Nakano Broadway, one stop west of Shinjuku: four floors of Mandarake manga, old toys, retro games and secondhand watch dealers, then Daily Chiko's giant soft-serve, the Sun Mall arcade and the bar alleys by the station for dinner.
Nakano Broadway opened in 1966 as one of Tokyo's first combined shopping and apartment blocks, at the end of a covered arcade north of Nakano Station, and it's now a collectors' maze. Mandarake started it, opening a tiny manga shop here in 1980; collectors' shops followed, and today the building lists 207 shop entries from the basement to the 4th floor and its small Petit Paris arcade, many of them Mandarake's own. The 2nd to 4th floors are the ones to see: vintage manga, old toys and figures, retro games and some of Tokyo's biggest secondhand watch dealers.
When you've done the building, Nakano's other half is outside: the Sun Mall arcade you walk up to get here and the bar alleys round it. For the rest of the city, see things to do in Tokyo; for more shopping, see vintage shopping in Tokyo.
The short version: come after noon, when the shops open, take the lift to the 4th floor and work down, and stay for dinner and a drink in the lanes by the station. Nakano is the first stop west of Shinjuku on the JR Chuo Line rapid service.
The building
Nakano Broadway opened in 1966, in Japan's second boom of fast growth, as a pioneering mix of shops below and apartments above. Its own history tells the rest: after Japan's bubble burst in 1991 the old-style shops declined, and collectors' shops followed Mandarake, which had opened here in 1980 in a space of about 6.6 square metres, until the building became known as a 'holy land' of subculture. It isn't all collectors' shops: local shops from the early days still sit next to the specialists (the mall's categories include beauty, clothes, food and everyday services), and that mix is part of the appeal.
How it's laid out: five floors, from the basement to the 4th floor. The building's site lists 27 shops in the basement, 40 on the 1st floor, 59 on the 2nd, 39 on the 3rd and 28 on the 4th, plus 14 in a small side arcade, Petit Paris. Hours: there's no single opening time, because every shop sets its own. Most of the hobby shops in this guide keep roughly noon-to-8pm hours, so come in the afternoon. Getting there: 5 minutes on foot from the North Exit of Nakano Station, at the end of the Sun Mall arcade. There's no car park.
How it compares with Akihabara: Nakano Broadway is one building of secondhand collectors' shops, not a district of electronics stores, maid cafés and arcades. It's smaller and calmer, and easy to cover in an afternoon.
5 minutes on foot from Nakano Station's North Exit, at the end of the Sun Mall arcade. There's no car park.
Mandarake, floor by floor
Mandarake has more than 30 shops and counters across the 1st to 4th floors, all open noon to 8pm every day, each one specialising in something different. Start at the top:
4th floor. Mania-kan is the collectors' shop for vintage manga and magazines, old manga supplements, records and tokusatsu scripts; Mandarake calls its range the widest of all its shops. Henya, through a torii gate, sells Showa-era retro goods, company promotional novelties, antiques and vintage toys. Kaiba has art photobooks and subculture books, and Konpeito sells old sweet-packet toys, wrappers and paper games.
3rd floor. The main store (honten) is the manga floor: shonen and shoujo manga, BL comics and novels, and male idol goods, with large deliveries every day. The buying counter (kaitori) is here too.
2nd floor. Special-kan is the toy floor: die-cast chogokin robots, kaiju soft vinyl, action figures, garage kits and plastic toys. Micro-kan, nicknamed 'the house of erasers', is full of tiny figures (Kinnikuman erasers, SD Gundam) and 80s and 90s toys and sweet-packet extras, with Ghibli goods too. Galaxy is the retro games shop: used games and consoles for the Famicom, Super Famicom, Game Boy, PC Engine, Sega Saturn, Dreamcast, PlayStation and 3DO, plus strategy guides and old games magazines. Mandarake's card, cosplay and film-and-video shops are on this floor too.
The catch: prices on rare pieces are collectors' prices, not bargains.
Each Mandarake shop has its own speciality, so check the floor guide by the lifts before you start.
Vintage watches
Nakano Broadway is also Tokyo's watch-dealer building: the mall lists more than half a dozen watch shops, from Daikokuya's watch shop to WATCHNIAN, ASKWATCH and TIME WALKER. The biggest is JACKROAD on the 3rd floor, founded in 1987, which says it keeps more than 5,000 watches in the shop, new (it was an early parallel importer), used and vintage. It has a women's watch shop and a jewellery and bag shop on the same floor, and a select shop on the 1st floor, and says it has multilingual staff for overseas customers.
Open: the men's watch shop 11am to 8:30pm; the women's watches and jewellery and bags 11am to 8pm; the 1st-floor select shop 11:30am to 7:30pm. TIME WALKER, which concentrates on Rolex, Audemars Piguet and Patek Philippe, lists 11am to 7:30pm. A tip for big purchases: Japan's tax-free shopping became a refund system on 1 November 2026, so you pay the tax at the till, confirm the goods at a customs kiosk at the airport, and the shop then refunds it; our luxury resale guide explains how, and covers Daikokuya's Shinjuku branch.
Figures and toys beyond Mandarake: Lashinbang, a secondhand anime chain, has a figure and hobby shop on the 2nd floor (PVC figures, arcade prize figures, tokusatsu, Gundam kits and character goods) plus outlet and Blu-ray/CD shops, open noon to 8pm according to the mall. merry-go-round toy store stocks figma, Nendoroid and other figure ranges (1pm to 8pm, irregular closing days), and AND TOY sells character toys from Doraemon to One Piece and JoJo.
