The Kanda Book district in Tokyo isn’t really near Kanda station but rather Jimbocho. Unlike more trendier areas like Omotesando, Shibuya and even Akihabara, this area has remained rather unscathed and unchanged for as long as I can remember (20yrs being in Tokyo). It’s not as lively as it once was and I have noticed that most of the shops don’t open on Sunday’s anymore and even close early on weekdays. A while back, I loved coming here and spending a whole day browsing used books and memorabilia in some of the more obscure shops but since the proliferation of bigger bookstores here and here, and Amazon of course, I don’t really make the trip out here anymore. Today, I wanted to visit the Fitness shop and decided to do the rounds to some of the shops I liked. The picture above is not one of the places I frequently visit but is interesting enough to mention here.

You can find this shop on the back street behind the main Yasukuni-Dori heading towards Kanda. This place is truly worth a visit even if you are not into idols or gravure girls. The second floor has a ton of items related to idols (male and female but 90% female) from both current and past generations. The sheer volume of stuff you can find here is mindboggling and everything is meticulously categorized and neatly placed in drawers, shelves. In the window along the side of the shop, they have these life size standup posters that are quite common in Japan. The price averages from 15,000 to 30,000yen.

If you go out exit A6 of Jimbocho station and head along Yasukuni-Dori towards Shinjuku you’ll pass both these shops which are my personal favorites (1)(2) This building, called “Kanda Kosho Center”, is distinguishable by the elevator shaft you can see at the front of the building. It is actually a bunch of shops. There are nine floors, a different type of bookshop on each floor. Of particular interest are the shops on the 2nd and 7th floor. On the second floor is a nice used manga shop. They sometimes have some rare items I’ve never seen elsewhere and all their books are usually in very good condition. There’s a pretty retro curry shop in the back too. The 7th floor shop is a movie memorabilia shop that sells all kinds of movie pamphlets and posters. Definite place to visit if you are looking for a Japanese version movie poster of your favorite film. Beside the movie related things, this shop is full of all kinds of junk like used train tickets and old photos from normal people’s photo albums from 100years ago. I spent a whole day in here once just looking at stuff. Be careful about wandering up to the 9th floor by accident. You may be shocked by the porno bookshop and all the toys they sell there. Also, in the back of the 8th floor, there is a shop devoted to Russia. Not just books but music and toys as well. You can’t go to Kanda without paying a visit to this building (3)(4) Kitazawa is a scholarly English bookstore that has one of the best selections of literature and books on various subjects like philosophy, psychology, sociology, linguistics etc. The store resembles a library rather than a bookstore and I often spend hours here browsing.

The Shosen Grande at the main intersection looks like a normal bookstore, but is actually the Otaku’s all in one bookstore. The sign hanging from the front of the building shows you what genre is on each floor. The 2nd floor is almost devoted totally to idol photo books and the 3rd floor is all manga and anime. In B1 they have tons of books about cars and trains and photography and role playing games and…well I could go on and on.

Finally, a visit to this area is not complete without having a chicken katsu at Kitchen Nankai. There are Kitchen Nankai restaurants in other places but this one is the best. It is always crowded and you almost always have to line up along the back wall. Even when other restaurants are totally empty, this place is always filled with hungry book lovers.