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Tokyo is Japan's showcase. The crazy clothing styles, obscure electronics, and new games found here are capable of setting trends for the rest of the country—and perhaps the rest of Asia, and even Europe and America.
Part of the Tokyo shopping experience is simply to observe, and on Saturday especially, in districts like the Ginza and Shinjuku, you will notice that the Japanese approach to shopping can be nothing short of feverish. You’ll probably want to resist the urge to join in the fray, especially since many of the wildly trendy clothes and accessories for sale will already be "uncool" by the time you get home. But shopping in Tokyo can also be an exercise in elegance and refinement, especially if you shop for items that are Japanese-made for Japanese people and sold in stores that don't cater to tourists. With brilliantly applied color, balance of form, and superb workmanship, crafts items can be exquisite and well worth the price you'll pay—and some can be quite expensive.
Note the care taken with items after you purchase them, especially in department stores and boutiques. Goods will be wrapped, wrapped again, bagged, and sealed. Sure, the packaging can be excessive—does anybody really need three plastic bags for one croissant?—but such a focus on presentation has deep roots in Japanese culture.
This focus on presentation also influences salespeople who are invariably helpful and polite. In the larger stores they greet you with a bow when you arrive, and many of them speak at least enough English to help you find what you're looking for. There's a saying in Japan: o-kyaku-sama wa kami-sama, "the customer is a god"—and since the competition for your business is fierce, people do take it to heart.
Horror stories abound about prices in Japan—and some of them are true. Yes, European labels can cost a fortune here, but did you really travel all the way to Tokyo to buy an outfit that would be cheaper in the designer mall at home? True, a gift-wrapped melon from a department-store gourmet counter can cost $150. But you can enjoy gawking even if you don’t want to spend like that. And if you shop around, you can find plenty of gifts and souvenirs at fair prices.
Japan has finally embraced the use of credit cards, although some smaller mom-and-pop shops may still take cash only. So when you go souvenir hunting, be prepared with a decent amount of cash; Tokyo's low crime rates make this a low-risk proposition. The dishonor associated with theft is so strong, in fact, that it's considered bad form to conspicuously count change in front of cashiers.
Japan has an across-the-board 8% value-added tax (V.A.T.) imposed on luxury goods. This tax can be avoided at some duty-free shops in the city (don't forget to bring your passport). It's also waived in the duty-free shops at the international airports, but because these places tend to have higher profit margins, your tax savings there are likely to be offset by the higher markups.
Stores in Tokyo generally open at 10 or 11 am and close at 8 or 9 pm.
Next to the Midtown Tokyo complex, this fashion-forward boutique brings together a cluster of stores, with three floors of cutting-edge clothing, some of which looks like it came straight from a Tokyo or Paris catwalk, and accessories for men and women.
Another brand with multiple Nakano Broadway outlets, Robot Robot is the place otaku go for figurines and action figures. On the third-floor Robot Robot 1 specializes in Japanese anime and manga characters, such as Gundam, Dragonball, and One Piece, while Robot Robot 2 is packed with U.S. favorites, with heaps of choices from the Star Wars, Disney, and Marvel franchises. Down on the second floor, Robot Robot 3 is a bit more of a mishmash, though it's a good stop for anyone into Studio Ghibli productions such as My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away.
You could easily spend a whole day exploring the retail areas of this complex of shops, restaurants, residential and commercial towers, a nine-screen cineplex, the Grand Hyatt Tokyo hotel, and the Mori Art Museum—all wrapped around the TV Asahi studios and sprawled out in five zones located between the Roppongi intersection and Azabu Juban. The shops here emphasize eye-catching design and chichi brands, although finding a particular shop can be a hassle given the building's Escher-like layout. To navigate, go to the information center to retrieve a floor guide with color-coded maps in English.
A teenage girl's dream, this nine-floor outlet is filled with small stores where the merchandise screams kitsch and trendy. On weekends, dance concerts and fashion shows are often staged at the front entrance.
These vertical malls filled with small retail shops and boutiques are all within walking distance of one another in the commercial heart of Shibuya. Shopping options range from stores carrying designer brands to an entire floor with game and anime goods. There's a rooftop garden and a basement full of restaurants.
Inside the building immediately adjacent to the station is one of Shibuya's newest landmarks—home not only to the Shibuya Sky viewpoint, but also to numerous stores (carrying some brands you know and others you don't), restaurants, and constantly changing pop-up shops. It also has a roster of special events.
The venerable Shimokura Gakki group has its headquarters and largest presence in Ochanomizu, with five floors of new and used instruments of every type in its main building. There are also two separate secondhand guitar shops on either side of Meidai-dori street, as well as a buttoned-down classical stringed-instrument shop on the same block.
One Akihabara retailer that actually benefited from the bursting of Japan's economic bubble in the early 1990s is this outfit, which was once known as a used-PC and software chain with a heavy presence in Tokyo. Today, its multiple branches sell all sorts of new and used electronics, music, and mobile phones. Most outlets are open daily until 8.
Tabi are the traditional cloth boots with a cleft-toe shape requiring special socks, which are sold here among other cloth goods and clothing. This Kyoto-based brand creates graphic, cute, and funky patterns that are so of this era that you'd never know they based on traditional things. Across the street is its sister shop, which sells Westernized items made with the same fabrics.
