24 stores · curated ORBIS register
Tokyo bookshops treat the book as an object worth binding by hand. Cow Books hunts out-of-print titles on photography and design from its cult Naka-Meguro shelves. Marumizu-gumi Bookbinding Studio teaches wahon binding and takes custom-bound commissions. Sunday Issue keeps the magazine shelf pointed at art and photography. Judge a shop by its backlist; a front table only shows what sells this month.
Kyoto
Akao Shobundo deals in antiquarian woodblock-printed books, Japanese hanga prints and books on Japanese literature, with colored xylographic prints from the Meiji, Taisho and early Showa eras, including dye-weaving samples and kimono design books tied to Kyoto's Nishijin textile district. The shop is located in Kawaramachi, central Kyoto.
Best for Antique woodblock prints and books
Nagasaki / Japan
Near Glover Garden, Rurian keeps Nagasaki's 400-year vidro glassblowing tradition alive, mixing its own raw materials and shaping each piece by hand. Visitors can buy finished work through the shop and online store or book blowing, stained-glass and kaleidoscope workshops at the Matsugae-machi studio.
Best for Glass, Nagasaki vidro, blown glass, stained glass
Sakurazaka
Inside Naha's Sakura-zaka Theater complex, Fukurasha opened as PANA in 2005 and relaunched under its current name in August 2010, selling Okinawan crafts such as Tsuboya pottery and recycled glass art alongside used books, split across two floors.
Best for Okinawan craft, books, music, and design under one Naha roof.
Fukurasha operates inside Sakura-zaka Theater, a cinema, café and community-space complex in the Makishi district of Naha, Okinawa. The shop began in 2005 under the name PANA and was relaunched as Fukurasha in August 2010. Its ground floor holds general goods and secondhand books, while the upper floor is dedicated to Okinawan craft, centered on Tsuboya-yaki, the island's traditional glazed pottery, alongside contemporary work such as recycled glass art and pieces by younger local makers. The shop's guiding idea, described by its own staff as "traditional and modern" (トラッド＆モダン), is to place heritage ceramics and folk crafts in conversation with present-day Okinawan design rather than treat them as separate categories. The name Fukurasha comes from the opening line of "Kachashidi," a well-known Okinawan festival song, where the phrase roughly translates to "today's pride" or "today's joy" — embedding the shop in Okinawa's own musical and linguistic heritage rather than a generic retail identity. Because it sits inside a working theater, Fukurasha's customer base overlaps with theatergoers and visitors to the building's other tenants, including a kitchen/café and a citizens' lecture program, giving it a role as one anchor of a larger cultural venue rather than a freestanding shop.
Makishi
RENEMIA is an independent gallery-shop curating Okinawan design, textiles, books and household objects.
Best for Okinawan textiles, artist books and locally designed objects
Chuo-ku
Mariya has supplied handicraft materials in Sapporo since 1926, close to the Sapporo Clock Tower. Its range extends from embroidery supplies to weaving equipment, with craft books and classes also part of the business. The shop carries imported brands as well as Japanese products, so origin varies by item.
Best for Materials for embroidery, hand weaving and spinning
Mariya is a handicraft-supply shop near Sapporo's Clock Tower, founded in 1926. It remains organised around the materials people need to make things themselves. The company lists craft books and classes as part of its work, alongside a gallery programme. On the selling floors, embroidery supplies share space with equipment for hand weaving and spinning. The published range includes Japanese makers as well as imported names such as DMC and Ashford, so the shop is useful for comparing tools rather than assuming everything on its shelves was made locally. The dyeing materials extend the selection beyond sewing and knitting, and the shop also lists parts for making accessories. Shoppers planning a particular project can use the extensive category lists to decide what to ask about before travelling. The distinction between shop and gallery matters here: an exhibition can introduce finished textile work, while the retail stock is largely the thread and equipment, supported by reference material used to make new pieces.
Sapporo
Sapporo shop opened March 2021 in Chuo Ward selling imported vinyl, cassettes, risograph and silkscreen art books, zines, incense and small goods.
Best for Imported vinyl, cassettes, CDs, art books, and zines
Kita-ku
Seesaw Books is a new-release bookstore in Sapporo's Kita ward, a minute's walk from Kita-18-jo Station behind UNTAPPED HOSTEL. It stocks a wide selection of independently published zines from across Japan.
Best for New releases and independent Japanese zines
Seesaw Books opened as a new-release bookstore in Sapporo's Kita ward, two subway stops north of Sapporo Station and a one-minute walk from Kita-18-jo Station on the Namboku line. The shop sits directly behind UNTAPPED HOSTEL, sharing the same building complex as the guesthouse.
