The Doraemon Shop

14 Nov 2005 Category: Features, Japan, Products, Recommended, Top Page 10

The Doraemon Shop

The Doraemon Shop at night

The Doraemon Shop in ShimoKitaZawa is one of those places, designers would die for to visit if they only knew it existed!
If you ever tried to find something in ShimoKita, you know how hard it is to find your way through this labyrinth of tiny back streets, which probably creates the strongest attributes of this area: adventure, discovery and surprise. In one of those windy roads, slightly far from ShimoKita West Exit one can find this funky little shop all stuffed with Japanese dolls, characters, old style Japanese sweets, stickers, batches…. hundrets of boxes just waiting to be opened and rummaged out. This is where the Doraemon Uncle lives! He opens his little magic shop every night: from 6PM until 3AM!

written by Uleshka


Doraemon and many of his friends on the shelves

Mister Higashikujyo in the back of his shop

“Warugaki-Salon” for Dagashi - a funny name for a shop and cheap candy - is what’s written on the door. More than 70 years ago Mister Adou Higashikujyo’s father opened this tiny shop. Our Doraemon Uncle is the new owner… well maybe new is not really the right word… he actually seems, like he was born to live in this shop (and has lived there all his life) selling his fathers toy collection, slightly extended with sweets. Besides spending time in his shop, he goes out during the day making money with his not-so-secret passion: horse racing.


one of many collector cards: Ultraman

old style Japanese sweets

I always go to this shop to buy sweets and toys before I travel since everybody loves to get presents from the Doraemon Uncle! I made no exception before visiting Stefan Sagmeister for an interview in New York. Mister Adou Higashikujyo wrote me a lovely Shikishi (those honorable Japanese plates they keep in restaurants with signatures of famous guests) for Stefan. You can view that little movie here.


writing a shikishi for Stefan Sagmeister

packing Stefan’s presents

This time, I came with a different mission, though. German illustrator Syl aka meLove send me one of her books as a present for the Doraemon Uncle. She fell in love with him when she visited Tokyo last time (…and I showed her around ;-)

Being at Higashikujyo’s shop already, I decided to stay a little longer this time and have a chat…


the Doraemon Uncle with Syl’s book snuff

happy sweets waiting for customers

The Doraemon Uncle is a really friendly crazy guy, who told me everything about his different jobs he all seems to handle from talking to people at his shop or through his blog (Whow! I was quite surprised he has his own constantly updated blog at his age…..)

He is: a shop owner and a graphic designer and a poster designer and he writes TV programs and he is a photographer and a life advisor and he has a waterproof method of how to win every possible horse race (at least he claims, that he never lost a game).


Doraemon Shop’s office - notice the horse on the screen?

horse characters Adou Higashikujyo designed

I am not so sure about all the things he told me, to be honest. That might be due to my lack of a couple of Japanese words ;-) Besides, I’m not sure if all the things he says are meant to be true in the first place. For a start, he calls his shop Waru Gaki Salon, which means something like: evil people’s salon, but claims that there hasn’t been a single bad person in his shop - ever!


beautiful Ume-Jam packaging

cute soap bubbles

He did design those horse characters, I believe (he just loves everything about horses, I guess) - just not sure what for…

He also wrote the TV story for Kinpachi Sensei - a famous Japanese TV school drama.

When I was in the shop, there were 2 students from Kyoto University, both studying photography. When he heard that they were into photography he immediately started dragging some old images out.


toy robot in front of the government building in Shinjuku, Tokyo

toy plane flying over Tokyo

This photographer - he says - came to him for advice. He was mainly into nudes at that time “but then I told him to stop that stuff and do toys instead! I think this works much better! Can’t remember his name, but I know he is very famous with that now!” - and he sounds quite convincing saying that!


Kyoto University students photographing the photos

box of toys

The girls listened carefully, photographed the other guy’s photos and bought a tin toy train right away. Obviously a good salesman, I thought!

It is true that every time I go to see him, there is somebody in the shop listening to his advice. He usually talks about “Japan coming to an end” and “people forgetting the good things in life” - like the good old toys and rare sweets he still sells.


Doraemon Uncle and his boxes

endless treasure boxes

old fashioned cards

stencils for doll dressing

Then he would open a few boxes and show the stuff his father used to collect: toys and postcards from before the war or special stuff made in Japan for the US which is hard to find nowadays.


veeeery old postcard

old style cardboard playing cards

new fashion brooch: Texas style

metal batches Japan style

Everybody nods, buys some old sweets and walks off with a satisfied grin. Must be his talent to make everyone happy!

And about the horse racing….. well! He showed me this stack of receipts for money transfers (if I got it right…) from all sorts of people who asked him to bet for them (since he always wins). There are articles about his winning methods and a constantly updated A4 sheet on his door predicting what horse is most likely to win next. I don’t know how he does it but it is certainly entertaining to listen to him.


picture in an article that’s been written about him - obviously quite a while ago - in a horse racing magazine

he claims, that these are bank transfers from people who wanted him to bet for them in horses

The Doraemon Uncle is a great guy and he will certainly tell you everything about Japanese characters, when which character was designed first and why they changed it in what way (for example, why Doraemon turned blue and lost his ears!).


Doraemon Karaoke tape recorder

Doraemons

This shop is a designer’s dream: hundrets of boxes with toys and joy from decades - he would open just for you (and tell you all the matching information, if you like).

Do you know all these friendly fellows?


enjoying old boxes

lots of different famous characters

Or have you ever seen a black QP? Mr. Higashikujyo told me, he often had so many dolls or toys of one kind, he would sometimes arrange them and take photos (but always found it a little “Kimochi-Warui”, rather disturbing to see whole armies of QP or Doraemon.


forgotten QPs in different styles

QP army

Well, we just sat for hours and looked through all kind of boxes. I cannot say, how much I enjoy ShimoKitaZawa because of unique shops like these (Oh! and you better be quick to go there: they are planning a big highway that is supposed to go straight through ShimoKita and totally destroy all the charm and shops they have. That is Japan for you, too…..)


old pro-wressling fan cards

Astro Boy milk bottle tops

There are plenty more images on our Flickr gallery if you like, or just visit the Doraemon Shop here:

from Shibuya - take the Inokashira Line to Shimokitazawa. Walk along the tracks in driving direction until you reach the West Exit, take the right stairs there and walk down the long road that crosses the railroad tracks to your right. Keep walking until you reach a crossing with a liquor store to your left, a vegetable shop on the corner and an arch saying “Shimokitazawa”. Walk right in that arched road and you’ll already see the big light bulb of the Doraemon Shop glowing.


good bye to Mr. Higashikujyo

Do you know these?

Thanks to Mr. Adou Higashikujyo for another precious day in Japan.

click to view on my google map

86 Comments

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  3. [...] Rogers Blog - 悪童処 - Warugakisaron - The Doraemon ShopRogers BlogFamilie, Freunde, Sachen…2005-12-15悪童処 - Warugakisaron - The Doraemon Shop Von roger @ 23:08 [ Things Japanese ] PingMag: the Doraemon Shop The Doraemon Shop (悪童処) in ShimoKitaZawa is one of those places, designers would die for to visit if they only knew it existed!   [...]

    Posted by: Rogers Blog - 悪童処 - Warugakisaron - The Doraemon Shop on December 16th, 2005 at 7:31 am

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