Finally I’m not being lazy and writing the entry about Otome Road at Ikebukuro, Japan.
First off, guides that I used to get me there were: Dark Mirage’s and ochanomu’s.
Otome Road is the Yaoi/Boy’s Love central for female otakus in Tokyo.
Although, not everything is about BL, a large portion of goods found in stores cater towards such an audience: fujoshis!!.
First, we have to get to Ikebukuro!
Take the Yamanote Line (The light green one) to Ikebukuro station or take to JR station and get off at Ikebukuro and head to sunshine city.
[[Click here for subway map if you need it~]]
I took metro, so directions here are from metro station.
Follow the signs and exit out of the East exit.
Alternatively, look for signs saying “To Sunshine”
If you have exited wrongly (like me!), don’t panic.
As long as you know the exit heads towards Sunshine, you should be fine!
Head out of the station, if you see 2 BIG camera stores, head for the one that looks like this:
Follow along this road and follow directions heading to “Sunshine building”
Follow it!
You will reach a crossing with Lotteria:
From Lotteria you want to continue walking straight all the way!
Walk pass Sanrio gift gate,
You are on the right track!
Continue straight!
Forward forward!
Pass Tokyu hands:
A bit more!
You will come to another crossing after walking past Tokyu hands.
As you can see, Toyota Amlux building is directly opposite you.
This is towards the start of the Otome Road !
When Ochanomu mentions in his/her guide that there is a “highway bridge” above your head, this is the place!
Cross the street and head towards the Toyota store.
On your right, you should see Family Mart some what near.
Walk pass Family Mart and TURN left
What you see when you turn left!
Edited pic for clearer instructions:
Head straight down after you turn, and you will find the very first marker of Otome Road, the Animate building!
Oh my~!
This is the main branch of Animate, so even non-BL fans can go into this building.
It’s actually very safe (even for guys who hate yaoi!) haha.
I spent hours and hours here~!
Next to the Animate building is Sunshine city.
I didn’t go in.
But my brothers and parents went into Namco’s Namja Town.
It is a theme park located inside Sunshine city.
There’s all sorts of things to do inside apparently, but my brothers are not anime-fans so they didn’t know about the characters and such inside.
My elder brother however took flyers for me for the 2 cafes he passed by.
Bleach cafe and Kuroshitsuji cafe!!
My mum apparently went to the Bleach cafe to get a Kon-inspired dessert because they looked pitiful. (Everyone went to the Kuroshitsuji one! Haha)
I would want to visit it sometime! The food looks really good!
There are cakes, sundaes, ramen and what not all with Kuroshitsuji themes / characters!
(*___*)
However, I’m not sure if the cafes change every time. So hopefully it will still be there when I go back (T_T)
Anyways enough about Sunshine City! I can’t write about it much anyway since I didn’t go there this time.
However, besides the theme park, there is a lot of shopping outlets there!
Your family or friends not interested in anime can hang around in that building while you walk around Otome Road~ !
Back to Otome Road!
By the time I got out of Animate, I was dizzy with happiness + it was late.
So I didn’t take photos of how to get to the other stores.
What I did was walk around quite aimlessly! I think all I did is walk straight frankly.
At Dark Mirage’s page, if you read through all of it, you will find a link in their to a map!
So, walking down:
It’s Lashinban! 2nd hand store! with some first-hand items too~
Find character goods, DVDs, games etc~!
Lashinban!
You will also find K-books stores.
Go into one of the stores, and you can get flyers ~
Flyers for cosplay news, Swallowtail butler cafe and directions to the other K-books stores.
The various K-books stores are all near each other~
So it won’t be too hard to find~
I only took pictures of K-books Cosplay store and their dollfie store
If you are a J-rock fan, Brand X is located next to the cosplay branch! :D
I went in to get some J-rock flyers~
There’s photographs and autographs of popular J-rock bands inside there too.
Makes it worth while to check it out!
At the cosplay store, all I bought was a second wig cap for 500yen haha.
I wasn’t there for costumes anyway! :P
You can also get wigs in there too~
As you move forward, you want to cross over to Mandarake and K-books Doll store !
To go to Mandarake, you take the stairs down to the basement.
K-books doll store is on the street level.
I went to the doll store first and spent hours there.
It’s a 2nd hand store for BJDs.
The prices are a steal for some !
You have to be patient and find those treasures though.
Volks sets are much cheaper here then getting them 2nd hand on DoA’s marketplace!
They group clothes according to sizes~!
Before making purchase, the saleslady will take out the pieces in their packing for you to check.
There are no refunds so you must be satisifed with the condition of these outfits.
They sell clothes, shoes and wigs ~ But no dolls!
Although there are doll displays in the store. Please do not touch them though!
If you are looking to buy 2nd hand dolls, sometimes stores like Lashinban/K-books will have them in their display cases~!
Mandarake is a doujin and manga store FILLED with yaoi and shounen-ai books! (Also games and audio CDs!)
It’s practically heaven haha.
It would be good if you know the japanese characters of your favourite mangaka, so you can go to search in the shelves or ask a sales assistant about it.
I’m not a hardcore BL fan, but I desperately wanted to buy something haha, so I lingered in this store for very long trying to find something haha.
But I didn’t get any manga in the end and purchased 2 yaoi doujins. A Kuroshitsuji one (I got the last copy! Phew!) and a Sengoku Basara one haha.
The Naruto section was HUGE. They even labeled it with “Sasuke Seme” or “Naruto Seme” dividers for convenience.
And that’s about it~!
It was super late when I came out of Mandarake so I decided to go back to the hotel~
These were my gets!:
Isn’t alot because I blew a lot of $$$ on gyaru clothes haha (^_^);;
Mii-chan~!
About this, I bought it to support Mii-chan at Animate and it came with a hand-shake fan event ticket (T^T)
However, I wasn’t able to make it cause I wouldn’t be in Japan then (T___T)
*super sad*
Hope I’ll have better luck next time~~!!
If you need more help and info about Otome Road, you can also check Xandria’s store guide and information~!
Hope I’ve helped in your fujoshi adventures in Tokyo~ (^_^)
parfait prince ♔ 