This is part 2 of my Japan stationery shopping tour, don’t forget to read part 1, part 3 and part 4.
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Tokyu Hands (Tokyo)
There are numerous locations in Tokyo – make sure you search both all of these names in Google as I saw all of them used: ‘Tokyo Hands’, ‘Tokyu Hands’ and just ‘Hands’
Shinjuku: 5 Chome-24-2 Sendagaya, Shibuya City, Tokyo 151-0051, Japan (floors 2 – 8 Takashimaya Times Square)
Shibuya: 12-18 Udagawacho, Shibuya City, Tokyo 150-0042, Japan
I visited the Shibuya and Shinjuku stores and the stock in both stores was very similar so I did not visit in any other stores. There is another Hands store near Itoya, Loft and Muji in the Ginza area of Tokyo. There is also a Hands store at Tokyo Central Station.
Tokyu Hands (Shinjuku, Tokyo)
Some of the brands stocked in this store:
- Pilot (Frixion and Acroball)
- Uni-ball one (these became one of my favorite pens that I purchased!)
- Zebra Sarasa
- Tombow
- Zebra Mildliner (including the brush pens and clickart pens)
- Uni Propus
- Uniball Signo gel pens
- Post it Note 3M
- Coleto
- Staedtler
- Pentel
- Surari
- Calme
- Bic
- Sakura Gelly Roll
- Zig Dot Markers
And many more brands – you’ll have to make a visit to see for yourself!
Most washi tape in Japan is sold individually (although you can mix and match to create your own washi tape sets). These ‘Lifeful’ masking tapes were some of the few washi sets I found.
Pastel seemed to be on trend..
I thought these paintable stamps were a cool idea. If you like bullet journaling or renumbering out-dated planners to save money, there were plenty of date stamps with different decorative borders and boxes. There were also months of the year, borders (e.g. vine designs), to do lists, habit trackers and banners.
If you’re tired of drawing up mini dates at a glance monthly calendars and habit trackers – they had stamps for that too!
These stamps ranged from 1,078 Yen – 1,760 Yen which is reasonable, but I wasn’t sure if I needed to buy a special pen to avoid smudging or if they were self-inking or needed an ink pad. I assume they only work with the color pens in the photo below as the packaging specifically says they’re for paintable stamps. It was more difficult than I was expecting to find someone who could speak English so I eventually gave up and didn’t buy them.
An assortment of planners but none of them were very pretty inside – the paper was thin in most of these – there’s show through of the printing on the back side of the page.
Tokyu Hands (Shibuya, Tokyo)
This store had 8 floors with a variety of things for your home but the main floor with stationery was level 5.
When I got to this floor and was greeted with this wall of washi tape I knew this shop was going to be good!
It did look like the display had been raided but things were still neatly organized by colors and patterns.
The pen section was my favorite part of the shop!
Tokyo Hands seemed to have the most pen packs so if you purchased a few individual pens from other stationery shops, this is a good place to go and buy the whole pack (usually for cheaper than buying the colors individually).
Read more: Japanese stationery haul
Most of the stationery shops in Japan had the same post it notes but Tokyo Hands had some cute animal sticky notes, a wider range of different colored sticky flags (good for marking recipe books, sorting receipts etc.) and even some checklist post it notes.
Never a shortage of pen refills – I saw more in the Japanese stationery shops than I’ve seen in any other country.
If you’ve ever wanted to try the Gelly Roll pens, Japan is the place to do it. These pens are hard to find in Australia and are expensive. However, they’re in most stationery stores in Japan and were only 88 Yen each!
There was a wide range of the paintable stamps at this store.
Which shop was better?
I liked both! Both had similar brands but a different store layout. Sometimes a brand or product line that I saw in one location, wasn’t stocked in another location (e.g. the daily log stamps), so if you see something you like, buy it!
Shibuya and Shinjuku are very close together, you can easily visit both in the one day. As well as some of the other Japanese stationery shops like Loft.
My rating of Tokyo Hands: 5/5 (definitely add this shop to your list!)
Continue reading the rest of this series
This was part 2 of my Japan stationery shopping tour, don’t forget to read part 1, part 3 and part 4.
See what I bought from each of these stores in my Japanese stationery haul.
More stationery shopping
- Favorite Switzerland stationery shops for planner addicts
- 5 Planner Supplies I Don’t Use (And Why)
- Favorite stationery shops in Paris
Planning tips
- ARC by Staples versus MAMBI – Which discbound system is better?
- Planner companies that will let you download, print and try their planner layout for free
- How to get started digital planning: the tools & resources you need
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Kimberly says
I’m pretty sure it’s Tokyu Hands, not “Tokyo”. But you’re right — it’s an amazing store. I traveled to Japan in 1998 and Tokyu Hands was my favorite store by a mile.