Anime, manga and games: otaku Japan, destination by destination

🎮 Nerd / Pop culture · 64 destinations · 145 activities

Akihabara is the obvious first stop, but Japanese pop culture is spread much wider: animation studio museums, towns that live off pilgrimages to real locations from series, and specialised districts with little in common. Several of the most sought-after visits run on lotteries or bookings weeks ahead, and that shapes the dates of the whole trip.

The destinations, by real weight

What to do exactly

Tokyo — 22 activities

• Akihabara: Anime, Manga, and Electronics 3 h must-see

  A neighbourhood devoted to otaku culture, with shops selling figures, manga and electronics. Practical warning: Tokyo police have raided illegal maid cafés in the area, and there is a documented pattern of touts on the street whose venues then add hidden charges, a table fee and a compulsory photo. If you go into one, make it a specific venue with published prices, and never one reached by following someone who approaches you in the street.

• Kanda Myojin Shrine and the EDOCCO centre 1.5 h

  Tutelary shrine of 108 Edo neighbourhoods, its vermilion-lacquered hall rebuilt in concrete in 1934 and therefore a survivor of the firebombing. It sells amulets for data and server protection and collaborates with anime series: it is Akihabara's digital patron.

• Nakano Broadway and its Mandarake shops 3 h

  A labyrinthine 1960s mall with around twenty Mandarake stores selling second-hand manga, figures and toys. It is Akihabara for the veteran collector: cheaper and far less touristy.

• Warner Bros. Studio Tour Tokyo: the Making of Harry Potter 5 h booking

  A thirty-thousand-square-metre studio in Nerima, on the old Toshimaen site, with original sets of the Great Hall, Diagon Alley and the Forbidden Forest. From 6,600 yen for adults, timed entry and booking required.

• Comiket at Tokyo Big Sight 6 h booking lottery only mid-August and late December

  The largest fanzine market in the world, with hundreds of thousands of attendees and a cosplay area, in August and in late December. A paid wristband is needed for each day, there are queues before dawn, extreme heat in summer, and no photography outside the cosplay area.

• Otome Road and fujoshi Ikebukuro 3 h

  A stretch of Higashi-Ikebukuro given over to manga, doujinshi and merchandise aimed at a female audience, with the Animate flagship store next door. The exact counterpart to Akihabara.

Awaji Island — 5 activities

• NARUTO & BORUTO Shinobi-Zato 3 h must-see booking

  The Hidden Leaf Village built in the Awaji woods: the gate, the Hokage's office, Ichiraku Ramen actually serving food, shuriken throwing and a ninja trial course that ends in a fight against the villains of the saga. Basic (Light) entry runs ¥3,300-4,100 depending on the day, ¥1,800-2,200 for children, with the trials and extras bundled into the Golden ticket (¥4,800-5,600). Open 10:00-20:00 daily; tickets are bought online for a timed slot and sell out in high season.

• Life-size Godzilla: Interception Operation 1.5 h booking

  A 1:1 Godzilla modelled on Shin Godzilla, 120 m long and 25 m high, half emerging from the hillside: the largest in the world. The ride sends you by zipline towards its open mouth and then into a shooting room to 'neutralise' cells. Light entry ¥2,800-3,600 (¥1,800-2,200 children), Golden ¥4,800-5,600; 10:00-18:00 on weekdays and until 20:00 at weekends. It is paid separately from every other zone of the park.

• Nijigen no Mori: how the anime park works 1 h

  The part nobody expects: entering the park is free and every attraction is ticketed separately, each with its own price and its own hours. It covers some 130 hectares of Awaji Prefectural Park in zones separated by slopes and several kilometres of path, so pick one or two attractions rather than trying them all. Car park A is free for the first three hours and ¥550 a day after that; car parks B, D, E and F are free. The park is about ten minutes' drive from the Awaji IC exit, where the Kobe bus stops.

