Four Akihabara maid cafés compared on what you actually pay, how long you can stay, English support, photo rules and opening hours: @home cafe (¥850 admission + one drink), Maidreamin (¥880 per hour + order), Cure Maid Café and Cafe Mai:lish (no seat charge posted). All figures from each café's official site, checked 2026-09-23.
AGF 2026 runs November 7–8, 2026 at Sunshine City, Ikebukuro. Tickets are Fast ¥3,000, General ¥1,800, Afternoon ¥1,000 and Evening ¥800 (tax incl.); the General lottery closes September 24, 23:59 JST. What overseas visitors need for face-ID e-tickets, the passport rule, the no-account Evening ticket and the free stages — checked against official sources.
EVANGELION STORE TOKYO-01 is the official Evangelion flagship store on 6F of the Ikebukuro PARCO main building, a 1-minute walk from Ikebukuro Station's East Exit, open 11:00–21:00 and tax-free. It moved from P'PARCO 2F in March 2023.
New One Piece Card Game boosters at Tokyo's three official shops (Ikebukuro, Shinjuku, Shibuya) are lottery-only, with an ID check and one checkout per person per day. Addresses, hours, the 1-box limit, card shops for singles in Akihabara and Ikebukuro, and the Japanese-card region rule, checked 2026-09-23.
Pokémon Center TOKYO DX is on 5F of the Nihombashi Takashimaya S.C. East Building, open 10:30–21:00 daily, direct from Nihombashi Station exit B2, tax-free in-store, with the reservation-only Pokémon Cafe TOKYO on the same floor.
Grand Blue's everyday setting is Kawana in Ito, Shizuoka — an 88 Anime Spots 2026 pick. The five real places from the anime, the 370-yen Izukyu fare from Ito Station, Rakumiya Marugen's hours (no reservations, 32 seats) and where to try-dive, all from official sources with check dates.
Amanchu! is set in Ito City, Shizuoka. What is still officially verifiable is two Tokai Bus wrapping buses (no fixed timetable) and three named partner companies. The Ito / Izu-Kogen 2-Day pass is 1,800 yen and rises to 2,150 yen for passes sold from 1 October 2026. Station fares and Marine Town's real numbers, each with the date we checked.
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.
