Akihabara, the home of subculture
Akihabara once flourished as one of the world’s most prominent electronics districts with shops clustered together cheek by jowl but from the 1990s onwards, otaku culture including video games, anime and fanzines evolved so that the area is now thriving as the birthplace of subculture.
Goods only found at the Akihabara store
This particular branch of Don Quijote is a symbolic building for Akihabara as a nationally-known discount store dealing in items such as daily goods, cosmetics, food, medical items, brand-name products, leisure goods and electronics. The Akihabara branch has 8 floors which also include the original maid café, the @home Café, and the AKB48 Theater where you can enjoy the exciting performances by Japan’s most famous idol group, AKB48. There is also a wide lineup of products unique to the area. For example, you can purchase glow sticks which are the must-have items to cheer on the idols at any live performance, T-shirts and goods which have jargon from 2channel, Japan’s largest Internet forum, and anime characters designed on them and the country’s biggest gathering of costumes with as many as 1400 items on the 5th floor for cosplay goods. You can purchase maid outfits, high school uniforms with the sailor-suit designs, and costumes worn by anime characters. The 6th and 7th floors make up a game center.
Friendly service toward foreign tourists
All of the products at Don Quijote such as cosmetics, food and medical items are duty-free. There is a Welcome Reservation Site for overseas visitors (donki-welcome.com) where you can pre-order products online (the site can be read in Chinese, Korean, English, Thai and Japanese) and then pick them up at any of the branches during regular hours.