Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 6 days ago
Nakano is where I stayed when I first visited Japan in 2014 so I got to know the area pretty well. Leading from the train station's north exit is the Sun Mall, a "shōtengai" (an outdoor pedestrianised market street), pretty common here and very "Japan". It's full of restaurants, clothes shops, fashion shops and various other general shops. Nothing too thrilling but it's nice.
At the other end and separated by only a thin pedestrian path is Nakano Broadway, a mall built in 1966 and not really changed much since then, giving it a retro look and feel that separates it from Japan's numerous malls. It's famous as a destination for "otaku" goods like manga, anime and video games, mostly thanks to Mandarake, originally a second hand manga store that now runs 27 individual units in the mall dedicated to specific niches. They occupy a lot of units on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th floors. When I last visited in 2014, a lot of the mall seemed quite empty and it was significantly less busy, but since then it's seemingly become a destination for second hand luxury watches. Also, the boom in tourism to Japan means there's a lot of foreigners visiting the mall, sometimes too many. I went on a Monday though which is the best time to visit anything like that, as the crowds are noticeably thinner.
Broadway used to host an arcade called Tokyo Ranking Fighters (TRF), which has now sadly closed and become an extremely lacklustre crane game section. Very depressing sight to see; all well and good catering to crane games if that makes money but most of the machines are almost empty since the staff don't replenish the machines often enough.
The first/ground floor of the mall is more traditional shops (electronics, watches, clothes, shoes, with a few otaku things sprinkled around), and the basement floor hosts fish and meat stalls, general groceries and second hand clothes as well as other crazy little niches like fortune telling and massages, the kind of stores that can only exist in Japan. These kinds of one-off weird stores are sprinkled on every level though, which is a big part of the mall's charm.
It's good that the mall is doing well from the tourism boom and hasn't really changed what made it interesting in the first place. The myriad of stores selling overpriced second hand Rolexes to Chinese tourists is kind of whatever, but the mall is big enough to absorb these and not have them displace the unique stuff. It's a great place and I've been there multiple times so far on this trip and I'll surely be back.
Directly outside the mall are a bunch of little side streets which are full of other niche boutique stores, restaurants and izakaya. In the video I walk down Fureai road, a pedestrianised walkway full of bars and restaurants. I ate at Ken-Chan Curry which is on the left at 1:09:09, a step up from Coco Ichiban and worthy of a visit if you love Japanese style curry. The whole area is a less hectic version of what you find in the bigger areas like Shibuya and Shinjuku and feels more real. If you're after some kind of "authentic" Tokyo and haven't managed to find it, maybe check out the area around Nakano station.
All in all, Nakano is one of my favourite places in Tokyo and absolutely worth visiting. There's obviously a near infinite amount of other things I didn't show on the video but it's already long enough.
Filmed on a Insta360 Go Ultra with a Insta360 Mic Air microphone.
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 Nakano Station north exit to the Sun Mall
3:38 Nakano Broadway 1st Floor
4:27 Fire Kids, strange name but one of the older watch shops in the mall and much more inviting than some of the others.
6:08 Teto Anime Art Gallery, sells artwork and animation cells from various anime.
9:03 Heading up to the 3rd floor
14:44 Gallery of Hakaba, specialty anime/manga store which holds unique pop-up events for various classic anime and manga
18:19 KaiKai Kiki, one of Takashi Murakami's stores
19:01 Up to the 4th floor
22:49 Mandarake Henya ("Strange shop"), dedicated to bootlegs of vintage toys
26:34 Mandarake Special 6, dedicated to robot models of various kinds, excluding Gundam
30:40 Former site of Tokyo Ranking Fighters (TRF), now a shitty crane game section. Depressing.
31:52 The haunted backrooms of the mall, aka. Mandarake head office. Battery died so some of this is missing
32:38 Zingaro no Yokocho ("Zingaro Alley"), the office/gallery/meeting space for Takashi Murakami's shops in the mall. Designed to look like a Showa era alleyway. Not open to the public except on special occasions or if you hire it
33:25 Down to the 2nd floor
34:45 Lashinbang 2nd hand games
40:19 Technobreak, a naughty store which I didn't go in for fear of getting the video taken down
43:19 Mandarake Galaxy 2nd hand games
50:00 Mandarake Special 5, the westaboo store
51:23 Mandarake Card-Kan, trading cards
56:00 Down to the basement
1:03:02 Adores Nakano, a lame arcade
1:05:17 Namco Nakano, a slightly less lame arcade
1:07:31 Fureai Street
1:13:00 Back to the station
Nakano is where I stayed when I first visited Japan in 2014 so I got to know the area pretty well. Leading from the train station's north exit is the Sun Mall, a "shōtengai" (an outdoor pedestrianised market street), pretty common here and very "Japan". It's full of restaurants, clothes shops, fashion shops and various other general shops. Nothing too thrilling but it's nice.
