[Travel] K-pop Scene in Tokyo, Japan

If you ever find yourself in Tokyo, and wondering where you can get your hands on some K-pop music albums (just because J-pop can be little too cutesy at times), you needn’t go to Seoul because you can get it right in Tokyo itself!

Tower Records in Shibuya is a pretty good place to start as it has almost all the recent K-pop album releases, and even some selected older titles from bigger names in the Korean music business. When I was there in October, Girl’s Day was doing their promotions for their Japanese album ‘Darling‘, hence the huge poster on the building!

iKON‘s debut album was just released around that time and they were due to hold fan-meetings across Japan in October. They had a special corner showcasing their album ‘Welcome Back‘ and there were many teens sampling their songs through the provided ‘music stations‘. Remember those huge headphones? Yep, they’re still in fashion in Japan!

On a side note, iKON will be releasing a Japanese album in January. For more information, visit the iKON official website!

There was also a glass case at the entrance of the K-pop floor in Tower Records (yes, they’ve dedicated a whole floor to K-pop!) and in it there were signatures and name cards of all 2PM members. From what I could gather, it seems that 2PM were the honorary staff members of Tower Records, and the cards were commemorative items of their appointment. Pretty cool huh?

The next thing is not K-pop related but if you do happen to visit Tower Records in Shibuya, don’t forget to stop by the Tower Records Cafe in the building for some coffee and light meals. The cutesy decor is a plus point too! Definitely a great place to chill and relax after looking at all those K-pop albums, don’t you think?

And to top off my visit to Tower Records, I managed to get my hands on JYJ‘s ‘Just Us‘ album which was the last album they released before members Kim Jaejoong and Park Yoochun entered the military. Although the album was released in July 2014, I still managed to find it on the shelves in October 2015. This is definitely one of my greatest finds in Tokyo!

I also managed to check out the Tower Records store in the Yodobashi Camera building during my visit to Akihabara, the geek town. If you happen to be in Akihabara and got bored while doing some anime-related shopping, you can always hop over to this place for some K-pop tunes!

I also saw the huge Big Bang concert tour dates billboard as I exited the Shibuya Station (hawk-eye mode on!) and couldn’t bear but feel excited at the sight. Finally some K-pop faces among the masses of Japanese advertisements! LOL

I had great fun in Tokyo, probably because I stayed at the Korean town located in the heart of the city. Check out my previous post about my travels in Shin-Okubo to find out more! Here’s to more travels in the future and K-pop sightings!