There is something unexpectedly beautiful about arriving at Kamakura-Koko-Mae Station. The train slows beside the coast, the blue water of Sagami Bay appears beyond the tracks, and for a moment it feels as though you have stepped into a scene from a Japanese anime. For fans of Slam Dunk, that feeling is particularly strong. The … Read more
At 1am in Kabukicho, hitting baseballs probably isn’t the first Tokyo experience most people expect to find. Yet behind the bars, neon signs, karaoke rooms and late-night restaurants of Shinjuku sits a batting centre that has been doing exactly that since 1978. Shinjuku Batting Center stays open until 4am. You don’t need to book. You … Read more
If you type Super Potato into a Tokyo itinerary, the next question usually comes quickly: Which one should you actually visit? Akihabara is the famous answer. It’s the branch that appears in travel videos, retro gaming guides and photographs of shelves packed with old Famicom cartridges. It occupies several floors and finishes with a retro … Read more
There are easier places in Tokyo to buy a video game. There are probably cheaper places too. Yet Super Potato remains one of the stores people remember long after leaving Akihabara. Part of that is the stock. Shelves are packed with old Famicom cartridges, Game Boys, Sega hardware, PlayStation games and systems that many visitors … Read more
Super Potato is one of those names that comes up almost immediately when you start looking for retro games in Tokyo. Usually, people mean the famous Akihabara shop. That’s understandable. The Akihabara branch is larger, spread across multiple floors and has become an attraction in its own right. But Super Potato also has a store … Read more
There are plenty of places in Akihabara where you can buy an old Game Boy. MOD TOKYO lets you take one apart. For around two hours, you’re given a genuine vintage Nintendo handheld, a set of tools and a choice of replacement parts. You open the console, remove the old hardware, choose a new shell … Read more
Tokyo has Disney resorts, observation decks, digital-art museums and enormous arcades. Joypolis doesn’t quite fit into any of those categories. It’s a three-floor indoor amusement park in Odaiba where a roller coaster runs through a building, two people can compete on a giant spinning halfpipe, Sonic has his own physical challenge, and attractions based on … Read more
Tokyo is getting another anime experience in October, but this one is difficult to put into the usual categories. Animmersive Live: LAYRA inspired by BELLE isn’t an exhibition, movie screening or conventional stage musical. Instead, it takes the virtual world of Mamoru Hosoda’s anime film BELLE and attempts to turn it into a real live … Read more