Alongside current book releases, Seesaw stocks an unusually wide range of independently published zines sourced from across Japan, a focus that sets it apart from general bookstores in the neighborhood. The shop keeps a fixed schedule — open daily from 11:00 to 19:00, closed every Wednesday and on the first Tuesday of each month, with occasional changes for in-store events.
Seesaw also runs an online shop through Square and lists events through Peatix, suggesting a program of readings or signings beyond straightforward retail. For visitors staying at UNTAPPED HOSTEL or passing through Kita-18-jo, it functions as both a neighborhood bookstore and a specialist stop for zine collectors.
Odori West, Sapporo
An old apartment building converted into small artisan-run shops and workshops selling ceramics, accessories, bags, books, records, clothing, and household goods. Individual rooms from the second through fifth floors operate as separate shops and studios.
Best for Ceramics, records, and clothing from artisan-run shops in a converted apartment building
Sendai
Atelier.AKIKO is a Sendai atelier where designer Akiko Takeda has custom-tailored women's wear and wedding dresses for over 40 years, alongside running an in-house dressmaking school at the same address. Clients can browse past commissions in the atelier's project galleries before booking a made-to-order piece.
Best for Custom Womenswear & Bridal
Nakameguro, Tokyo
Cow Books is an independent bookshop that opened in September 2002 beside the Meguro river in Nakameguro. Its founders were book critic Yataro Matsuura and Setsumasa Kobayashi. The two thousand or so titles have no fixed genre and are chosen for what they stir in a reader, alongside vintage magazines and a small line of cow-logo goods. Coffee is served at a long wooden table under the statement Everything for the Freedom.
Best for Out-of-print books and vintage magazines, read over coffee by the Meguro river
Cow Books opened on 14 September 2002 beside the Meguro river in Nakameguro, Tokyo. Its founders were the book critic Yataro Matsuura and Setsumasa Kobayashi of the neighbouring label General Research. Matsuura selects the stock, more than two thousand titles at any time, and the staff add their own voices to the choice. The shop has no fixed genre. It is built instead around books that stir something in the reader, from Beat Generation writers and photography anthologies to vintage magazines such as old copies of Brutus. Since opening it has carried the statement Everything for the Freedom. Before the shop existed the founders ran a travelling bookstore from a truck, an idea that survives as the occasional Traveling Cowbooks. Inside there is a long wooden table where customers read over coffee. Outside, wooden benches line the front of the shop and the river. A small line of original goods carries the cow logo. The shop still trades from 1-14-11 Aobadai in Meguro-ku, in the neighbourhood the founders already called home when they opened.
Tokyo
Daikanyama is Tokyo’s low-rise boutique quarter — T-Site bookstore, hidden ateliers, Sunday-stroll fashion.
Best for Tokyo upscale district
Yanaka, Tokyo
Renovated 1950s apartment building turned cultural space with gallery, café, and guesthouse. The shop sells art books, local crafts, and design objects.
Best for Renovated 1950s apartment building turned cultural space with gallery, café
Tokyo / Japan
Marumizu-gumi is a working bookbindery in Itabashi-ku, Tokyo, dedicated to traditional Japanese bookbinding, or wahon — the thread-sewn, washi-paper binding styles that predate Western case binding in Japan.
Best for Hands-on lessons and custom-bound work in traditional Japanese wahon binding
Marumizu-gumi is a working bookbindery in Itabashi-ku, Tokyo, dedicated to traditional Japanese bookbinding, or wahon — the thread-sewn, washi-paper binding styles that predate Western case binding in Japan. The studio was established by bookbinder Nao Inoue and has operated under its current site since 2007, from a ground-floor space eight minutes on foot from Naka-itabashi station, open daily except Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
The studio runs on three legs: custom order-based binding work for clients, hands-on lessons in wahon technique explicitly open to beginners as well as experienced binders, and a shop selling Japanese binding papers, materials, and tools that the studio says it has "carefully examined/chosen." Its own published material walks through the varieties of Japanese bookbinding style and the traditional implements involved, functioning as both a working reference and a teaching aid for students who come through the door.
Wahon itself is a genuinely old craft lineage — the broader tradition of Japanese books bound by hand on washi paper traces back over a thousand years — and Marumizu-gumi is one of the few studios in Tokyo still practicing and teaching it as a hands-on, order-taking trade rather than a museum demonstration, with an online shop that keeps its materials available beyond the physical studio's limited opening hours.
Shinjuku, Tokyo
One of Tokyo's largest bookstores with an impressive foreign language section. Seven floors of books including academic titles, art books, magazines, and Japanese literature. The architecture section.
