Tokyo · ShinjukuNo.395★★★Open in map →
Kabukicho
— Japan's biggest entertainment district
The entertainment quarter northeast of Shinjuku Station, one of the largest in Japan, packed with restaurants, cinemas and theatres. Tokyu Kabukicho Tower opened here in 2023 as its new anchor.
Kabukicho occupies the blocks northeast of Shinjuku Station and is the most concentrated entertainment district in the country: restaurants stacked eight floors high, cinemas, live houses, game arcades and theatres, all lit to the point where the streets read as bright at midnight. The name is a historical accident. After the area burned in the war, the reconstruction plan for the district included a kabuki theatre as its centrepiece, and the neighbourhood was named for it in advance. The theatre was never built — the money ran out — but the name was already in use and stayed. The current anchor is Tokyu Kabukicho Tower, opened in 2023, a tall entertainment complex holding hotels, cinemas and live venues in one stack. The other landmark is easier to spot: a full-size Godzilla head mounted on the terrace of the Shinjuku Toho Building, positioned to loom over the main street, which roars on a schedule. For a visitor the district is best understood as somewhere to walk through and eat in, in the evening, on the main lit streets — the deeper side lanes run on a different economy and are not where a first-time visitor wants to end up.
Background & history
The district was residential before the war and was destroyed in the 1945 air raids. The postwar reconstruction plan, drawn up by local landowners, envisaged a cultural quarter anchored by a kabuki theatre; the name Kabukicho was formally adopted in 1948 in anticipation of it. The theatre project collapsed for lack of funding, and the district filled instead with cinemas, dance halls and bars through the 1950s, becoming a nightlife centre by the 1960s. Redevelopment in the 2010s and 2020s pushed the area toward mainstream entertainment, with the Godzilla head installed in 2015 and Tokyu Kabukicho Tower opening in 2023 on the site of a former cinema and bowling complex.
What to look for — in walking order
- The Godzilla head
- a full-size head on the terrace of the Shinjuku Toho Building, visible from the street below and roaring on a set schedule through the day
- Tokyu Kabukicho Tower
- the 2023 tower that reset the district's centre of gravity, stacking hotels, cinemas and live venues into a single building
- The main gate and Ichibangai
- the lit archway onto the district's main street, the most photographed frame in Kabukicho and the safest route through it
- Hanazono Shrine
- a shrine on the eastern edge, quiet and open at night, giving an abrupt sense of how the ground here was used before 1948
How to enjoy it
Come after dark — this is a district built for artificial light and it looks flat by day. Stay on the main lit streets and the Ichibangai arcade, where the restaurants and cinemas are, and treat it as a walk with dinner rather than a destination in itself. Ignore anyone who approaches you on the street offering to take you to a bar or club: touting is illegal here and the venues that use touts are the ones that produce the inflated-bill complaints. Prices posted at the door are the ones to trust. Shinjuku Golden Gai and Omoide Yokocho are both within a few minutes' walk if you want small bars with fixed prices instead, and Hanazono Shrine makes a good quiet endpoint.
How to actually get there
- Tokyo Stn → Shinjuku Stn (JR Chuo Line rapid, ~14 min).
- Shinjuku Stn East Exit → north across Yasukuni-dori → Kabukicho Ichibangai gate (walk, ~5 min).
- Main street → Godzilla head at the Shinjuku Toho Building → Tokyu Kabukicho Tower → Hanazono Shrine on the eastern edge.
- Tokyo Stn → Shinjuku Stn (JR), then walk from the East Exit
- From Tokyo Station take the JR Chuo Line rapid service to Shinjuku, about 14 minutes. Leave by the East Exit, cross Yasukuni-dori, and the lit gate onto Kabukicho Ichibangai is about 5 minutes' walk north. Shinjuku Station is enormous and badly signposted in places — follow signs for the East Exit rather than trying to navigate by compass.
- Shinjuku Stn → Tokyo Stn
- Walk back south to the East Exit and take the JR Chuo Line. Trains run until around midnight; after that the district stays open but the trains do not, so fix your last train time before settling in for dinner. Taxis queue on the main roads but are expensive at night.
Before you go
- Cash
- Restaurants and cinemas take cards and IC payment. Carry cash for smaller bars. Only enter venues with prices posted at the entrance, and be aware that some bars add a table charge (otoshi) that is legitimate and separate from the drinks — it should still be posted.
- Closing days
- Street touting is illegal in Kabukicho and persistent; the correct response is to keep walking without engaging. Avoid venues you are led to rather than ones you chose. Photography of people is not welcome around the bar entrances. The district runs all night, but trains stop around midnight.
- Another way
- Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line and the Toei Shinjuku and Oedo lines all reach Shinjuku; the Seibu-Shinjuku Station exit puts you at the northern edge of Kabukicho with a shorter walk than the JR East Exit.
- After you get off
- From Shinjuku Station East Exit, walk north across Yasukuni-dori. The lit archway over Kabukicho Ichibangai is directly ahead, roughly 5 minutes on foot.