Senpai characters’ popularity is sky-rocketing.

She transformed into cool Ranmaru!
Maybe I will try to be Rei-chan or Camus…

Tiger&Bunny section.

Hetalia goods.

Magi is rapidly gaining in popularity with starting the TV anime series.

Current hottest genre, Kuroko’s Basketball section.

Other manga goods from Weekly Shonen Jump.

Hakuouki section♡

Do you know about this? A popular otome game “Hiiro no Kakera (緋色の欠片).”

Starry Sky.

The biggest section in the girls’ floor is for Uta no Prince-sama!

I want to this one! Sho-chan’s earphone jack for iPhone.

SO MANY MANY UTAPRI POSTERS!!!

Let’s take selective buying at Yaoi manga section♪

Kyaaaaa!! How kawaii boys!!! I decided buying this one♡

Umm… this one looks nice as well…

Animate staff’s recommendation message helps us.

Actually I love “Megane Danshi (眼鏡男子; boys with eyeglasses)”… so this one should be nice…

Fumu fumu… “Ao Haru Ride” is current popular shōjo manga.

★Today’s catch at Animate Akihabara

Yaoi manga “RUSH!” by Aoi Hashimoto, and “Katakoi Sokuhou” by Mayami!

↓ “RUSH!”

↓ “Katakou Sokuhou”

Akihabara Saturday night.

Here it is! Kotobukiya Akihabara!

At the entrance of Kotobukiya, THE IDOLM@ATER Nendoroid Petit was sold today. This is really popular series, I have them as well. You can buy this nendoroids one by one, but I recommend “Hako-gai (箱買い; buying it by the boxload)” if you complete them.

THE IDOLM@STER’s plastic figures and K-On!’s nendoroids. Kawaii!!!

(´・ω・`) Shobon (ショボーン), the most famous Japanese emoticon goods are popular with young girls and people overseas.

Do you know about ┌（┌ ＾o＾）┐? This is one of Japanese emoticon “Homoo (ホモォ).” Homoo means Fujoshi who want to Yaoi. Absolutely about me. LOL

Nameko is recent trend character in Japan. Is this kawaii…?

Nendoroids are very very popular.

On the girls floor, so many new goods have hit the streets.

Creamy Mami, the Magic Angel! When I was little, I loved her.

Rilakkuma is popular with girls all over the world!

Utapri section remain perennial favorites.

Guess what!!! The number of Kuroko’s Basketball goods are rapidly increasing!

Alibaba and Ren Kougyoku from Magi

Sogo Okita from Gintama. SO CUTE!!!

Gintoki and Hijikata

Kamui and Takasugi from Gintama. They are full sisters and well known as cosplayers and artists. Their website is here!

Shiraishi and Oshitari from The Prince of Tennis.

Shura and Yukio from Blue Exorcist

Pokemon Red and Green (and Pikachu ^^*)

Recently, Kuroko’s basketball is a trend in cosplay world.

Kise and Aomine

Kise and Kuroko. This two characters are the most popular with cosplay girls.

Tekken and Taro from “Kyutikuru Tantei Inaba (キューティクル探偵因幡)”

Uta no Prince-sama is the most popular!!!

Mother-doughter cosplay! How amazing!

　
★撮影させていただいたみなさま、ありがとうございました！

The Chuo street in Akihabara (秋葉原中央通り) is a “pedestrians’ paradise” every Sunday.

Kotobukiya Akihabara is within easy reach of the Akihabara Station.
Let’s hurry inside!

Girls’ section is on the second floor.

Ah, Creamy Mami’s keyboard! That takes me back.

Utapri section is most popular. Personally, I want to Satsuki Shinomiya’s cushion. I do love meany character♡

Utapri trading card.

Mini cushion. Otoya kawaii!

The Prince of Tennis section. Japanese girls love “prince”!

And everything else.

