Tokyo: Akihabara Anime & Gaming Tour + Manga Drawing Class

Experience Tokyo pop culture from two sides: first as a fan exploring Akihabara, then as a creator learning how manga is drawn.

Begin with a guided walk through Akihabara’s anime shops, retro-game stores, arcades, hobby floors, and capsule-toy culture. After exploring how Japanese pop culture is displayed, collected, and played, travel to Nakano for a two-hour manga class led by a professional artist.

Instead of ending the experience with something purchased from a store, finish with an original manga-style artwork created by you.

Understand how Akihabara became a pop-culture district

Meet your private guide at Akihabara Station’s Electric Town Exit.

Akihabara was once primarily associated with electrical parts, radios, and household electronics. Over time, specialist shops selling computers, games, figures, trading cards, anime products, and fan-made works transformed the neighborhood.

As you walk, your guide will explain how different generations of technology and fan culture continue to exist side by side.

The route is designed to help first-time visitors understand what each type of store specializes in, rather than entering several similar-looking shops without knowing what to look for.

Explore anime figures, models, cards, and collectibles

Visit a multi-level hobby complex such as Akihabara Radio Kaikan.

Inside, different floors specialize in figures, character goods, model kits, dolls, trading cards, secondhand collectibles, and other parts of Japanese fan culture.

Your guide will explain the differences between common product categories, limited items, secondhand goods, display models, and products designed for collectors.

The exact stores visited may change according to opening hours, temporary closures, crowds, and the interests of your group.

Follow the history of Japanese video games

Continue to a retro-game store such as Super Potato.

See how Japanese home gaming developed from early consoles and cartridges to later systems, handheld games, and character franchises.

Your guide can help identify familiar consoles, explain why certain games became influential, and show how packaging and game design changed between generations.

This section is suitable for dedicated gamers, but it is also designed to help guests who are simply curious about Japanese entertainment history.

Try a Japanese arcade

Enter a local game center and experience the sound, lights, and variety of a modern Japanese arcade.

The tour includes one arcade racing game. Your guide will help you understand the controls and explain the different types of machines commonly found inside Japanese game centers.

You will also learn basic crane-game techniques, including how to judge the position of a prize and why successful play often requires more than simply grabbing it directly.

Additional games and crane-machine plays are optional and paid separately.

Discover Japan’s capsule-toy culture

Visit a gachapon shop filled with capsule-toy machines.

The tour includes one capsule-toy turn valued at up to ¥500.

Your guide will explain how gachapon series are organized, how to identify the available designs, and why capsule toys appeal to collectors as well as casual visitors.

Choose a machine that interests you and keep the item you receive as a small souvenir from Akihabara.

Travel from consuming manga culture to creating it

After the Akihabara walk, travel by public transportation to Nakano.

While Akihabara is known for large-scale anime and gaming retail, Nakano has its own connection to manga artists, collectors, specialist shops, and Tokyo’s broader creative community.

The transfer also creates a natural shift in the experience: from looking at finished characters and products to learning how an original illustration is made.

Learn directly from a professional manga artist

At the manga school, meet your instructor and begin a two-hour drawing class.

No previous drawing experience is required.

Learn how manga artists build a character using facial proportions, eye placement, expressions, hairstyles, and simplified forms.

Depending on the lesson and your progress, you may practice sketching, inking, line variation, solid black areas, highlights, and screentone application.

The instructor will demonstrate each stage and help adjust the lesson to your experience level.

Work with authentic manga tools

Use tools associated with traditional Japanese manga production, including manga paper, ink, a G-pen, and screentones.

A G-pen creates lines that change according to pressure and movement, making it possible to produce both delicate details and stronger outlines.

Screentones are adhesive patterned sheets traditionally used to add shadows, texture, clothing effects, and atmosphere to black-and-white manga pages.

Using the tools yourself gives you a clearer understanding of the skill and planning behind finished manga artwork.

Take home a souvenir you created

Finish your manga-style character or illustration with support from the instructor.

Your completed artwork is yours to take home.

The experience combines the excitement of exploring Tokyo’s best-known anime and gaming district with the satisfaction of creating something original rather than only purchasing merchandise.