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Who likes pictures of Bookstores!?

I just went through my 2007 Japan Photo set, and would you believe that in all of my pictures of Kinokuniya’s awesome 7+floor flagship store in Shinjuku, I never once took a picture of their sprawling, massive Japanese-language manga section? I think that’s because I hit Kinokuniya towards the end of my trip, and by then I’d taken hundreds of photos of manga stores like Animate and Tora No Anna, but I don’t think I ever gave Kinokuniya it’s due as being a great, centrally located and excellently stocked bookstore–whether you’re a manga fan or not…!

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Kinokuniya’s flagship store is located in Tokyo’s capital, Shinjuku, about 5 minutes walk from the south exit of Shinjuku Station. Shijunku station has like 20 exits, so it’s actually closer to the “New South Exit” but walking everywhere or anywhere in Tokyo is a joy, if you happen to be in love with cities and people-watching. Kinokuniya (the bottom red box) is actually on the otherside of the massive Takeshimaya Times Square Department Store, which is giant and beautiful, and has a whole Tokyu Hands inside too! It’s worth the walk.

Unfortunately on both days that I visited the store it was raining outsie, and so an exterior photo of Kinokuniya didn’t really work out. Once again, the photo above is from Wikimedia commons, taken by the user “Ons”.

Instead we took the awesome 7th-floor glass bridge between Takeshimaya Times Square and Kinokuniya. You get a pretty fun view of the city from here too.

I’m kind of surprised by how many folks I’ve talked to that don’t know about this particular Kinokuniya, despite the fact it’s prominently mentioned in most of the travel guides. I know it’s not a 4000 year old shrine or anything, but a giant well-stocked bookstore is my kind of temple.

The glass bridge lets you off on Kinokuniya’s foreign-books floor, which incidentally carries a huge selection of manga in English. Representatives from all of the major publishers could be found, although much like Kinokuniya New York, this store seemed solely interested in Manga By Japanese Creators, with no OEL or manga-influenced North American work to be found. That said, their selection of English-language manga was amazing, balancing popular long-running series with prestige graphic novels and series traditionally popular in Japan. The English-language editions of Pluto, 20th Century Boys, and Black Jack even merited attractive + well-made signage just to draw attention to great work.

Oh, and, they can get English-language manga we can’t even get here, like the bilingual editions of Kodansha’s Division Chief Kosaku Shima, or the bilingual Doraemon volumes. It’s jealousy-inducing.

Keep Reading After The Break: Continue reading “Japan 2009: Flagship Kinokuniya Shinjuku”