Shibuya: Tokyo’s Entertainment Hub

Shibuya is one of the entertainment centers of Tokyo. The narrow streets behind the huge department stores are packed with small restaurants with different themes – adapted to Japanese taste if international. There are manga stores that can fill libraries, and here is where both IKEA and Muji have their Tokyo flagship stores. Dogenzaka is the location of the Krispy Kreme flagship store.

 

Halloween in Shibuya: A Celebration Under Scrutiny

For foreign visitors, Shibuya is perhaps best known as the location of public holiday celebrations, something discouraged if not outright prohibited in other parts of Tokyo. But Halloween meshes well with the Japanese cosplay tradition. When you can choose anything from Mashle to Chainsaw Man, making costumes become fun, and showing them off even more so.

 But as celebrations have become rowdier and rowdier, the local authorities have cracked down on drinking in the streets, and by extension the entire celebration. The New Year’s celebrations in 2024 were canceled, and the local authorities and police are trying to make it so for Halloween as well.

The celebrations take place in the streets, because there is no square or park free of traffic near Shibuya Scramble Crossing. The scramble crossing and surrounding streets is where you want to be if you have put on full makeup and costume. After all, the idea is for others to see you.

Shibuya Scramble Crossing is world famous for the orderly interaction of hordes of people.

Iconic Spots: Shibuya Scramble Crossing and Hachiko Statue

Shibuya Scramble Crossing is an attraction in itself. There are other scramble crossings in Japan, but none with the sheer mass of humanity unfolding in gigantic waves, meeting and stirring together.

The most famous statue in Shibuya sits at one end of the crossing. Hachiko was a dog whose story has been filmed several times, including once with Richard Gere. It is probably the most famous statue in Tokyo, and serves as a meeting point for locals and visitors alike.

 

The other side of the station has long been a building site, but is starting to rival the shopping district in attractiveness. Not the least reason is the Shibuya Sky observation platform and entertainment center.

The observation deck is at the top of the Shibuya Sky building, which is a mixed office, shopping and apartment building next to Shibuya Station. It not only offers a 360-degree view of Tokyo below (including Mt Fuji), but also various entertainment options to make more of the experience. And there is a theater as part of the entertainment complex, where there are regular shows (oriented towards a Japanese audience). Just like Tokyo Sky Tree, you need to reserve a certain time, and show up in time.

 

There are several more live stages and dance floors in Shibuya. While the venues are just more oriented towards the music scene than other entertainment districts, these are not as large as those in Odaiba and offer up-and-coming artists a chance to vet their acts in front of a live audience.

But if you walk away some distance from Shibuya station, there are several venues of a different kind.

At the edge of the department store district is one of the most famous, although somewhat time-worn, cultural venues in Tokyo. Bunkamura is a kind of all-encompassing venue, combining an art museum with several concert halls. The main venue is closed for renovations, but there are satellite exhibitions in several other locations around Tokyo.

Not too far from Bunkamura is another art museum. The Toguri Museum of Art focuses on ceramics, with a fine collection of Inari ware, but also modern ceramic art.

Cultural Venues: Art, Museums, and More

A little walk away the other side of Shibuya station is another art museum, housed in an impressive building and showing traditional Japanese art. The Yamatane Museum of Art features rotating exhibitions of traditional Japanese artists. The traditional sweets in the little cafe is as stylish as the art in the museum.

A few blocks away is a museum which may not be as visually appealing, but none the less interesting if you want to find out about Japanese culture. Koichi Hanwa was a scholar in the beginning of the 19th century who collected Japanese folk tales and literature (and other historical texts), and this was compiled into a canon of 670 volumes. The wood blocks used to print the canon is still stored in the museum (having survived wars and earthquakes), and you can even today buy prints made from them.

 

The museum was on the itinerary of Helen Keller, who famously was deaf and blind, communicating only by touch; Koichi Hanwa was an inspiration to her, because he was blind too.

There are several other museums in the area, and if you walk towards Harajuku from the Yamatane museum of art, you come to the Yoku Moku Museum. If you have been buying sweets in Japan you may have come across Yoku Moku cookies and chocolate, and this is what has funded this small but exclusive art museum. The cornerstone is an extensive collection of the ceramics of Picasso, since the founder of Yoku Moku was a passionate collector.

 

A few blocks away is the atelier of ceramic artist and painter Taro Okamoto, exhibiting his works in the building that was his home; and a little further, you come to the Nezu museum.

In a building designed by Japanese modern architect Kengo Kuma, it shows the collection of businessman Nezu Kaichiro, significantly expanded by his heirs and containing several works that are counted as Japanese national treasures (and officially designated as such).

Entrance to the museum also means entrance to the cafe, opening to the traditional Japanese garden in a property that was the Nezu family residence. It is hard to find a more relaxing atmosphere in Tokyo.

If relaxation is what you are looking for, the Tofukuji temple has a small garden and a somewhat larger collection of stone statues and carvings.

 

Just nearby is Konno-Hachimangu, another shrine to the god of war, but situated in a small garden plopped down among the skyscrapers.

A little to the south is another shrine, the Shibuya Hikawa Jinja. This shrine, also old and situated in a garden, is another peaceful oasis in the busy business district between Shibuya, Harajuku and Aoyama.

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