Name: Inside Tokyo's Vanishing Retro Malls
Uploaded: 2025-06-18T10:58:13.000Z
Duration: 24 min 40 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

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I've been living in Tokyo for almost nine years now and in that short amount of time the city has changed so much with the additions of many new skyscrapers and chain stores.

To-infinitive

But today I want to introduce you to a little bit of retro Tokyo and show you some unique and beautiful shops that I believe are important to enjoy and support while they're still here.

Right behind me is the new Shinbashi building which despite its name was actually completed back in 1971.

Shinbashi is a working hub here in Tokyo and there's lots of salary men around and we're right next to Shinbashi station so this place kind of acts like a retro oasis for all of the salary men working here.

Once we go inside you'll be able to see with all of the tiles, the architecture and all the types of stores in there that it's like stepping back into 1970s Tokyo.

But before we go inside I wanted to give a huge thank you to the shopping associations in Akihabara and Shinbashi who invited me here today to go check these places out.

So let's go and explore some retro Tokyo.

Inside the new Shinbashi building are too many shops to list but to name a few there is a shop that sells cameras, some shops to buy tickets, a Showa era book cafe, a picture frame shop and an incredibly popular omurice restaurant.

But my first stop is actually a retro kisaten that I've been super excited to check out simply called Kisa Fuji.

Okay let me give you guys a quick rundown on Japanese kisaten.

Kisaten are basically Japanese cafes but they had a really big boom around the 60s and 70s though I will say a lot of them are dying out and it's really sad.

So while you're here I think it's a great thing to explore as a and also support them and keep them in business.

I don't know I would rather come here than to a Starbucks or you know a Tully's.

It has a lot more personality and as you'll see by the food it has a lot more variety and interesting stuff going on with the food and drinks as well.

So the kisaten I'm in right now is called Kisa Fuji and it's what we call a junkisa or a pure cafe.

I believe the original reason why it's called a pure cafe is because some kisaten started selling whereas the ones that just kept it to be coffee and food are called pure kisaten or junkisa.

But for me I feel like junkisa means it has a really strong old retro vibe and they've kept things very similar to how they have been in the past and that's really shown with Kisa Fuji.

I feel like I'm back in time and I feel like it hasn't changed since the 70s it's absolutely beautiful.

So I'm excited to try their food let's see what we get.

So I will be honest this is not typical of kisaten food.

Usually I don't really find yakisoba in kisaten but it looked so good that I had to order it.

I have ordered some things that are more kisaten vibes for dessert afterwards but yeah usually kisaten foods I would say is like pudding or naporitan or even like a maybe like a yakisoba in a kisaten.

I think it feels bizarre because for me I feel like yakisoba is like a matsuri food and I feel like I'm in a festival right now but I'm in a kisaten.

It's a very like juxtaposing vibe I feel but it's very delicious.

Super cute that they gave me a little potato salad along with it.

I have a very cute coffee here and they have these original coffee fuji mugs.

I feel like I'm not a huge coffee drinker but I do enjoy it and I feel like when I'm in a kisaten I have to get a coffee because it just feels it just feels right you Okay this is what I love about kisaten.

Look even the napkins have a little fuji on them.

It makes you just want to collect everything like I want to take this and put this on my fridge now.

Look at this hot cake with the coffee fuji branding on it.

I think that's so cute and of course we have this beautiful cream soda with the glasses of course themed like coffee fuji.

Of course one of the classic things you can get at kisaten is melon cream soda.

They have a few flavors here but I had to go for the melon.

It's a classic and they're giving me some maple syrup and some butter to go on top of my hot cake.

Okay I have to take video of it first before I can eat it so stop filming.

I feel like in Japan people focus on the fluffy Japanese pancakes but this this type of pancake has a special place in my heart.

It is fluffy but it's not like those those like deflatable ones.

I love that they have a little fuji on top.

I wish I could spend more time here but there's so many other things that we need to check out while we're But on the way out I'm gonna ask if they have any kisaten matches.

That's something really cool that you can do while you're in Japan.

If you go to kisaten a lot of them have matches because a lot of people used to smoke in the 70s and 60s and if they brought around a pack of matches it would be advertising the store wherever they lit up a cigarette.

So a lot of places still have the matches even though they're not as popular and not many people know about them but it's a good idea to ask at every kisaten you're at if you want to collect them or have them as a nice souvenir.

After securing the goods I headed up to the second floor where there's an old gaming arcade called Game in Rido.

Game in Rido is mainly made up of sit-down game cabinets and a few extra machines like a sonic claw machine in the front.

I'm not too familiar with any of these games.

It's really interesting this company Jaleco we present you fantastic time.

Also there are other people here of course salary men but we're not gonna be filming their faces because it's their day off.

Or maybe it's not their day off and they're just hanging out not to get anyone in trouble or anything.

Anyone in the comments how do you play Dig Dug?

So I feel like when people come to visit Japan and you want to play like old stuff a lot there's a lot of places in Osaka but usually people will just go to like a Taito center which is a lot of modern games or maybe to Super Potato in Akihabara which is still really good but I think knowing a place like this it's not really a touristy spot so if you want a really genuine experience I feel like this is the place to go.

I thought I was a gamer girl but unfortunately I guess I'm not.

I gotta tell my dad he'll be disappointed in me.

If they had Minecraft we'd be we'd be having a different time let me tell you.

For my next spot in the new Shinbashi building I wanted to get some kind of refreshing beverage.

There's a small juice stand called Ozawa Fruits and it's over 50 years old.

It features some classic fruits but also some strange flavor choices.

There's so many different types of vegetables and juices but I don't know if I should go for like a healthy one or if I should go for like a good tasting one.

Oh they have like daikon and aloe vera and shiso.

I just got my fresh juice and I think this place is pretty incredible.

It's seemingly kind of a simple stand sandwiched between two cigarette machines but I think it's really beautiful with all the different pictures of fruits and vegetables you can get and also all the pictures of all the customers who've been here before and I was reading reviews online and everybody loves this place and there was somebody who was like I've been coming here for 10 years and he was a local salaryman that always comes here to drink his juice.

I think a lot of people choose between drinking like a healthy vegetable juice or a sweet fruit juice and some of them are just drinking it for the health benefits and underneath all of the vegetables and fruits you can see what kind of health benefits they have as well and I got shiso which is a bold choice.

I use it a lot in cooking but by itself it's quite strong so I believe it was shiso, celery, apple and lemon.