is a shopping district of

Naniwa Ward is one of 24 wards of Japan, wards of Osaka, Japan. It has an area of 4.37 km², and a population of 51,567. General information Largely a residential area itself, Naniwa-ku is adjacent to and has in recent years blurred into the Namb ...

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of ...

, Japan. The area is centered along Sakaisuji Avenue, extending from the Ebisu-chō Interchange of the Hanshin Expressway in the south, to Nansan-dōri (just east of Nankai Namba Station) in the north. Known colloquially as "Den-Den Town," Nipponbashi is known for its many shops which specialize in furniture, tools, and "

otaku is a Japanese word that describes people with consuming interests, particularly in anime, manga, video games, or computers. Its contemporary use originated with a 1983 essay by Akio Nakamori in '' Manga Burikko''. may be used as a pejorat ...

" interests such as

electronics The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification ...

anime is hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japanese, (a term derived from a shortening of ...

, manga, and

collectibles A collectable (collectible or collector's item) is any object regarded as being of value or interest to a collector. Collectable items are not necessarily monetarily valuable or uncommon. There are numerous types of collectables and terms t ...

. Nipponbashi is often compared to Akihabara Electric Town, its equivalent (in terms of focus) in Tokyo. Although written with the same

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...

日本橋 in

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

, Nihonbashi in Chūō, Tokyo is a different place and has a different pronunciation.

History

During the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characte ...

, this district was known as a , called . In 1792 and 1872, the Osaka municipal government renamed this district from Nagamachi to Nipponbashi. During the Meiji and Taishō periods, many second-hand bookshops opened there. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, many

consumer electronics Consumer electronics or home electronics are electronic ( analog or digital) equipment intended for everyday use, typically in private homes. Consumer electronics include devices used for entertainment, communications and recreation. Usuall ...

stores were opened, and it became well known as Den Den Town.

The name "Nipponbashi"

"Nipponbashi" most properly refers to the bridge of the same name, which crosses over the Dōtonbori canal. However, the shopping district bearing the name of the bridge does not actually reach as far north as its namesake, though its northern areas are part of the "Nipponbashi" municipal designation (unlike Akihabara Electric Town which sits entirely apart from the origin of its name).

Den Den Town

, or is an alternate name for Nipponbashi, as it is famous for its wide variety of consumer electronics stores, and especially famous for its negotiable prices—unique to Osaka and the

Kansai region The or the , lies in the southern-central region of Japan's main island Honshū. The region includes the prefectures of Nara, Wakayama, Kyoto, Osaka, Hyōgo and Shiga, often also Mie, sometimes Fukui, Tokushima and Tottori. The metropoli ...

. Several retailers are also

tax A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, or n ...

- and

duty-free A duty-free shop (or store) is a retail outlet whose goods are exempt from the payment of certain local or national taxes and duties, on the requirement that the goods sold will be sold to travelers who will take them out of the country, w ...

. With the opening of

Yodobashi Camera is a major Japanese retail chain specializing in electronics, PCs, cameras and photographic equipment. Yodobashi Camera's sales rank fourth among consumer electronics mass retailers in Japan, after Yamada Denki, Bic Camera and the EDION Gro ...

Umeda is a major commercial, business, shopping and entertainment district in Kita-ku, Osaka, Japan, and the city's main northern railway terminus (Ōsaka Station, Umeda Station). The district's name means "plum field". History Umeda was historica ...

and

Bic Camera is a consumer electronics retailer chain in Japan. Currently, it has 41 stores in Japan. Bic Camera has a 50% ownership of former rival store Kojima and full ownership of computer store chain Sofmap. As of 2018, Bic Camera is the third larges ...

in Namba, Den Den Town saw a major fall-off in furniture and home-appliance sales, but has more recently become known as a haven for

and

-related shopping, analogous to Tokyo's famous electronics district Akihabara. For this reason, it is sometimes referred to as the "Akihabara of West Japan", or by the phrase "Akiba in the East, 'Ponbashi in the West".

Attractions

Besides the usual large electronics retailers such as Joshin,

Sofmap is one of the largest personal computer and consumer electronics retailers in Japan. In 2000, it was the second largest e-commerce company in the country. Bic Camera acquired a majority stake in Sofmap in 2006, and turned it into a wholly owne ...

, etc. Nipponbashi is also host to numerous retailers of anime, manga, and other otaku-related goods such as

Mandarake is a Japanese retail corporation that operates a chain of used good stores. Founded as a used bookstore specializing in manga in 1980, Mandarake incorporated in 1987 and presently operates 11 retail locations and one fulfillment center. The c ...

Tora no Ana is a 2002 cover album by GO!GO!7188. The name translates in English as ''Tiger's Lair''. The album's cover art is similar to Revolver (Beatles album), Revolver by The Beatles. Track listing

# Yōkai Ningen Bem (妖怪人間ベム) - from ...

, and Osaka Gundams—a two-story all-

Gundam is a Japanese military fiction media franchise. Created by Yoshiyuki Tomino and Sunrise (now Bandai Namco Filmworks), the franchise features giant robots, or mecha, with the name "Gundam". The franchise began on April 7, 1979, with ''Mobile ...

outlet. The town also features numerous

maid café are a subcategory of cosplay restaurants found predominantly in Japan. In these cafés, waitresses, dressed in maid costumes, act as servants, and treat customers as masters (and mistresses) in a private home, rather than as café patrons. The f ...

s and cosplay cafés. These include small and simple maid-themed coffee shops, maid-staffed massage and beautician services, and sit-down style full service cabarets.

Transportation

Ebisucho Station of the Sakaisuji Line, as well as the Nipponbashi Station of the Sakaisuji and Sennichimae lines both lead into Den Den Town.

External links

Official site
{{Authority control Tourist attractions in Osaka Shopping districts and streets in Japan Electronics districts Otaku Geography of Osaka Bridges in Osaka Prefecture