Tokyo

nakano

A building that grew out of a two-tsubo bookshop, and the ground that once held a hundred thousand dogs. Both are north of Nakano Station

Photo Charlie fong / Unsplash

Leave Nakano Station by the north exit and the Sun Mall arcade runs straight ahead, ending at Nakano Broadway, completed in 1966. Mandarake opened on the building's second floor in 1980 as a secondhand bookshop of two tsubo, and from there manga and resale shops filled the upper floors. Northwest of the station, meanwhile, an oddly wide and rectangular tract opens up. From the dog enclosure of the Genroku era to the postwar Police University, this ground was closed to the public for three hundred years. It opened in 2012.

Sightseeing

The Classics

Nakano BroadwayPhoto: ayumi kubo / Unsplash

Nakano Broadway

7min walk

A mixed retail and residential building completed in 1966. Shops occupy the basement through the fourth floor, partitioned small: secondhand manga, figures, watches, vintage clothing. From a two-tsubo secondhand bookshop that opened on the second floor in 1980, shops of this kind filled the upper floors.

💡 The building runs 10:00 to 20:00, but individual shops keep their own hours. Mandarake's Nakano shop does not open until noon, so arriving first thing means finding much of it shut.

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Nakano Sun MallPhoto: Charlie fong / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Nakano Sun Mall

2min walk

A covered shopping street running straight from the north exit of Nakano Station to Nakano Broadway. Walk it to the end and you are inside Broadway's ground floor, having never stepped outside. The tenants are mostly everyday ones — drugstores, places to eat.

💡 Two minutes on foot. It is roofed, so you can reach Broadway without getting wet.

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Nakano Central Park

7min walk

A block opened in 2012 on the redeveloped site of the Police University and its neighbours. Lawn and open space sit among office towers and university campuses, with Nakano Shiki no Mori Park alongside. This is the ground that stayed closed to the public for three hundred years, from the Genroku dog enclosure to the postwar police facilities.

💡 Open at any hour. Seven minutes on foot. One street separates it from the crush of Broadway, and the air changes completely.

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Local Secrets

Tetsugakudo Park

32min walk

A public park in Matsugaoka, Nakano — built from 1904 by the Buddhist philosopher Inoue Enryo, founder of Toyo University, as a place of mental training. Its wooded grounds are scattered with strange halls and gates dedicated to thinkers of East and West, and it is now a nationally designated Place of Scenic Beauty.

💡 9:00–17:00. The halls carry their own names — Tetsurimon, Shiseido, Rokkendai and others. It is thirty-two minutes on foot from the station, so allow for the walk.

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Mandarake Nakano

6min walk

The shop began in 1980 on the second floor of Nakano Broadway as a secondhand bookshop of two tsubo, dealing in manga alone. It now occupies several floors of the building, divided into departments for used manga, animation cels, doujinshi and figures. It was from this shop that the character of the building changed.

💡 Opens at noon, closes at 20:00. The building itself opens at 10:00, so do not arrive too early. Photography inside is usually prohibited.

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heavysick ZERO

8min walk

A live house in Nakano 5-chome. It is not a large room; the bill is mostly independent acts, and you stand close to the stage. Nakano has several venues of this size.

💡 Eight minutes on foot. Each show is ticketed separately and start times vary by day, so check the site for what is on before you go.

📍 View on Google Maps🌐 Official Website

Sugorokuya (Analogue Games Shop)

30min walk

Japan's best-known specialist board game shop, whose head office and store sit a minute from Higashi-Nakano Station, one stop from Nakano. Around seventy percent of the stock is imported — German titles especially — alongside their own games such as the bestselling Nanjamonja.

💡 About thirty minutes on foot from Nakano. Taking the Chuo-Sobu local one stop to Higashi-Nakano is quicker.

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Food & Drink

The Classics

Chuka Soba Aoba, Nakano main shop

5min walk

A ramen shop that started on this spot in 1996. It is known for spreading the double soup — a fish stock of dried bonito, mackerel and sardine combined with an animal stock of pork bone and chicken. Shops that copied it came to be called Aoba-inspired. Branches have multiplied across the Tokyo area, but the main shop is here in Nakano.

