Nakano Broadway

Nakano Broadway is a 1966 shopping centre that became the second-hand capital of Tokyo. Four floors above a supermarket hold collectors' shops end to end, and thirty-two of those doors say Mandarake: not branches of one shop but one shop split into specialised units, each with its own name, its own counter and its own prices. Nothing on the doors explains the system, so read the building by floor rather than by name — comics and the main store on 3F, vintage toys, dolls and the older stock on 4F, cards, micro models, cosplay and the numbered Special halls on 2F, with Mon at street level as the way in. The Specials are annexes for manga and doujinshi, numbered 1 to 9 and scattered across three floors rather than sitting together. Around them are dealers the building is worth the trip for on their own: model railways, figures, trading cards and cels, and the zine shop Taco Ché. Everything opens at 12:00 and closes at 20:00, every day of the year — and the Mandarake buying counter on 3F stops taking items at 19:30, which is the one time that catches people out.