Tamashii Nations) clusters around Akihabara's Radio Kaikan; secondhand (Mandarake, Surugaya, Lashinbang) is where rare and out-of-print kits actually live.
2.5D musicals are live stage adaptations of anime, manga and games (Tenimyu, Sailor Moon, Haikyu!!, Touken Ranbu). Tokyo runs are almost always Japanese-only, sold through Japanese-only ticket sites, and strictly no-photo — here's an honest guide to what to expect and where to see one.
For BL specifically, everything worth checking sits on Ikebukuro's Otome Road: animate's 3rd floor for new manga, K-BOOKS Otome-kan for goods, and Lashinbang or Mandarake LaLaLa for secondhand doujinshi.
Toranoana's Ikebukuro Store B is one of the shops that defines Otome Road — a women-only 7th-floor doujinshi and BL/otome goods floor a minute from Ikebukuro Station.
Osu is Nagoya's otaku shopping district — a covered arcade of ~1,200 shops around a 14th-century temple, about 10 minutes by subway from Nagoya Station. Here's how to get there and what to expect.
Niconico Chokaigi 2027 is officially confirmed for April 2027, but exact dates, venue and tickets haven't been announced yet. Here's what Chokaigi is, how its 2026 edition topped the year before (though still short of the pre-pandemic 2019 turnout), and how to catch the official announcement.
The world's largest garage-kit and figure festival returns to Makuhari Messe for a two-day event — the first in 36 years — officially confirmed for February 13–14, 2027.
A single-floor retro video game specialty shop on Osaka's Otaroad, billed by the operator as having the largest retro-game selection in western Japan. Open every day, no closures.
A four-floor Mandarake branch in Nagoya's Osu shopping district, open every day of the year, buying and selling secondhand manga, toys, doujinshi, idol goods and cosplay.
Jungle Nagoya is a two-floor secondhand hobby shop on Osu's Akamon-dori arcade specializing in tokusatsu heroes, robot anime and figure collectibles, with current-series merchandise downstairs and vintage finds like Kamen Rider and Mazinger Z upstairs.
animate Nagoya is the chain's main Nagoya store: three floors of manga, light novels, character goods, figures, trading cards and anime/game CDs and DVDs a short walk from Nagoya Station. It is not near the Osu shopping district — that's a separate area a few subway stops away.
A multi-floor branch of secondhand chain Lashinbang on Ikebukuro's Otome Road, dedicated to female-fan doujinshi and character goods, on floors 4F–6F of the Kindai Bldg. 21.
Sunshine City is Ikebukuro's giant shopping, dining and entertainment complex built around the Sunshine 60 tower. For otaku visitors the current draw is Bandai Namco Cross Store Tokyo and rotating anime pop-ups, while the flagship Pokémon Center MEGA TOKYO is temporarily closed (reopening targeted around September 2026).
One of Japan's largest tabletop-game specialty stores, run by hobby chain Yellow Submarine — TRPGs (including Japanese-language Dungeons & Dragons), board games and dice, with a pay-per-table play space near Akihabara.
Don Quijote's 24-hour Akihabara flagship, packed with anime, idol and VTuber merch alongside the usual discount-store mix — and, in the same building, AKB48's home theater on the 8th floor.
Sofmap AKIBA's Amusement-kan is an eight-floor game and hobby specialty store near Akihabara Station, stocking everything from new and used TV games to anime goods, plastic models and figures, with a top-floor idol and gravure event space.
TRADER's Akihabara flagship: an eight-floor (B1F–7F) secondhand games-and-hobby shop on Chuo-dori selling everything from retro Famicom titles to anime figures, plastic models and PC games, with a basement buyback counter. The current building opened in May 2024 on the site of a former TRADER branch that had closed back in 2021; today TRADER runs just two shops in Akihabara — this Main Store and a smaller Branch 2 near the JR tracks.
