Nakano

Nakano Broadway is a large shopping complex in the west end of Tokyo with a wide variety of shops that cater to niche audiences. Pictured here is one of the lower floors where all the ‘normal’ clothing and accessory shops are.

On the higher floors, you’ll find trading card shops, idol-specialty shops, adult video stores, weapons stores, anime and manga specialists (including the incredible Mandarake, which owns over half a dozen stores within this building, each specialising in a particular niche), and cosplay stores amongst others. It’s really the sort of building that would seem more at home in Akihabara. Pictured is a typical example of the sort of store you’d find near the middle levels. This one sells gashapon (capsule toys) and rents out display cabinets for people to sell, auction or just show off their stuff.

Here’s one of the idol specialty stores. They’ve got everything from CDs to trading cards to photo collections here.

A life-sized Saber from one of the stores near the top floor. I would have taken some more photos, but the shopkeepers didn’t seem all that happy about it. There’s a Mandarake second hand doujinshi store just around the corner from here which has all sorts of good stuff that the big outlets in Akihabara no longer carry.

This building is just a big triangular wedge. My guess is that it’s just a parking lot or something, but it bears a striking resemblence to a missile silo.