Tokyo Guide for Gunpla fans (2): Akihabara
Quick list for Gunpla/Plastic kits hunting in Akihabara:
4F — AmiAmi
6F — Yellow Submarine
8F — Volks
Radio Kaikan is basically an entire building packed with otaku merchandise. These are the main stores for plastic models and Gunpla. That said, just like everywhere else in Japan right now, Gunpla availability fluctuates heavily depending on timing, and popular new releases tend to disappear almost immediately. Most stores sell at or near MSRP, although AmiAmi sometimes offers surprisingly steep discounts.
Yodobashi Camera Multimedia Akiba - 6F
If you simply want the easiest and most reliable place to buy brand-new Gunpla in Akihabara, this is probably your best bet. Everything is sold at MSRP, and you generally will not find especially rare kits there — anything highly sought-after tends to sell out immediately — but Bandai’s regular mass-market releases are usually stocked in fairly large quantities.
Trader Akiba - 4F
For a secondhand shop, their pricing is actually reasonable. You can occasionally find kits there that are genuinely hard to spot anywhere else.
This place feels almost like a tiny back-alley antique dealer. Brand-new kits are often discounted quite aggressively. Try heading up to the second floor as well — the extremely narrow staircase looks like it’s about to collapse.
Decent enough selection for a secondhand shop, but has a reputation for fairly high prices, so opinions are mixed.
Mandarake Complex 6F–8F
Mandarake is a nationwide chain specializing in used otaku goods, and the Akihabara store is probably the best known alongside the Nakano branch. That said, their used Gunpla prices can be extremely high. Their manga selection, on the other hand, sometimes contains genuinely incredible finds.
Hobby Shop TamTam - 4F
New products only.
Volks Akihabara Hobby Paradise 2
Also new products only. Volks is a long-established company and is widely respected among serious Japanese modelers and garage-kit sculptors as a reliable source for tools and paints. In recent years, they have also moved into plastic model production themselves and are the company behind Five Star Stories kits. Since the store does not attract many tourists, you can sometimes get lucky and find popular Gunpla kits still on the shelves.
