My May 2025 Tokyo Travelogue - Part 5 Ikebukuro, Gashapon Store, Animate Flagship, Tokyo Station Character Street

July 02, 2025

My May 2025 Tokyo Travelogue - Part 5 Ikebukuro, Gashapon Store, Animate Flagship, Tokyo Station Character Street

Today's itinerary is all about anime and the pop culture associated with it. While Akihabara is a mecca, Ikebukuro is another big hub of anime related tourism. If you are not interested in Pokemon or anime or gashapon capsule toys then I would not visit this corner of Tokyo. There are other places to see. If you are interested in anime tourism, then Shibuya Parco/Q Front, Diver City Odaiba, Shinjuku for Godzilla, Akihabara, Ikebukuro, and Nakano Broadway should be on your bucket list. I never got to Nakano Broadway on this trip, but that's okay for me.

May 15, 2025 THURSDAY Ikebukuro

The morning started with a subway ride out to the Ikebukuro area and then a short walk to Sunshine City, a large multi-story mall complex. Here there is the Sunshine 60 observation deck and an aquarium with penguins (featured in the anime Penguindrum). We were here to visit the Pokemon Mega Center, the Gachapon Department Store, Bandai Namco Cross, and the Sunrise World Tokyo Giant Robots Art Exhibit. Other places to visit included the Animate flagship store and the big Daiso on the 6th Floor of the Tobu Department Store. Places we wouldn't be able to see in the Ikebukuro area included the Evangelion Store in Parco and the Anime Tokyo Station (was between exhibits anyways so no loss).

Miraidon is the big feature mascot that greets you when you enter Pokemon Center MEGA TOKYO in Ikebukuro. From Pokemon Violet.

The Pokemon merchandise here is much like the other stores with a few differences or exclusives. You sometimes have to look to find them if that is what is desired. I had already been to the Pokemon Centers in Shibuya and Skytree, so I only did a cursory pass through.

A whole slew of starter Pokemon greet you in a central area outside of the Pokemon Center. There is a play area here, a Pokemon Bakery, and Pokemon Go store, etc.

Just a small selection of the Pokemon stuffies.

Pokemon Play Area

Pokemon Bakery

There are many other anime or franchise tie-in stores in this mall too. There is a Kiddyland, Snoopy, One Piece, Marvel, Namja Town with Naruto, and a Sesame Street Market. We would look through a few stores and then head to the Gachapon Department Store which has the biggest selection of capsule machines, but mostly Bandai. You won't find Kaiyodo here - there is a Kaiyodo store in Akihabara and their machines are in some Tokyu Hands, etc.

Snoopy statue you can pose with.

One Piece store.

Sesame Street Market - it is a store and a cafe.

Marvel store. There is one at the Skytree, too.

The gashapon store here is enormous with two sections and thousands of machines. A person can browse through here for hours and you will want to spend money. I had a budget of about $30 or so which would allow for 10 pulls at 300 yen or 6 pulls at 500 yen. I went a little over just because it was fun, but I did get a bunch of toys that I wanted or really good second choices to walk away happy!

A small section of the gashapon store! It is like this multiplied by 50x.

Little food models on keychains and such.

Cute anthropomorphized food mascots.

Godzilla, haniwa statues, and others.

Saki and soada danglers.

It's Dragon Quest!

More expensive gashapon. These are 1000 yen or $10, but the selection from each machine is smaller so you have a better chance of getting the figure you want.

Some of the capsules I goes. There were soft rubber versions of the patches from Alien and Aliens, and a bunch of food modeles.

After spending at least an hour wandering through the aisles of gashapon looking for machines that I might want to try my luck at, it was time to move on to see the Bandai Namco Cross Store adjacent to this gashapon store - they're like one big store with dividers between major sections. I wasn't going to buy much, but it would be fun to see all of the different figures and models.

The ever popular Once Piece toys display.

UFO catchers.

Gundam models and the odd looking Cthulu-ish Osaka Expo mascot.

Space Godzilla action figure.

I forget this old school giant robot series name as I've never watched it.

Mazinger or Mazinkaiser action figures, including the evil general.

Sunrise World Tokyo Giant Robos Art exhibit was right next to the Namco Cross. It is a small shop with some tightly packed displays and art work.

