Shopping for Guitars in Tokyo’s Ochanomizu District

Aloha!

I travel to Japan quite a bit for business, and have spent plenty of my off hours prowling various cities for guitars, but there is one place that has more guitars than I have ever seen anywhere else in the world – the Ochanomizu neighborhood of Tokyo.

Most tourists that are shopping for electronics in Tokyo stop off at Akihabara, which is only one stop away from Tokyo station. There are barely any musical instrument stores there, but disappointed musicians only need to head one train station further to find nirvana, at Ochanomizu.

There are at least dozen large shops here, including a Big Boss, but surprisingly no Ishibashi store. All of them are packed to the gills with inventory, with not a square inch of empty space on the walls or floor. And this is not cheap stuff, either. There is every type of popular collectible American guitars from Gibson, Fender and Rickenbacker, as well as plenty of Sadowsky Metro, Atelier Z and high-end ESP custom instruments. Of course Fender Japan is well-represented, too.

And it is not just guitars and amplifiers in Ochanomizu, either. There are entire shops dedicated to violins, ukuleles and wind instruments, too. I could spend an entire day looking though these shops and still not see everything – it is a total sensory overload.

The only thing I was a little bummed out about was the scarcity of second-hand instruments. The new inventory seemed to outweigh the used stuff by about a ten to one ratio, maybe even more. But most anything else that anybody is looking for can be found here.

If you want to see Ochanomizu for yourself, It is only a few steps from the Ochanomizu station which is served by the Soubu Line from Akihabara or the Chuo line from Tokyo station. You will not be disappointed!

Mahalo!