Japan: Day Seven – Nakano Broadway

The sign “Chuo Line (Limited Express)” points straight. The sign “Chuo Line (Rapid)” points right. Looking around, not a route map to be seen… I am at Shinjuku station, the busiest train station in the world and I am on my way to search for the fabled Nakano Broadway, a secret gathering of shops selling otaku merchandizes located just a short way from Nakano Station on the JR Chuo Line. The problem is, which Chuo Line?

We picked the limited express and it didn’t take too long to figure out that it was the wrong choice… Oh well, you learn from your mistakes. Or in this case, you learn from my mistake.

Nakano Station

It’s only two quick stops from Shinjuku to Nakano Station. We probably wasted more time getting the right line. Getting out of the train, we walk out of the North Exit and find a fairly normal-looking street. Looking around, I see no indication of where Nakano Broadway might be. The map by the station entrance does not have Nakano Broadway labelled. After looking at the map for a few minutes… nope, it’s still not there. It looks like it’s going to rain soon. This could be harder than I thought.

A fierce-looking police officer turns out to be quite friendly (tsundere!?) and points us in the right direction. Directly in front of the station is a sheltered shoutengai that apparently leads right to Nakano Broadway.

It is a typical Japanese shopping street. Too typical.

It’s not long before we see the entrance to Nakano Broadway. We walk in, expecting to find a mini-Akihabara, but the shops on the first floor look normal. Too normal… That is until we hit the Nakano branch of Asobit City and the otaku radar starts beeping.

Well, it’s smaller than its multi-storey shop fronts in Akiba, but it’s a start.

Of course, this is not what I am here for. Moving on to the third floor, we hit the jackpot: Mandarake.

Mandarake is a chain store that specializes in secondhand manga, collectibles, cels, toys and rare and expensive things you can’t wait to sell your firstborn off for. Mandarake actually takes up half a dozen store fronts on the third and fourth floor and each shop sells items of a certain category (cosplay, used manga, cels, etc.).

It’s times like this that makes you wish that your father was a mutli-billionaire.

zOMG it’s rei!!!11 Besides Mandarake, there are stores for used CD and DVDs, manga, cards, figurines, toys, models, posters, cels, anime scripts and sketches and other cute little things to waste your money away on scattered all around the building. There’s a secondhand CD shop selling a huge stack of first pressing Negima! character CDs with pactio cards for 1500 yen to 3000 yen (original retail price of 800 yen). And to think I paid about 6000 yen on Yahoo Auctions Japan for my copy of Evangline’s CD with card. (Then again, my copy is brand new and unopened :P)

Photography is strictly prohibited. Really.

There’s a doll shop in a corner near Mandarake.

That’s Haruka Suzumiya and Mitsuki Hayase from Kimi ga Nozomu Eien and Sakura Shinguji from Sakura Taisen.

And that’s Sakaki Chiduru from Muv Luv and Sakura Yoshino from Da Capo.

I wanted to pick up a cel from Nadesico or Evangelion while I was there, but the cheapest one I could find cost a nice 10,000 yen (roughly 100 USD). Cels for older and less popular series can go as low as 200 yen to 1000 yen. Complete cells with perfect colouring and matching background drawing from a well-known series can make one’s wallet 40,000 yen lighter (which is not a lot lighter since 10,000 yen notes are not uncommon).

There are also stores dealing with anime character design booklets and episode scripts. Design booklets are made in-house by the main artists working on a series and used to standardize character design across a series. Episode scripts are what the seiyuu get. I wonder what a H-anime script reads like… I ended up buying a huge stack of sketches for the Ichigo 100% anime for 2,500 yen. It’s all photocopied (originals sell for a few more zeroes), but the quality is so clear such that pencil marks still look like pencil marks and the stack is huge. It’s a good source of reference material if you draw (which I may someday get back to doing).

Assuming you stay in Tokyo, the best way to get to Nakano Station is to take the JR Yamanote Line to either Tokyo Station or Shinjuku Station and transfer to JR Chuo Line (Rapid). Akihabara might be good for the latest game releases and figurines, but if you are looking for real collectibles that aren’t mass produced in China, Nakano Broadway is a nice place to visit. Of course, there is a price to be paid for being a collector…

P.S. I am blogging on my bed in front of this.

And xxxHOLIC is on TV as I speak type.