• Crayon Shin-chan Adventure Park 3 h booking

  The Shin-chan zone is really an adventure park over a pond: a hanging obstacle course, long ziplines and a dinosaur trail, with the show's humour as scenery. Light entry ¥3,500-4,300 for adults, ¥1,800-2,200 for school children and ¥1,500-1,800 for little ones; Golden ¥5,600-6,400. Open 10:00-18:00 on weekdays and until 19:00 at weekends. Wear clothes and shoes you don't mind getting wet.

• Dragon Quest Island 3 h booking

  It is still running, whatever you may read elsewhere: a role-playing game walked through the forest, with quests, a paper map, monsters and a final boss, built for a good three hours. Light entry ¥3,400-4,500 (¥1,800-2,500 children) and Golden ¥5,400-6,500, gear and items included. Last admission 18:00 on weekdays and 19:30 at weekends. Almost all of it is in Japanese, so it pays off far more if someone in the group reads kana.

Yokohama — 7 activities

• Broadcast Library: fifty years of Japanese television 2 h

  Japan's public broadcasting archive is in Yokohama and it is free: more than forty thousand programmes, newsreels and commercials that you request at the desk and watch in individual booths, from 1960s dramas to legendary ad campaigns. Open 10:00 to 17:00, with requests taken until half an hour before closing, and closed on Mondays. It sits on Nihon-odori with direct access from the station.

• Bungo Stray Dogs Pilgrimage around Yokohama 3 h

  The series is explicitly set in Yokohama and the city runs recurring official stamp rallies through Cosmo World, the Air Cabin, the Marine Tower and Kannai. Outside campaign periods the location route still works on your own.

• Hara Model Railway Museum 2 h booking

  The collection Nobutaro Hara built over sixty years, with hand-made gauge 1 locomotives and a huge layout that runs on real metal rail, so the trains actually sound like trains. It costs 1,500 yen for adults, 1,000 for students and 750 for children from four; closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays, open 10:00 to 17:00. Tickets must be bought in advance online or at a convenience store terminal, not at the door. It is five minutes from Yokohama Station.

• Yokohama Anpanman Children's Museum 3 h booking

  The character most loved by Japanese children under six has his indoor park here, with a ground floor of shops and restaurants that is free to enter. Tickets are bought for a set date and time, and outside that age range it makes little sense.

• Yokohama Tram Museum 1.5 h

  Seven original streetcars from the network that ran until 1972, kept in a hall with their doors open so you can sit in them, plus a large model layout of the city and simulators. Admission 300 yen for adults and 100 for children; closed Wednesdays and Thursdays, open 9:30 to 17:00 at weekends but only 10:00 to 16:00 on weekdays. It is out in Isogo and you need a bus from Negishi: it is not walkable.

• Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum 2 h

  An underground theme park set in 1958 Japan, featuring replica ramen stalls representing regional styles from across the country.

Hita — 3 activities

• Eren, Mikasa and Armin statues at the Oyama dam 1 h must-see

  The three leads as children, in bronze, standing on the plaza below the 94-metre Oyama dam: from down there they look up at the wall exactly as in the series' opening scene, and that is the whole point. Access and parking are free with no set hours; the dam is 25 minutes by car from the centre, or on Hita Bus's Tsuetate line.

• Attack on Titan in HITA Museum 1.5 h

  The museum devoted to Hajime Isayama, who grew up in Oyama: original art, his own drawings from childhood and his teens, and series material. It sits inside the Michi no Eki Mizube no Sato Oyama roadside stop, 9:30-16:00 on weekdays and 9:00-17:00 otherwise, ¥500 for over-18s and free below, with irregular closures tied to the roadside stop. From Hita Station take Hita Bus's Tsuetate line, about 30 minutes and ¥560.

• Attack on Titan in HITA Museum ANNEX 1.5 h

  The second site, on the grounds of Hita's Sapporo brewery: reproduction art from all 34 volumes with the author's own picks, childhood photographs and work, and an immersive comic walk-through the Oyama museum does not have. Open 10:00-19:00, ¥700 for over-18s and free below, with irregular closures; a combined two-museum ticket costs ¥1,000 and is valid for two days.

