March 2025 Japan Trip

Posted on April 20, 2025

Last month, I took my first trip to Japan. It was a one-week solo trip following a two-week business trip in Hong Kong, and it was a lot of fun! There weren't any specific events I needed to schedule my trip around, so I decided my goals were to visit the locations featured in the Yakuza series and to acquire lots of Japan-exclusive merch. I've compiled many random thoughts below:

Day 1:

• I messed up and took the rapid JR train from KIX to Osaka instead of the Haruka Express. It was cheaper but it took almost twice as long—oops.
• Dotonbori was fun. Sotenbori is a pretty faithful recreation of it; many of the storefronts and displays in game did exist in real life, there really were lots of boats going down the river, and there were often performers on the west bridge. I wonder if locals think of it similar to how NYC locals think of Times Square (i.e. as a crowded tourist trap to avoid).
• I encountered cute girls advertising for girls bars for the first time. It felt bad ignoring them at first, but I quickly got used to it after the 20th approach.
• Osaka Castle at night looks great. I didn't get to go inside since they were closed, but I probably didn't miss out on much.

Day 2:

• I took the wrong subway train to Kyoto. I thought I was on a Sakaisuji train headed in the right direction, but the train converted into a Hankyu train headed somewhere that wasn't Kyoto. At least I figured out my train was not headed to Kyoto after it had left the expected route for like 3 stops.
• I didn't find the Kyoto International Manga Museum very interesting. It seemed like most people there were locals borrowing from the manga library. There wasn't much "museumy" stuff to look at.
• Fushimi Inari was great. Climbing Mt. Inari was also good, except for the fact that the peak has no view. But the peak is only 20 minutes away from the last "good view" on the mountain, so you basically have to do it for the sense of pride and accomplishment.
• Got daikichi from my first omikuji. Not bad. Probably never doing this again.
• My return trip to Osaka from Kyoto was long. Trains were delayed due to an injury on the tracks, and a train with an unexpected terminus arrived on my platform. I had to ask someone if it stopped at Shin-Osaka because I was paranoid after my mistake in the morning.
• I wandered around in Den Den Town but all the stores were already closed. I'll have to properly check it out while the stores are open next time.

Day 3:

• I took the Nozomi Shinkansen to Tokyo. To be honest it didn't feel all that different from Amtrak—sure, the Shinkansen runs more frequently and moves faster but the feeling of actually being on the train with an assigned seat felt the same. I was initially confused about the lack of ticket checks, but apparently they have some interface to check the currently occupied seats against the set of actually reserved seats, and will only stop by if there's a mismatch?
• I explored Kabukicho since my hotel was right in the middle of it. Kamurocho feels like a less accurate rendition of Kabukicho when compared against Sotenburi vs Dotonbori—while the road layouts were similar, store placements didn't match. Maybe the batting cages are in the same place? Also the Golden Gai area (the Champions District in game) is not actually inside Kabukicho.
• There were even more people here advertising girls bars than Dotonbori, but I was already used to ignoring them.
• I explored Nakano Broadway for a few hours and was pretty bored. It feels like 60% of the stores in there are just Mandarake? Which is fine, but it means that the individual stores are pretty specialized (e.g. there was one Mandarake with only yaoi stuff) so it was quick to go through them. In retrospect, I didn't spend enough time in the Namco arcade; I just got sad seeing all the UFO catchers on the first floor and didn't bother going upstairs. I was unable to find merch for anything that came out in the 2000s/2010s, and I couldn't find anything for newer IPs either—I guess if you want stuff from pre-90s anime (or cels) or secondhand figurines it's maybe decent?
• Specifically, I was focused on buying goods like keychains and shirts and was not interested in most figures (especially prize figures). I also wasn't interested in any physical media like books and games that I would need a translation for.

Day 4:

• I spent the day exploring Akihabara and found a lot more variety in merch. I didn't have time to explore the less popular stores, but still found a lot of stuff in Radio Kaikan, AmiAmi, Animate, Kotobukiya, etc.
• I spent money on gashapon for the first time to get an Armored Core keychain in Kotobukiya.
• I ended up buying a Mona Figma from AmiAmi. I was also tempted to get the Fischl scale figure but I didn't think it would fit in my luggage. I saw a secondhand Lumine Nendoroid for over 10k yen and was pretty surprised at how rare and expensive she was.
• I stopped by a couple of GiGOs but continued to be depressed by the ubiquity of UFO catchers. Next time I need to do more research to figure out what arcades have what, since even arcades that have games that I'm interested in will still only have UFO catchers for the first few floors. Blindly searching is just too inefficient.
• Somehow I was not able to find a single Genshin gashapon machine until I stopped by Melonbooks, which had 6 different ones. I still don't understand why they're so rare.