Best for One of Tokyo's largest bookstores with an impressive foreign language section
Roppongi, Tokyo
Premium bookstore with an extensive art, design, and photography selection. Comfortable reading spaces and a Starbucks. Regular book signings and talks with authors and creatives.
Best for Premium bookstore with an extensive art, design, and photography selection
Nakameguro, Tokyo
Independent magazine and bookshop with a focus on art, photography, and culture publications. Excellent coffee and a quiet reading atmosphere. Regular events with photographers and editors.
Best for Independent magazine and bookshop with a focus on art, photography
Sunday Issue is a gallery and lounge space in Shibuya, Tokyo, its name drawn from the idea that a Sunday newspaper delivers a week's dose of culture in one sitting. The ground-floor gallery shows post-modern photography, drawings and mixed media that lean into sexuality and taboo subject matter — one documented exhibition, titled "Diary of a Thief," featured French artists working with spider imagery and dreamlike painting. Upstairs, the lounge is styled like an early-20th-century study, with a mahogany bookshelf, an old-fashioned librarian's ladder and a black, dark-brown and forest-green palette; its shelves hold rare and vintage books, mostly in Japanese, on art history, typography and retro advertising. A one-woman bar serves whiskey, a cocktail of the day and other spirits alongside salted nuts. The gallery sits above the café On The Corner, where visitors can get coffee and snacks. Sunday Issue is located at 1-17-1 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku, on the second floor of the Beauty Takeno village building.
Shibuya, Tokyo
Eclectic novelty store often described as 'the store that sells everything interesting.' Books, toys, accessories, home goods, and quirky Japanese inventions.
Best for Eclectic novelty store often described as 'the store that sells everything inter
Yamanakako / Japan
Antov is a reservation-only craft workshop near Lake Yamanaka where visitors can try glassmaking, pottery and silver accessory making, with an on-site ANTOV Shop selling finished pieces. The studio, close to Mount Fuji, welcomes everyone from young children to seniors and accommodates group bookings.
Best for Craft Experiences
Naoshima / Japan
Based in Miyanoura on the art island of Naoshima, Art Island Center is a gallery, bookshop and art center that helps visitors explore the Setouchi islands. Its online store sells guidebooks and art, and the center also arranges locally guided island tours.
Best for Gallery, bookshop, art books
Matsukawa, Azumino (Shinshu)
A museum devoted to children's-book illustrator Iwasaki Chihiro and picture-book artists from around the world, set in a large park with Northern Alps views. It is run by the Iwasaki Chihiro Memorial Foundation, which also keeps a Tokyo location.
Best for Picture-book art and illustration
Shinmachi, Kumamoto City
Higo Zogan is Kumamoto's centuries-old technique of hammering gold and silver wire into blackened steel, a skill once reserved for samurai sword fittings and now shaped into brooches, cufflinks and hairpins. Mitsusuke works from a shop in Kumamoto's old castle town, its pieces ranging from simple bookmarks to gold-inlaid rings priced up to ¥66,000.
Best for Inlaid jewelry, cufflinks, Higo Zogan gifts
Koyasan, Wakayama, Japan
This Koyasan shop specializes in scroll mounting and religious goods, stocking Buddha statues, prayer beads, sutra books, and the stamped temple books pilgrims collect at each stop on the mountain's circuit. It also sells hanging scrolls and sutra-copying supplies tied to the temple town's devotional routines.
Best for Mounted scrolls, goshuincho stamp books, and religious implements
CBD
Sydney flagship of the Japanese Kinokuniya chain, opened 1996 in Neutral Bay and relocated to The Galeries on George Street, Sydney CBD, in 2002. Stocks over 300,000 English, Japanese and Chinese titles, plus manga and stationery.
Best for Japanese manga and stationery bookshop.
Books Kinokuniya opened its first Australian store in 1996 in the Sydney suburb of Neutral Bay, later relocating to its current flagship location at The Galeries shopping centre on George Street, in the Sydney CBD, around 2002. The store carries an inventory of more than 300,000 titles across English, Japanese and Chinese, alongside an extensive manga and graphic novel selection, art and design books, cookbooks, travel titles and children's literature. Chinese-language books and magazines are sourced from both Taiwan and mainland China. Beyond books, the Sydney store houses a dedicated stationery section, an in-store art gallery space, and a cafe.
Shinkawa Wakugawara, Ishigaki City, Okinawa
This workshop in Ishigaki City hand-weaves Yaeyama Hanaori Minsa and Yaeyama Jofu cloth, the two textile traditions native to the Yaeyama Islands, turning them into ties, bags and business-card cases. Visitors can watch the looms in the attached craft museum or book a weaving or plant-dyeing session before browsing the shop.
Best for Hand-woven Yaeyama Minsa and Hanaori textiles
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