💡 10:30–21:00. Five minutes on foot. Tsukemen is served alongside the standard bowl. There is often a queue at lunchtime.

📍 View on Google Maps🌐 Official Website🍽️ View on Tabelog

Coffee Road

3min walk

One of the closest coffee houses to Nakano Station. It opens at 8:30 in the morning and closes at six in the evening. There is no night trade, so it is a place for the start of the day or a pause between walks.

💡 8:30–18:00. Three minutes on foot.

📍 View on Google Maps🌐 Official Website🍽️ View on Tabelog

Local Secrets

Sarashina Sohonten, north exit shop

5min walk

A soba restaurant on the north side of Nakano Station. It stays open straight through from midday into the evening rather than closing between services. Alongside cold soba it serves rice bowls, in the manner of an ordinary neighbourhood soba shop.

💡 11:00–20:30. Five minutes on foot. There is no afternoon break, so you can eat between the usual meal times.

📍 View on Google Maps🍽️ View on Tabelog

Standing Bars (Tachinomi) on North Exit Alleys

3min walk

A pocket of small standing bars in the lanes just outside the north exit of Nakano Station. Most are counter only, and they begin to fill in the early evening. One street away from the foot traffic of Sun Mall heading for Broadway, the air is entirely different.

💡 Three minutes on foot. Most open from the evening. The places are small, so carrying cash is the safe assumption.

📍 See this area🍽️ View on Tabelog

The Memory of This Town

Enclosed for three hundred years

In the eighth year of Genroku, under the edict on compassion for living things issued by the fifth shogun Tsunayoshi, an enclosure for dogs was built at Nakano. The site was centred on what is now the ward office, and there were five enclosures. Government records put the number of dogs held there at about a hundred thousand. Besides the kennels there were shelters against the sun, and 459 buildings for raising puppies. When Tsunayoshi died in the sixth year of Hoei the enclosure was abolished. It had lasted fifteen years. Under the eighth shogun, Yoshimune, the land was turned over to peach orchards.

The enclosure went, but its name stayed. The district came to be called Kakoicho, the town of the enclosure. And the land went on being enclosed. From the Meiji era it was army ground, with a telegraph unit stationed on it, and on that site in 1938 came the school later known as the Nakano Army School. After the war it became the Police University and the Metropolitan Police Academy. The name Kakoicho was abolished in 1966; the police moved out to Fuchu in 2001.

In 2012 the land finally opened. A disaster-prevention park, a university and tall office buildings stand there now. Look north from Nakano Station and the density of narrow lanes and shopping streets breaks off all at once, and an improbably wide, rectangular tract begins. That edge is the outline of the enclosure. In front of the ward office stands a statue of dogs. Of all the uses this ground has been put to, the dog enclosure was the shortest. Only the shortest one left a marker.

  • In 1695 (Genroku 8), following the edict on compassion for living things, a government dog enclosure was established at Nakano, centred on the site of the present ward office, in five separate enclosures. Government records give the number of dogs as about 100,000.
  • Besides kennels there were sun shelters, and 459 buildings are recorded for raising puppies. Sources give the area of the site as anywhere from 160,000 to 300,000 tsubo, so no figure is stated in the text.
  • Abolished on the death of Tsunayoshi in 1709 (Hoei 6), fifteen years after it opened. The land became peach orchards under the eighth shogun, Yoshimune.
  • The former place name Kakoicho derives from this enclosure. It was abolished in 1966 and absorbed into Nakano; the area corresponds to today's Nakano 4-chome.
  • The Nakano Army School began in March 1938 as a counter-intelligence institute, was renamed a rear-service training institute in 1939 and took the name Nakano Army School in 1940. It stood on the former telegraph unit ground in Kakoicho. After the war the site held the Police University and the Metropolitan Police Academy, which moved to Fuchu in 2001; redevelopment opened Nakano Shiki no Mori Park and the rest in 2012.