The cramped Nikon House branch of this two-store operation features so many Nikons—old and new, digital and film—that it could double as a museum to the brand. Plenty of lenses and flashes are available as well.
Like many Japanese department stores, each of Takashimaya's floors is dedicated to labels with similar price points, but here, the north half of each floor is for women and south half is for men, so couples and families can shop on the same floors. The basement-level food court carries every gastronomic delight imaginable, and the whole complex is linked to ground- and terrace-level shops as well as to the station. In addition, Kinokuniya book shop is nearby, as is the Ikea-like Japanese retailer, Nitori.
If you're looking for a snack while shopping, check out this purveyor of senbei (a type of grilled rice cracker), which has has been in Shimokitazawa since the Meiji Period. Theoretically, senbei are gluten-free since they're made of rice, but the soy-sauce coating often includes some wheat.
This small but pleasant Ginza shop has attractive used kimono, yukata, and other traditional clothing in many fabrics, colors, and patterns. The helpful staff can acquaint you with the somewhat complicated method of putting on the garments. Other locations are scattered throughout the city, including Asakusa, Aoyama, and Shinjuku.
At this pearl retailer's glittery flagship tower by the Ginza Crossing, there's a large collection of both pearl and gem items, from costume to bridal and fine jewelry to watches. The fifth-floor events space often hosts art exhibits.
Ikebana (flower arrangement) and sado (tea ceremony) goods are the only items sold at this shop, but variety of items on offer is stunning. Colorful vases in surprising shapes and traditional ceramic tea sets make unique souvenirs.
Keiji Kawakami is a master textile creator and expert on the hundreds of traditional towel motifs—geometric patterns, plants and animals, scenes from Kabuki plays and festivals—that have come down from the Edo period. His cotton tenugui (pronounced “teh-noo-goo-ee”) hand towels are collector's items, worthy of being framed.
The king of wacky Japanese electronics sells everything from bamboo smartphone cases and smokeless ashtrays to summer neck coolers and wireless charging stations disguised as jewelry. This showroom and its other branches are musts for gadget geeks.
This tiny, somewhat modest looking shop incongruously situated near Ginza's glittering department stores sells expensive antique swords. Staffers can also sharpen your blade for you.
Come here to buy (and watch the creation of) Asakusa's famous kaminari okoshi (thunder crackers), made of rice, millet, sugar, and beans. The shop is on the west side of Asakusa's Thunder God Gate, the Kaminari-mon entrance to Senso-ji.
This huge complex is an architectural statement with sweeping glass roofs and a large walkable garden in the back. The airy, open spaces house exclusive boutiques, a Ritz-Carlton, galleries, and a concentration of cafés by the world's top pâtissiers on the first few floors.
The newest addition to an already architecturally impressive intersection, greenery-covered Tokyu Plaza stands across from its sister building, Tokyu Plaza Omotesando. The two complexes, which are redefining what it means to shop in this area, even have nicknames, both incorporating the Japanese word kado (corner). This one is called "Harakado," and its more-established counterpart to the northeast is "Omokado," as it's on Omotesando.
Right at the intersection of Omotesando and Meiji-dori (don't miss the lanterns leading you to Meiji Shrine) and across from its newer sister complex, Tokyu Plaza Harajuku (aka Harakado), Tokyu Plaza Omotesando (aka Omokado) was designed by award-winning Hiroshi Nakamura's NAP architectural firm. It contains numerous shops and eateries, but its biggest draw might be the shady roof garden, which has great views.
This huge emporium carries one of the most diverse selections of CDs and DVDs in the world, in addition to new and used vinyl records. You can take a break from shopping in the second-floor café.
Just off Kappabashi, this shop has a remarkable selection of high-quality, professional-grade cutlery designed for every imaginable use, as food preparation and presentation in Japan requires a great variety of cutting implements. The best of these are hand-forged tools made with blue carbon steel. Be prepared to pay a premium for these items: a multipurpose gyuto kitchen knife can cost as much as ¥50,000.
A collection of wooden structures at the end of a stone path is home to Yanaka Beer Hall (closed Monday), which has many craft beers on tap, as well as a back garden with a few small shops selling bread, vinegars and olive oils, and other items. It's a good place to stop for a beer and to peek into some wooden structures that just aren't built anymore and are becoming increasingly rare in Tokyo.
Here, racks of Jun Takahashi's cult clothing sit under a ceiling adorned with thousands of hanging lightbulbs.
Here's your chance to stock up on the company's own brand of simple, low-priced clothing staples. This 12-story location is the world's largest Uniqlo, and sells men's, women's, and children's clothing right on the main Ginza drag.
This grand old department store is well known for its high-end watches (it's owned by Seiko), glassware, and jewelry, as well as having some of the most sophisticated window displays in town. The clock atop the curved 1930s-era building is illuminated at night, making it one of Ginza's more recognized landmarks.
The Japanese are resourceful in their uses of products from the sea. Nori, the paper-thin dried seaweed used to wrap maki sushi and onigiri (rice balls), is the specialty here. If you plan to bring some home with you, buy unroasted nori and toast it yourself at home; the flavor will be far better than that of the pre-roasted sheets.
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