More classic giant robots.

All of the robots from the Sunrise company robot anime shows.

A cabinet full of toys from their series. Some of these are old and I even have a few of them.

Cowboy Bebop!

After all of this it was time to get some lunch. Down in the basement of Sunshine City there was a Tenya Tendon restaurant so we had that for lunch.

Tenya food displays.

My seasonal seafood tendon bowl lunch set.

We headed to the Animate flagship store after this and looked around the area, which is a very busy entertainment area as it is close to Ikebukuro Station.

These neat little work pods you can rent by the hour in the train station - they have power outlets and air conditioning.

Metropolitan Expressway Route No.5 Ikebukuro Line. Sunshine City is right next to it.

You can step outside at Sunshine City on the floor with the anime stores and you can be eye to eye with the expressway.

This is Tokyo Anime Station. When there is an exhibit on it might be worth a visit if you are interested in the show or topic. There are few of these anime promotional event spaces now in Tokyo. There is the Anime Center at DNP Plaza in Shibuya, and another at the Creative Museum Tokyo on the Yaesu side of Tokyo Station. All could be visited if there is an exhibition on. When I was there it was a dead zone for all three, so I never went to any of them - my bad timing.

Anime Tokyo Station.

Train Car display at Anime Tokyo Station.

The Animate flagship store.

It is huge, and full of anime merchandise, but feels sparsely filled on some floors. There just isn't enough merchandise to fill the space or you can say it is roomy and cooler than being tightly packed into some building in Akihabara.

The Animate shopkeeper.

BanG Dream! Ave Mujica Fancy Standup Display?

Jujutsu Kaisen merchandise.

Sakamoto Days stuff.

Persona 3.

Apothecary Diaries. I was surprised at the limited amount of merchandise for this show considering how popular it is!

After Animate it was time to head over to see this big Daiso at Ikebukuro Station on the 6th floor of the Tobu Department store. It a massive Daiso section that sprawls over most of a floor! There are always some stationary or widgets you can look for along with all kinds of travel supplies or crafting items.

The Daiso.

Plenty of scissors and craft blades here!

This fruits was in the basement of the Tobu store. Nice looking strawberries.

After this it was back to Tokyo Station for dinner and an exploration of Tokyo Station Character Street and Okashi Land. These are located at Tokyo Station's Yaesu side underground mall and the level above it are amazing places to shop for unique food souvenirs or just pastries, cookies, and fun stuff to bring home. Plenty of Japanese people pass through here and need to bring gifts back home for friend, co-workers, family, etc. So it is a mecca for these kinds of goods. Be sure to check it out if you have time.

Kudan Ikaruga Ramen at Tokyo Station Ramen Street. We had their Rich Tokyo Station Ramen that is a #1 seller for them.

Time for ramen again with the tasty savoury broth, soy marinated eggs that are slightly gooey, and big pieces of bamboo shoot, and slices of pork belly. This was a pretty tasty ramen at Kudan Ikaruga. They didn't have much of a lineup as we were off of the main dinner hour.

Tokyo Station #1 Ramen.

There are tons of shops in the basement level of Tokyo Station on the east side or Yaesu side. This is where Character Street is and also Okashi Land for buying pastries, snacks, and other food souvenirs.

That looks decadent.

Kirby Store

Mofuland cat at Mofuland store. This was super popular with shoppers.

The Pokemon Store is actually upstairs from Character Street, but it is well marked as you can see from the stairwell.

Tokyo Station Pokemon Store with Conductor Pikachu!

Souvenir cookie display and center piece to the store.

Train conductor pikachu greets you in the store by a pile of cookie gift sets.

More starter pokemon who look like they are ready to travel with you. They are perched on luggage!

Lots of Train Conductor Pikachu

Massive set of Pokemon Plushies for sale. What's your favourite?

Kamen Rider store for fans.

Ultraman Store.

This was a cool little Ghibli-type store devoted to Porco Rosso with the interior looking like a hangar.

Jump Shop and Sakamoto Days anime.

Okashi Land for food souvenirs is adjacent to Character Street and near Ramen Street which are all in the basement. When I say basement it looks like a bustling, well lit mall. If you didn't know you were in a basement, you would think you were in a regular mall.