Day 5:

• I spent the morning in Ikebukuro. The flagship Animate was decent. I'm surprised that the Akiba Animate had such a different selection from the Ikebukuro Animate; I prefer the Akiba one.
• I walked down Otome Road but didn't enter any stores (for obvious reasons). I was a little surprised at how short the road was; felt like it was only five stores long.
• Apparently there is a K-Books here that sells Yakuza merch? I wasn't aware of this at the time; I'll have to visit next time.
• I didn't find Sunshine City to be very interesting. I checked out the Pokemon Center which was within expectations.
• I spent the afternoon in Shibuya and accidentally found myself in the Shibuya Pokemon Center after exploring more of the Parco mall (I was mainly there to buy Armored Core merch from TORCH TORCH).
• Not really sure why I did it, but I went through all the floors of Shibuya 109. That was a waste of time.
• I finally found nontrivial amounts of MTG cards at the Shibuya Hareruya. They've got an interesting "original pack" system where you can buy a set of 15 rares and a voucher for a S/A/B ranked card from a display case. I didn't try this (maybe I should next time); I just bought a bunch of JP alternate art singles.

Day 6:

• I spent the day being social in Akiba; this was the only non-solo day of the trip.
• I didn't realize that arcade cards were standardized across Konami/Bandai Namco/etc since 2018, so I bought a new AIME card before realizing my existing e-Amusement card would still work.
• The Idolmaster TOURS game was alright. I don't like the slider inputs and the flippable switches also seemed unnecessary.
• I played the Kancolle arcade game. This was pretty fun; why couldn't they have improved the DMM game to be like this?
• Unlimited soft drinks at Karaoke Manekineko was pretty nice. I wish that and JoySound availability was a thing in the US.

Day 7:

• I stopped by Isezakicho, Yokohama to compare against Isezaki Ijincho. While there were lots of landmarks that lined up in real life vs in game, the street layout felt the least familiar. For example, Yamashita Park was basically identical to the Hamakita park in game, but I had to walk quite a while to get there from Chinatown. There's also this entire baseball stadium on the way from the Kannai station to Chinatown that's not depicted in game.
• I explored Shibuya some more, this time Miyashita Park. The anti-loitering sound producing "mosquito" machines are really annoying and all over Shibuya (mostly around mall entrances and subway stations). The sound would give me headaches every time, and I'm not sure why I didn't see others react similarly. Maybe the locals are just used to it?

Day 8:

• I took the airport limousine bus to HND. Apparently you're supposed to pre-book and get a QR code? Seems like everyone else did that, though I was able to pay in cash just fine. This was pretty convenient.
• I was hoping to load all my spare change onto my IC card at the airport, but none of the machines I found at HND took coins. Unlucky.

Miscellaneous thoughts:

• The lack of public trash cans is pretty annoying.
• Bidets and heated toilet seats are very good.
• I wish jaywalking was slightly more common; 0 jaywalking ever doesn't seem optimal.
• Pretty sad that only iPhones and Japanese Android phones can be used as IC cards. I should look into the Pixel Osaifu Keitai hack, but I don't have high hopes since I need to keep my phone unrooted for work.
• There really is not much video game merch for sale, and it's almost all in Akiba.
• Vtubers continue to be huge and I continue to be uninterested.
• Numbered exits and subway cars are very helpful, especially when integrated with Google Maps.
• It's definitely optimal when shopping to take the elevator to the top floor and work downwards, but I prefer starting from the bottom and going up to get a little exercise.
• Consuming lots of Japanese media via anime and video games does not prepare you for many common tourist conversations, such as "would you like a bag" or "can I buy this tax-free."

Thoughts for future trips:

• Get a debit card that minimizes FX fees for ATM withdrawals—the Fidelity card is probably good.
• Visit a maid cafe.
• Eat Famichiki.
• Explore Den Den Town while stores are open.
• Acquire a limited time amusement IC card (apparently it is very easy to transfer existing accounts onto new cards).
• Use zenius-i-vanisher to plan arcade visits in advance.