　
★Shop data
Kotobukiya Akihabara (コトブキヤ秋葉原館)
TEL: +81-3-5298-6300
1-8-8 Sotokanda Chiyoda-ku Tokyo 101-0021 JAPAN
Official Website: kotobukiya.co.jp

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This is it! Let’s hurry inside!

What you can see in Animate at first is “otaku souvenirs.”

Let’s go up to the floor for girls.

Found Kumamate at girls’ floor. You can play dress-up with teddy bears. These bears were sold out last time! At this time, I got full range of bears!

A thousand of anime and manga goods… I’ll not get bored looking at the shop until morning.

Commercial Manga and Books section. There are so many kawaii yaoi manga that I can’t decide what to buy! I think that yaoi manga artists have great skill in painting.

Of course you can find “not yaoi” at Animate.

Today’s catch at Animate Akihabara
Kumamate with Case Closed and Uta no Prince-sama’s costumes, and three commercial yaoi manga! All of these manga are really nice! Especially “Best Ending? (ベストエンディング？)” by Junta Mio (三尾じゅん太) is so cute. I became huge fan of this manga artist!

Danbo arrangement contest was held. Danbo from “Yotsuba&! (よつばと！)” is recent hot character.

The staple for figures, Rei and Asuka from Evangelion.

Petit Sengoku BASARA (戦国BASARA). Which character do you like the best?

There are various kinds of Nandoroid.

BLEACH! This Ichigo Kurosaki is so cool.

You can buy anime character’s outfit for dolls!

Tiger&Bunny section. T&B goods are popular with girls.

WAHHHH! My favorite, Kamui from Gintama (銀魂)! I hope the new season of Gintama anime to start…

Found the figures of Tales of Vesperia. Kotobukiya has started to accept orders for Flynn Scifo figure.

Weekly Jump goods section. Gintama is popular!

Akira from Togainu no Chi (咎狗の血). Aww I love this!!!

Petit Hakuōki (薄桜鬼) characters.

Uta no Prince-sama (うたの☆プリンスさまっ♪) is the hottest topic here too.

Many fans leave the messages for Tokiya Ichinose’s birthday on Augusut 6.

Relakkuma (リラックマ) section. Rilakkuma is a longtime seller.

★Shop data
Kotobukiya Akihabara (コトブキヤ秋葉原館)
TEL: +81-3-5298-6300
1-8-8 Sotokanda Chiyoda-ku Tokyo 101-0021 JAPAN
Official Website: kotobukiya.co.jp

View larger map

The current hot topic is Uta no Prince-sama (うたの☆プリンスさまっ♪). The special campaign is being conducted to mark the release of the new character song CD “Shining All Star CD.”

In front of the cash register is also completely full up with Utapri!

Utapri characters’ cookies. Is Len Jinguji the most popular?

The school seal accessory. Kawaii!

OH! Keigo Atobe (跡部景吾), the popular character of the Prince of Tennis (テニスの王子様) is picking up girls!
“俺様の美技に酔いな！ (Be awed at the sight of my prowess!)”

Unfortunately the anime of Gintama (銀魂) ended, but it is still very popular.

So many character goods are here…

Now we focus our eyes to manga for Otome & Yaoi fans.

Recently, Kuroko’s Basketball (黒子のバスケ) is hot.

One of the big bestseller, “Junjo Romantica (純情ロマンチカ) series” has won enthusiastic support from many fans as a leading manga of Yaoi category over the past 10 years. The author, Shungiku Nakamura (中村春菊)’s other manga are very popular as well, especially “Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi (世界一初恋)” is recent hottest one. It is partly linked “Junjo Romantica.”

Shungiku Nakamura’s illustrations are really attractive.

Today, my interest was “Iyayo Yameteyo (いやよやめてよ).” The author, Lalako Kojima (小嶋ララ子) is a new yaoi manga artist, but her illustrations are very pretty and the story also looks interesting. You can see her blog here. >> mim.vivian.discotica

These days you can often spot “Shirokuma Cafe (しろくまカフェ)” as well. (This is not yaoi manga!)

The anime has been on the air since April.