Through the Year

  1. SepSat–Sun, mid-month

    The Annual Festival

    Nakano Hikawa Shrine

    The largest festival in Nakano ward. Around twenty of the shrine's thirty-five parish associations send out mikoshi. The joint procession takes one carriageway of the main roads — Ome-kaido, Yamate-dori, Nakano-dori, Waseda-dori.

Dates shift from year to year. Check the shrine or organiser before you plan around one.

Where to Stay

Nakano World Hotel

6min walk

A small, well-rated hotel six minutes from the station, closer in scale to a guesthouse than a chain business hotel. Nakano Broadway and the covered arcade are both a short walk away.

Approximately ¥10,000–¥18,000 per night depending on season and room type.

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Check rates & availability →Agoda

Court Residence Tokyo Nakano

9min walk

Nine minutes from the station in the residential streets behind Broadway. Rooms are apartment-style with kitchenettes, which suits longer stays better than a standard business hotel, and puts you among ordinary Nakano life rather than beside the station.

Approximately ¥7,000–¥12,000 per night including simple breakfast.

📍 View on Google Maps
Check rates & availability →Agoda

Getting to Nakano

  • From Shibuya

    16 min · 1 transfer (change at Shinjuku) · JR Yamanote Line → JR Chuo Line (Rapid) · ¥210

  • From Shinjuku

    4 min · direct · JR Chuo Line (Rapid) · ¥200

  • From Tokyo Station

    18 min · direct · JR Chuo Line (Rapid) · ¥260

  • From Ueno

    28 min · 1 transfer (change at Kanda) · JR Keihin-Tohoku Line → JR Chuo Line (Rapid) · ¥260

  • From Ikebukuro

    16 min · 1 transfer (change at Shinjuku) · JR Saikyo Line → JR Chuo Line (Rapid) · ¥210

  • From Shinagawa

    27 min · 1 transfer (change at Shinjuku) · JR Yamanote Line → JR Chuo Line (Rapid) · ¥260

  • From Narita Airport

    93 min · 2 transfers (change at Nippori and Shinjuku) · Keisei Skyliner → JR Yamanote Line → JR Chuo-Sobu Line (Local) · ¥2,910

  • From Haneda Airport

    53 min · 2 transfers (change at Hamamatsucho and Kanda) · Tokyo Monorail → JR Keihin-Tohoku Line → JR Chuo Line (Rapid) · ¥860Wherever you start, the usual move is to change to the JR Chuo rapid at Shinjuku. From Ueno and Haneda it is quicker to change at Kanda instead.

Times are for a typical daytime weekday and fares are ordinary tickets, rounded. Both change — check a route planner on the day.

Getting There

Nakano is served by the JR Chuo Line, both rapid and local, and by the Tokyo Metro Tozai Line. On the Chuo rapid it is the stop after Shinjuku; the Tozai Line goes underground here and runs on towards Otemachi and Nihonbashi. Times and fares are in the table below. Leave by the north exit and the Sun Mall arcade runs straight ahead into Broadway. Central Park and the ward office are on that side too. Only Tetsugakudo Park is far off — more than half an hour on foot.

Best Time to Visit

Nakano Broadway runs 10:00 to 20:00, but the shops keep their own hours and Mandarake does not open until noon, so a morning visit finds much of it shut. Tetsugakudo Park is 9:00 to 17:00. Central Park is open at any hour. In spring the cherries around Central Park are in flower.

Local Tip

Photography is often prohibited inside the shops in Broadway; check the notices before raising a camera. The building opens at 10:00, but the shop you came for may not open until noon, so look up the hours before setting out. What there is to see is on the north side of the station; the south side is mostly housing and places to eat.

What the Name Means

The name means the middle field: this was the middle of Musashino, the broad plateau west of the city. Seen from Edo it was the far edge; seen from Musashino it was the centre. What counts as the middle depends on where you are standing.