It says it has multilingual interpreters on staff for overseas customers.
Eating in the building
Down in the basement, Daily Chiko is Nakano Broadway's famous snack: a counter selling enormous soft-serve cones, which the mall calls the building's signature, with vanilla and chocolate joined by seasonal flavours such as purple sweet potato and cider. It also serves cheap sanuki udon. Open: 10am to 8:30pm every day, according to the mall's listing, which advertises a bowl of kake udon at ¥200; soft-serve prices aren't published.
The towering soft-serve is the thing; flavours change with the season.
Nakano Sun Mall and the bar alleys
You reach Nakano Broadway by walking up Nakano Sun Mall, a 224-metre covered arcade running straight from the North Exit plaza, with about 110 shops selling everything from clothes to food. The shopping street association plays different music at different times of day and changes the LED lights with the seasons; it hosts a rice-cake pounding in January and carries the Hikawa Shrine festival's portable shrines through in September.
To the east of the arcade, behind the North Exit, is a grid of narrow lanes packed with izakaya, bars and small restaurants. It isn't one named yokocho: on the city's shopping-street list it's half a dozen little street associations, from Fureai Road and Showa Shindo to the Ichibangai, Nibangai and Tanuki-koji lanes. GO TOKYO calls the station's alleys full of 'funky izakaya and restaurants'. It's at its best after 6pm.
It runs straight from the North Exit plaza to Nakano Broadway's entrance, so you walk it on the way anyway.
For a cheap, quick dinner, Unatoto is the eel chain GO TOKYO singles out in Nakano for its cheap eel dishes, a couple of minutes from Broadway by the arcade. Its motto is cheap, fast and tasty. On the chain's menu: unadon (eel on rice) ¥640, unaju (eel in a lacquer box) ¥1,060, and hitsumabushi (chopped eel with a dashi to pour over) ¥1,300; the chain says prices can differ by shop. Open: Sunday to Thursday 11am to 10pm, Friday and Saturday 11am to 11pm, last orders 30 minutes before closing. It has an English menu and takes cards, IC cards and most QR payments.
For a full meal, our best izakaya in Tokyo and cheap eats pages cover the wider city.
English menu available, and it takes cards, IC cards and most QR payments.
In a basement down a side street off the Sun Mall, JUKE 80's is a request bar for 1980s Western pop: it has about 40,000 songs, mostly from the 80s, and you can request as many as you like for free. GO TOKYO picks it out too. Cost: drinks and food from ¥500, with no cover charge and no service charge. Open: from 6pm (it doesn't publish a closing time). It's small (four counter seats and 20 at tables), 3 minutes from the North Exit, and takes reservations. For more bars, see Tokyo's best bars.
3 minutes from the North Exit, down a side street off the Sun Mall. 4 counter seats and 20 at tables; it takes reservations.
Beyond Broadway
If you have an hour left, walk 13 minutes north of the station to Arai Yakushi Baishoin, a temple that gives 1586 as its founding year (its history traces it back to the 1560s) and is known for prayers to heal eye disease; its history links that to the second shogun's daughter, who had a serious eye illness in 1629. Its hidden main image is shown only in the Year of the Tiger. Open: 9am to 4pm. The closer station is Araiyakushi-mae on the Seibu Shinjuku Line, 6 minutes away. Its flower festival for the Buddha's birthday is on 8 April.
A few minutes west of Nakano Broadway, Nakano Central Park is a big open space; GO TOKYO says flea markets and food festivals are held there most weekends.
13 minutes on foot from JR Nakano, 6 from Araiyakushi-mae on the Seibu Shinjuku Line.
Built for the shops' hours, which mostly run noon to 8pm. About 3 km on foot.
13:00. Arrive. Take the JR Chuo Line rapid service from Shinjuku to Nakano, the first stop. Leave by the North Exit and walk up the Sun Mall arcade to Nakano Broadway. 13:15. Start at the top. Take the lift to the 4th floor (Mania-kan, Henya, Kaiba) and work down: the 3rd floor for manga and the watch dealers, then the 2nd for toys, figures and retro games at Galaxy. Allow at least two hours. 15:15. Arai Yakushi. Walk about 10 minutes north to the temple, which closes to visitors at 4pm.
16:00. Back to Broadway. A soft-serve at Daily Chiko in the basement, then the shops you missed. 18:00. Dinner. Back to the lanes east of the Sun Mall for yakitori and a beer, or an eel bowl at Unatoto. 20:00. One more. Requests at JUKE 80's, then the train back to Shinjuku.
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Getting there from Shinjuku: Nakano is the first stop on the JR Chuo Line rapid service, around 10 minutes according to GO TOKYO. The Chuo-Sobu local line also stops here, and so does Tokyo Metro's Tozai Line, which starts at Nakano; the Tozai Line is covered by the Tokyo Subway Ticket, but JR trains aren't. Use an IC card for either; getting around Tokyo explains the passes.
When to go: after noon, when the shops open. Mandarake opens every day of the year, but smaller shops close on their own days, so check a shop's page if you're going for one in particular. Weekday afternoons are quietest.
Staying nearby: Shinjuku, one stop away, is the easy base. See where to stay in Tokyo and the Shinjuku guide.
More secondhand shopping: for used clothes, see vintage shopping in Tokyo; Koenji, the next station west, is known for its used-clothes shops.
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