Kurashiki — 4 activities

• Annual tour of the mt washi tape factory 2 h booking lottery

  Kamoi Kakoshi, the Kurashiki company that invented decorative washi tape, opens its factory just once a year, for two weeks in March or April, turned into an art installation. Advance registration and a lottery.

• Betty Smith denim museum and school uniform museum 1.5 h

  Japan's first denim museum, opened in 2003, with sewing machines from the 1960s; next door you can try on the school and sailor uniforms the city manufactures. Both are in Kojima.

• Momotaro Karakuri Museum 0.75 h

  A tiny, deliberately absurd museum about the legend of the peach boy, full of optical illusions and homemade tricks. Okayama claims to be the setting of the tale.

• Yumiko Igarashi Museum 1 h

  Devoted to the illustrator of Candy Candy, in a Bikan house decorated as a pink salon. Originals are on show and there are photos to be taken in princess dresses. Confirm the opening hours before going.

Oarai — 3 activities

• Girls und Panzer pilgrimage through the town 2.5 h

  Oarai is the setting of the anime 'Girls und Panzer' and has built half its tourist economy around it: some 50 life-size panels of the characters, each one 'adopted' by the real shop in town that hosts it, spread along the Magarimatsu shopping street.

• Garupan gallery 1 h

  Free room in the ferry terminal with dioramas, fan illustrations and objects from the series, plus a themed café in the port tower.

• Kairaku Festa and tanks in the street 2 h only one weekend in March

  Spring festival at which real Self-Defense Forces tanks are displayed in the middle of the street, the physical extension of the anime phenomenon.

Shizuoka — 3 activities

• Shizuoka, World Capital of Scale Models 2 h

  Around eighty per cent of Japan's plastic model kits are made here: Tamiya is headquartered in the city along with the Gunpla factory, there is an exhibition hall devoted to the hobby, and robot statues stand around town.

• Chibi Maruko-chan Land 1.5 h

  The classic anime about the girl Maruko is set in 1970s Shimizu; the shopping centre at the port has recreated her house, her school and her neighbourhood.

• Shizuoka Hobby Show 4 h booking only mid-May

  The major annual Japanese modelling fair, in mid-May; only some days are open to the general public and a ticket is required.

Iya Valley — 4 activities

• Scenic train with an onboard menu 2.5 h booking

  Three-car sightseeing train between Tadotsu and Oboke, with themed spring, summer and autumn chapters and a seasonal menu served as it climbs the gorge. It runs only on Fridays, weekends and public holidays, and booking is required.

• Yokai house and stone museum 1 h

  A double and very homemade museum at the Oboke service area: upstairs, the valley's monsters recreated with a quiz and picture-card theatre; downstairs, minerals, fossils and meteorites that explain the geology of the gorge. In 2008 the district was recognised as 'monstrous heritage to be handed down to posterity'.

• The secret station at Tsubojiri 1.5 h

  One of Japan's most famous end-of-the-world stations: no access road, at the bottom of a ravine, with a compulsory switchback and the only entirely wooden station building JR Shikoku has left. You reach it on foot along a path of about 25 minutes.

• The Yamashiro yokai trail 1.75 h

  The valley is dotted with wooden figures of local monsters and a stele dedicated to the Konaki-jiji, the old man who cries like a baby, born here and popularised by Mizuki Shigeru. The legends began as warnings to keep children away from ravines and rivers.

What only happens on specific dates

• Ryuhyo Monogatari train along the frozen coast Abashiri 31 Jan - 8 Mar
• Kairaku Festa and tanks in the street Oarai one weekend in March
• Shizuoka Hobby Show Shizuoka mid-May
• Nipponbashi Street Festa Osaka one Sunday in May
• Machi Asobi Tokushima May and October (dates vary)
• World Cosplay Summit Nagoya late July or early August
• Comiket at Tokyo Big Sight Tokyo mid-August and late December
• Tokyo Game Show Tokyo five days in mid-September
• Ikebukuro Halloween Cosplay Festival Tokyo three days around Halloween
• Yuwaku lantern festival Kanazawa one Saturday in October

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