Otaku heaven outside Akihabara

To me, otaku mecca in Japan is not in Akihabara but in the Nakano Broadway mall.

Nakano is a station that is just a few minutes from Shinjuku station, and seems to be the heart and soul of all anime and manga otaku goods. Within the mall new and vintage toys, manga, anime, anime cells, original Japanese comic art, movie posters, outfits and uniforms, character goods, games, j-pop musician posters, music, and vintage japanese promotional and advertising goods and trinkets can be had within the 4 level mecca of otaku culture goods.

Madarake, a store that focuses on all things otaku and found in a couple areas of Japan has their "super store" located in this mall. This super store has various departments within the four floors that focus on various otaku subcultures. Mandarake means "full of man", and although one can easily believe the "man" to mean men, as in the gender, which seem outnumber women in this building, in this case "man" was used to stand for the superhero names, which usually end with the word "man", as in Ultra-man, Gatcha-man (known as G-force, in the USA), Mirror-man and of course Batman and Superman.

Nakano Broadway Sun Mall could easily be considered an Otaku museum of sorts and is sure to keep you entertained for a few hours especially if you consider yourself an otaku, nerd, or a fan-boy.

Be sure to bring cash, if you are into this type of stuff. You will find a lot of things you want, and these stores don't take credit cards.


Dragonball anime cell.



A tiny sampling of a variety of Japanese toys.


Cos-play outfits and uniforms for sale.


Shogun Warriors were toys that were exported to the U.S. in the mid Eighties.