Kiddy Land
Harajuku’s Temple of Kawaii
Kiddy Land is a shop selling kawaii toys and trinkets located in Omotesando, in Harajuku in Tokyo. The 5 storey-building is filled with miscellaneous goods and products from Japan’s most popular licenses, as well as famous characters such as Hello Kitty, Kirby, Snoopy and characters from Studio Ghibli movies.
A legendary address on the Omotesando avenue in Harajuku, Kiddy Land is true to its reputation of a shopping temple. There is something for children of all ages, as the shop is brimming with plethora of cute toys and plushies.
At the classical children toys aisle, you’ll find among other things Tomica’s small cars 🚙, scale models of Japanese trains 🚅, as well as Nanoblock bricks (a construction game similar to Lego’s but using smaller bricks, also sold in Europe). A whole aisle is dedicated to Synapusyu, a very popular Japanese TV program for toddlers.
Grown-ups are spoiled with various accessories derived from pop culture (video games, cinema, manga). For example, they can treat themselves with:
- Clothes (socks, tee-shirts, sweat-shirts, etc.);
- Items for decoration or for a daily use;
- Stationery; and also,
- Snacks and sweets.
Kiddy Land naturally lines up countless kawaii soft toys of all sizes and colors. There are even a few gashapon machines along the aisles.
Shopping for favorite and popular characters
The goods are lined up in corner shops, each displaying an official license or dedicated to a popular character. Thus, throughout the shop’s floors, you’ll find international and Japanese big names:
- Sanrio and its crowd of cute characters, starting by the iconic Hello Kitty and friends: My Melody, Kuromi, Dear Daniel, Cinnamoroll, Pompompurin, Kiki and Lala (Little Twin Stars)...;
- Miffy, the sweet little bunny;
- Rilakkuma, the relaxed bear;
- Snoopy, with the whole basement floor dedicated to Peanuts’ dog;
- Pokémon;
- Doraemon, the robot-cat;
- Studio Ghibli characters;
- Nintendo, with Kirby and Mario;
- Disney with Mickey, Minnie and Star Wars and Marvel superheroes;
- Minions;
- Swedish video game Minecraft;
- Monchhichi, the plush monkey; and,
- The new Chiikawa Land brand, and offshoot of the manga Chiikawa (Nanka Chiisakute Kawaii Yatsu in Japanese), published since 2020.
As Kiddy Land makes it difficult not to buy anything, we recommend visiting the shop at the end of your day, so you can directly go back to your accommodation with your kawaii haul. Note that there is a 2nd Kiddy Land shop near Umeda Station (Hankyu Line) in Osaka.