I found very very cute cosplay bears, “Kumamate (くまめいと)”! You can dress the bears in your favorite anime character’s costumes. The bears and costumes both are for about 800 yen. I wanted to buy a bear and Utapri’s costume, but bears are sold out because it is now becoming popular. What a pity!

K-On! (けいおん！) cosplayed black bear.

Nintama Rantaro (忍たま乱太郎). I could see only black colored bears, but there are other colored bears.

WOW! Various costumes! OHH I REALLY WANT THE BEAR!!!

Kumamate Official Website: くまめいと (Japanese only)

For your information, you can get your costumes in Animate Akihabara as well.

Recently, Tokyo has been exceptionally hot, as is to be expected in these days. It was really hot today. So I thought that I was going to get burned while waiting for the truck to come, and about 30 minute after, I found the truck with relief.

The famous meeting spot at Shibuya, Hachiko’s statue.

An iconic fashion playground for women all around the world, Shibuya 109.

Shibuya Center-gai (渋谷センター街) has various shops for young people.

300 yen shop “3COINS” is very popular with young girls. You can buy all kinds of different things including stylish eating utensils and cute general merchandise for only 300 yen in the shop.

Otaku shop “Mandarake (まんだらけ).” Dojinshi and collective products are there.

ｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━ !!!!!
OHHH! Finally! I found the truck!

I like this picture♡♡♡

Uta no prince-sama’s new CD, “Shining All Star CD” is now on sale! You can buy it on Amazon.

My university was in Ikebukuro and I used to live there few years ago, so this town is an adopted hometown for me. Stylish and sophisticated towns in Tokyo like Omotesando (表参道) and Roppongi (六本木) are good, but this chaotic atmosphere is exactly “TOKYO.”

　　
Platform of JR Ikebukuro Station. This station is the giant hub of several major railway lines, including the JR Lines, Tokyo Metro, Tobu Tojyo Line (東武東上線) and Seibu Ikebukuro Line (西武池袋線). Almost 2.7 million passengers get on and off here every day, and it is the second only to Shinjuku (新宿) in the world.

The underground of Ikebukuro station is just like a huge maze. My friends said that it is the most labyrinthian station in Tokyo.

Found a big advertisement of Uta no Prince-sama! SO COOL!

There are many exits at Ikebukuro Station. East exit is for otaku places.

Two big department stores at Ikebukuro. Seibu Department store (西武百貨店) is at the east exit, and Tobu Department store (東武百貨店) is at the west exit. This location is one of the source of confusions in Ikebukuro maze. (“西” means west, and “東” means east)

Sunshine 60 Street (サンシャイン60通り), the most heavily traveled spot in the city.

You can see the symbol of Ikebukuro, Sunshine 60 (サンシャイン60) after the Sunshine 60 Street.

Namco Namja Town (ナムコナンジャタウン) is in the building. This entertainment park holds several anime events, and now is Kuroko’s Basketball fair.

Otome Road (乙女ロード) is located to the west of the Sunshine 60 building. The name is derived from a dense grouping of shops that specialize in Otome-kei (乙女系) (otaku girls who like ikemen characters) merchandise, all on one side of a roughly 200 meter corridor.

Animate Ikebukuro is the entrance of Otome Road, and several shops are here.

Found that my favorite dojin artist Shiro Yamada (山田シロ) draw the nameboard of K BOOKS! I did not know that! Kawaii!!

There are cosplay shops as well. You can get both new and secondhand.

I recommend this Wig Shop Maple for cosplay beginners, because the staffs are very kind and you can try all of wigs and costumes up to two times. (*This shop is a bit off from Otome Road)

★Shop data
WIG SHOP MAPLE
TEL: +81-3-3982-5129
3-5-7-101 Higashiikebukuro Toshima-ku Tokyo 170-0013 JAPAN
Official Website: www.maple-wig.com (Japanese)

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P.S. Found Musubimaru, the character of Sendai at the satellite store of Miyagi. Kawaii?