At the other end and separated by only a thin pedestrian path is Nakano Broadway, a mall built in 1966 and not really changed much since then, giving it a retro look and feel that separates it from Japan's numerous malls. It's famous as a destination for "otaku" goods like manga, anime and video games, mostly thanks to Mandarake, originally a second hand manga store that now runs 27 individual units in the mall dedicated to specific niches. They occupy a lot of units on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th floors. When I last visited in 2014, a lot of the mall seemed quite empty and it was significantly less busy, but since then it's seemingly become a destination for second hand luxury watches. Also, the boom in tourism to Japan means there's a lot of foreigners visiting the mall, sometimes too many. I went on a Monday though which is the best time to visit anything like that, as the crowds are noticeably thinner.
Broadway used to host an arcade called Tokyo Ranking Fighters (TRF), which has now sadly closed and become an extremely lacklustre crane game section. Very depressing sight to see; all well and good catering to crane games if that makes money but most of the machines are almost empty since the staff don't replenish the machines often enough.
The first/ground floor of the mall is more traditional shops (electronics, watches, clothes, shoes, with a few otaku things sprinkled around), and the basement floor hosts fish and meat stalls, general groceries and second hand clothes as well as other crazy little niches like fortune telling and massages, the kind of stores that can only exist in Japan. These kinds of one-off weird stores are sprinkled on every level though, which is a big part of the mall's charm.
It's good that the mall is doing well from the tourism boom and hasn't really changed what made it interesting in the first place. The myriad of stores selling overpriced second hand Rolexes to Chinese tourists is kind of whatever, but the mall is big enough to absorb these and not have them displace the unique stuff. It's a great place and I've been there multiple times so far on this trip and I'll surely be back.
Directly outside the mall are a bunch of little side streets which are full of other niche boutique stores, restaurants and izakaya. In the video I walk down Fureai road, a pedestrianised walkway full of bars and restaurants. I ate at Ken-Chan Curry which is on the left at 1:09:09, a step up from Coco Ichiban and worthy of a visit if you love Japanese style curry. The whole area is a less hectic version of what you find in the bigger areas like Shibuya and Shinjuku and feels more real. If you're after some kind of "authentic" Tokyo and haven't managed to find it, maybe check out the area around Nakano station.
All in all, Nakano is one of my favourite places in Tokyo and absolutely worth visiting. There's obviously a near infinite amount of other things I didn't show on the video but it's already long enough.
Filmed on a Insta360 Go Ultra with a Insta360 Mic Air microphone.
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 Nakano Station north exit to the Sun Mall
3:38 Nakano Broadway 1st Floor
4:27 Fire Kids, strange name but one of the older watch shops in the mall and much more inviting than some of the others.
6:08 Teto Anime Art Gallery, sells artwork and animation cells from various anime.
9:03 Heading up to the 3rd floor
14:44 Gallery of Hakaba, specialty anime/manga store which holds unique pop-up events for various classic anime and manga
18:19 KaiKai Kiki, one of Takashi Murakami's stores
19:01 Up to the 4th floor
22:49 Mandarake Henya ("Strange shop"), dedicated to bootlegs of vintage toys
26:34 Mandarake Special 6, dedicated to robot models of various kinds, excluding Gundam
30:40 Former site of Tokyo Ranking Fighters (TRF), now a shitty crane game section. Depressing.
31:52 The haunted backrooms of the mall, aka. Mandarake head office. Battery died so some of this is missing
32:38 Zingaro no Yokocho ("Zingaro Alley"), the office/gallery/meeting space for Takashi Murakami's shops in the mall. Designed to look like a Showa era alleyway. Not open to the public except on special occasions or if you hire it
33:25 Down to the 2nd floor
34:45 Lashinbang 2nd hand games
40:19 Technobreak, a naughty store which I didn't go in for fear of getting the video taken down
43:19 Mandarake Galaxy 2nd hand games
50:00 Mandarake Special 5, the westaboo store
51:23 Mandarake Card-Kan, trading cards
56:00 Down to the basement
1:03:02 Adores Nakano, a lame arcade
1:05:17 Namco Nakano, a slightly less lame arcade
1:07:31 Fureai Street
1:13:00 Back to the station
